Can I take time off if my child’s school is closed for coronavirus? Your sick leave law questions answered

Know your rights.

Mar 12, 2020

By Elizabeth C. Tippett / The Conversation

March 12, 2020

Editor’s note: Lawmakers are debating a coronavirus relief package that could include emergency paid leave benefits for all workers affected by the pandemic. Meanwhile, the spread of COVID-19 is leaving workers in the United States scrambling to figure out what happens to their job – and their pay – if it prevents them from reporting to work. The answer will depend on your employer’s policy, the laws of your state and the reason you will be away. Elizabeth Tippett, who has spent over a dozen years as a workplace lawyer and scholar, offers a primer.

1. Can I take time off if I get sick with coronavirus?

The first thing to do is figure out whether your company has a sick leave policy.

Sick leave allows you to be paid while you are away from work due to illness. Sometimes companies have a “paid time off” policy instead of a sick leave policy, in which vacation is combined with sick leave into a bank of time that can be used for either purpose.

Many sick leave policies are structured to accrue sick leave over time – for example, one hour of sick time for every 30 hours worked. These hours might roll over from year to year and be capped once you reach a maximum amount. Other times, companies have a lump sum policy, where they award you a fixed amount of sick leave that you can use over the course of the year.

However, not every company has a sick policy – the Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that roughly a quarter of workers have no access to paid sick leave. Still, it’s worth checking whether your workplace is required to offer sick leave under state or local law. Around 10 states, and many additional municipalities, mandate paid sick leave policies.

There is no federal law requiring sick leave, though a bill to do that was recently reintroduced in Congress.

2. Can I take time off to care for a family member with coronavirus?

Here, too, you’ll want to check your company’s sick leave policy.

Many policies allow workers to use sick time to care for family members that are ill. State sick leave laws frequently require that employers permit workers to use accrued sick leave for caring for family members.

3. Can I take time off if my child’s school is closed?

A few states and municipalities – including Michigan, New Jersey, San Diego and Chicago – anticipated a problem like school closures due to a public health crisis and specifically said sick leave can be used in the event of such emergencies.

In those states and cities, your employer’s policy should conform to that language.

Elsewhere, employers tend to design their sick leave policies around more routine absences and may not include school closures in their policies.

4. What if I run out of sick time?

State and municipal sick leave laws generally require only that employers provide a very modest amount of sick time – typically between one and two weeks per year. And if you just started a new job in recent months, you may not have accrued much sick time.

If you have accrued vacation time, you may be able to use that once your sick leave runs out. Alternatively, sometimes companies officially – or unofficially – let workers take additional time off on an unpaid basis. If you’ve used up your sick leave, you could also try asking if you can have a “negative” sick leave balance, in which you are essentially borrowing from future sick pay accruals, allowing you to continue to receive pay for a limited period of time.

If you or a family member become seriously ill, you might be eligible for up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave under the federal Family and Medical Leave Act. This leave is available only for workers at companies with more than 50 employees and who have worked there for 12 months or longer. The regulations for the Family and Medical Leave Act state that the “flu” is generally not considered a serious enough condition to qualify for leave, unless “inpatient hospital care is required or unless complications develop.”

Some states – like California and New York – also have family and medical leave laws that cover a broader range of employees and may provide partial pay. However, these generally require that the employee or the ill family member develop a serious health condition, beyond your average flu symptoms.

5. Can I stay home if I’m worried about catching COVID-19 from co-workers?

Tech companies with hubs in the Seattle area have responded to a coronavirus outbreak in that state by advising or allowing employees to work remotely.

Some state and municipal sick leave laws authorize employees to use sick leave in the event of “closure” of an employee’s place of business in a public health emergency.

Otherwise, your best option is to check whether the company has a telecommuting policy that allows remote work. Even so, such policies generally give the company discretion whether remote work is compatible with your job and the needs of the company.

Failing that, you could try using up any vacation time you’ve accrued. But with tourist hotspots,sporting events and festivals shutting down, it may not be much of a holiday.

_This is an updated version of an article originally published on March 9, 2020.

Elizabeth C. Tippett is an Associate Professor, School of Law, University of Oregon

This article originally appeared on the Conversation. You can read it here.

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Photo credit: Canva – Researchers found what's preventing us from living longer.

Health, Research

New Russian research suggests that the human lifespan could be up to 156 years

Humans can live much longer if certain barriers are addressed.

Erik Barnes

7/31/2026

According to the Guinness Book of World Records, the oldest person lived to the ripe age of 122 years old. Such a lifespan is an incredible feat, but what if the average person could beat that record by 34 years? Recent research done in Russia has led scientists to believe that the average human lifespan could be up to 156 years.

The researchers at Skoltech Biomed Technologies Center developed a mathematical model that allowed them to “switch on” a variety of aging mechanisms. This allowed them to calculate a human’s lifespan where mortality risk never increased with age. After experimenting with different scenarios and conditions, they found the biggest barriers to longevity were caused by non-renewable tissues and somatic mutations.

What are these barriers against longer life?

Somatic mutations are DNA changes within a cell. They accumulate over time during a human’s life and cannot be reversed with any existing therapy. These DNA errors that pile up in our cells contribute to the aging process.

Many human organs like the liver and skin continually replace cells and regrow damaged portions of themselves. However, there are two organs that can’t do this: the brain and the heart. Brain tissue (neurons) and heart tissue (cardiomyocytes) cannot regenerate. This proves to be the most prominent biological limit that shortens our lifespans. This explains why issues like dementia and heart disease are prominent causes of death and morbidity later in life. Since those organs’ tissues don’t replace damaged cells, they’re prone to irrevocably decline over time.

“The key finding of the study is the discovery of substantial differences between tissue types. Neurons and cardiomyocytes, which lack the ability to divide, turned out to be the main limiting factors: when all other causes of aging are eliminated, somatic mutations alone reduce the theoretical median lifespan from 1,759 years (for a hypothetical non-aging human organism) to 156 years,” said Evgeny Efimov, a research intern at the Skoltech Biomed Technologies Center, researcher at AIRI, and one of the key authors of the study.

This suggests that somatic mutations and DNA damage is what ultimately prevents humans from living indefinitely, even if our brains and hearts regenerated cells like other organs.

So what’s next?

Now knowing these biological limitations, the researchers hope to study other areas of aging impacting the human lifespan that could plausibly be reversed. This includes mitochondrial dysfunction, telomere shortening, epigenetic drift, and loss of proteostasis.

The hope is to have a clearer priority list of issues for future therapies to tackle. This is not just to possibly extend life, but to improve lives in general. By developing a fully comprehensive theory of aging, Skoltech hopes to pinpoint which aspects of aging are within our scope to address. After all, thoroughly studying each puzzle piece that makes up human life gives us a better understanding of the whole.

Of course, other impactful factors in a person’s lifespan can be addressed today. As most know, things like diet, sleep, and exercise are among them. A person’s living environment can also negatively impact their lifespan if it doesn’t have clean air, access to clean water, and so on.

For now, the best method for living long is to follow instructions from your physician. Whether you make it to 156 years or not, living well is best for whatever time you’re given.

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Photo credit: PeopleImages/iStock via Getty Images – What kids are doing on tablets seems to matter more than how long they use them.

Health, Well-being

Screen time guidelines for kids and adolescents have shifted as research paints a more nuanced picture

Quality matters more than the clock.

Good Partner

7/20/2026

Gabriel E. Hales

Concerns surrounding young people’s screen time are widespread.

Australia became the first country to ban social media for users under 16 in December 2025, and Denmark, France and the U.K. have since announced similar restrictions to begin this year.

In the U.S., as of mid-2026, more than 30 states have passed laws banning or restricting cellphones in K–12 classrooms; in 2023, the U.S. surgeon general issued a formal advisory on social media and children’s and adolescents’ mental health; and bestselling books tell parents that smartphones are “rewiring” their children’s brains.

These concerns and policies are part of a quickly changing national and international conversation around how young people spend time on screens and its relationship to their overall health and development. My reading of the mounting research on this issue across disciplines is that the popular narrative blaming screens and smartphones for an adolescent mental health crisis runs well ahead of the current evidence.

I study adolescent digital media use and its influence on social, emotional and academic outcomes. A growing body of research suggests that one-size-fits-all solutions are not the answer and that managing appropriate use of digital media needs to take into account a child’s developmental milestones, how parents and adults around them use media, and the ways kids use it to connect and learn with friends and family.

Screen time: From monolith to multifaceted

Wide adoption of digital media and the internet broadened the range of experiences young people could have online. At the same time, the digital age introduced newfound uncertainties. As with the advent of radio, comic books and arcades, adults worried about how children might interact with or be affected by internet use.

In response, the American Academy of Pediatrics first recommended in 1999 that parents and caregivers keep children under 2 away from screens. In the decades since, professional guidance largely treated children’s media use as a behavior to be mitigated.

Policies introduced by the academy in 2013 and 2016 continued to advise that school-age kids and adolescents – those ages 5 to 18 – be restricted to no more than two hours of “entertainment” screen time a day. The goal was to curb risks associated with heavy media use, among them disrupted sleep, online safety, cyberbullying and physical inactivity.

Originally created for young people’s engagement with stationary media that tend to be confined to one room or context – for example, watching television – these hourly limits became outdated with the integration of smartphones and other digital devices into everyday life. Compared with watching television, online media was far more difficult to track and define, and more nuanced in its use.

Developmentally beneficial activities such as education, socializing and leisure have come to rely on the internet to extend and maintain face-to-face connections. Remote schooling and social distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic only accelerated this digitization of daily life.

In my view, adopting strict time limits and restrictions could pose risks to children’s well-being, autonomy and development, for example, by harming adolescent self-esteem.

The latest guidelines

In January 2026, the American Academy of Pediatrics retired its decade-old framework that had largely organized its advice around hourly screen limits. The new policy statement on children, adolescents and digital media diverges from this blanket approach. Instead, it suggests parents consider the larger picture in which this media use exists rather than lumping all screen use together.

Similar to the World Health Organization’s 2019 guidance for children under 5, the American Academy of Pediatrics still advises that parents avoid screen media for children younger than 18 months. This recommendation is largely because extended use by children by themselves can be problematic for many young children, crowding out important developmental milestones.

Both the World Health Organization and the American Academy of Pediatrics also recommend that when children under 24 months use screens, they should be limited to content and devices that encourage children and caregivers to interact. For ages 2 to 5, screen time – including TV and interactive apps on devices – may be extended to more solo use, provided it’s high-quality digital media designed around learning goals in mathematics and reading. But recreational use should be limited to roughly an hour per day.

For school-age children and teens, the newest guidance has begun to step away from fixed screen time limits and asks families to weigh online activity in the context of everyday life.

Doing so recognizes that a child’s digital experiences are shaped by diverse factors rather than the hours spent online. Current guidelines call on caregivers to distinguish among types of media, from television and social media to video games and interacting with artificial intelligence chatbots. They also call for taking into account a child’s individual characteristics, such as their interests and personality, family members’ own use of screens, and the type of content children are spending time on.

Rethinking screen time

Moving beyond strict screen time limits includes questioning the kind of digital activities kids and adolescents participate in. Do the activities encourage time spent interacting with others online, which can help young people develop important skills and competencies?

Scrolling an algorithm-based, auto-playing video feed likely does not equate to the same opportunities as video-chatting with friends, creating digital art or working with teammates in a multiplayer game. Research suggests these different uses relate to development in different ways and can help kids develop varying skill sets pertaining to everyday life and schooling.

Indeed, a large review of current research found that young people who take part in a range of digital activities, such as browsing the web, online gaming or interacting on social media, show positive associations with social connection, identity exploration, civic participation and learning.

Parental involvement in young children’s screen time has developmental benefits. Cultura Creative/Tetra images via Getty Images

Using these guidelines at home

The current evidence suggests parents and caregivers are best positioned to be digital instructors. Cutting children off altogether can carry its own risks for social and emotional development. Caregiver mediation of children’s screen time can produce widely different outcomes and effects, depending on whether the guidance is supportive or controlling.

Considering your own digital media use is the first step: Are family members engaging in problematic or heavy media use that children in the household might emulate? What applications and uses are most common in the family, and what positive or negative effects might they have, depending on the child’s age? How could these digital activities be safely integrated with other everyday experiences to increase their benefit for children? Conversely, what online time might be better spent on face-to-face experiences?

The American Academy of Pediatrics’ Family Media Plan tool turns these ideas into concrete questions. For example, it recommends working out what each child needs from digital technology, what activities screens might be crowding out, and where their family or household can build in screen-free time. The recommendation is to talk with each child about why they are drawn to particular apps or online activities, what they encounter while browsing, and what might be lost when kids bring phones to gatherings such as mealtimes.

The debate over young people’s screen time is not going away. But the most up-to-date guidelines, and the growing body of research behind them, make a strong case for a more holistic approach. The guidelines treat digital media as a complex, diverse and evolving environment that children need to learn to navigate in the digital age. The risks and rewards depend, as with any developmental setting, on the child, the content and what online time might be crowding out.

This article originally appeared on The Conversation. You can read it here.

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Photo credit: Canva – A boy rides an e-scooter, left, while a girl is examined in an emergency room.

Care, Health

ER doctor and mom sets the record straight for parents of kids with e-bikes and e-scooters

At least put on a helmet. And shoes.

Erik Barnes

7/20/2026

An emergency room doctor and fellow mom has been noticing a troubling trend: Many parents are giving their kids something more powerful than bicycles to get around the neighborhood. As a result, she’s seeing more children come into the ER with injuries sustained in e-bike and e-scooter crashes. She recently went online with a plea to parents and young riders.

Dr. Meghan Elizabeth Beach Martin, known online as Dr. Beachgem, posted a video in her scrubs discussing her concerns after seeing so many children come into the hospital with e-bike injuries during the summer months. She’s worried that too many kids and parents don’t understand the proper safety precautions. As a mother herself, she even questions why children are allowed to ride these devices at all.

In the video, the doctor explains that some e-bikes can reach speeds of up to 28 mph. She says that if an e-bike goes any faster than that, it’s technically classified as a motorcycle. At those speeds, she regularly sees children with traumatic injuries and broken bones after hitting bumps, cracks in the road, or other vehicles. Many of them aren’t wearing helmets or protective pads, and some are even riding barefoot, making their injuries even more severe. Martin’s video has gained traction on Reddit and elsewhere online.

E-bikes and e-scooters, examined

Martin isn’t the only professional seeing a growing problem. The American College of Surgeons reports that there are more than 20,000 e-bike-related injuries each year. Meanwhile, a University of California, San Francisco study found that e-bike injuries doubled annually from 2017 to 2022. The same study found that e-scooter injuries increased by 45% each year during the same period.

Before riding an e-bike, it’s important to follow proper safety procedures. Make sure you and your child understand your area’s laws regarding e-bikes, including any minimum age requirements. Always wear a helmet and other protective gear when riding. Consider choosing an e-bike with safety features such as motor-interrupt brake levers and disc brakes. These are just a few of the many safety tips experts recommend.

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission has similar safety tips for e-scooter riders. Wearing a helmet is one of its top recommendations, along with taking other basic precautions. The agency also recommends checking the brakes before riding and slowing down for bumps, cracks, and other road hazards.

The vast majority of e-scooters and e-bikes are designed for only one rider, so avoid doubling up. Although laws vary by state and locality, wearing more protective gear is always the safer choice. Riders should also review local e-bike and e-scooter laws to make sure they are operating the vehicles safely and legally.

A little research goes a long way toward making sure you and your children can ride safely. It’s also important for parents to understand that many e-bikes and e-scooters can travel at speeds that make them very different from a traditional bicycle. The last thing you want is for you or your child to become another emergency room statistic.

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