As we lose more Americans to coronavirus every day, it’s time for federal bereavement leave | Opinion

Over 175,000 Americans have died as a result of the coronavirus, and every day that number continues to increase.

It is estimated that every death from the virus will leave nine family members to mourn, according to new research by Pennsylvania State University. All of these grievers deserve paid time off from their job to grieve their loss. Bereavement leave is not federally mandated in the United States, but it should be.

At some point, all of us will experience grief. For me, it started 10 summers ago, when my mother told me that she had ALS on the weekend I graduated from law school. I moved back into my parents’ house and helped my dad care for her until she died the following summer. Less than a year and a half later, my father was diagnosed with cancer. He completed chemotherapy successfully, but the cancer came back and he passed away four years after my mother, on her birthday.

The decision of whether an employee gets paid time off to grieve is at the discretion of an employer. The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) “does not require payment for time not worked, including attending a funeral.”

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The Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) provides employees 12 workweeks of unpaid leave to care for an immediate family member who has a serious health condition, but not to mourn them. Similarly, a newly passed coronavirus law provides some workers with paid time off if they are too ill to work or need to care for loved ones, but does not offer time to care for themselves after the death of a family member.

Despite the lack of initiative by the federal government, some states and companies have begun to offer more generous bereavement leave. Oregon grants up to two weeks paid bereavement leave per employee. In California, full-time state employees are granted up to three days of paid bereavement leave for the death of an immediate family member.

In 2017, Facebook established up to 20 days paid bereavement leave allowance for the death of an immediate family member not long after Sheryl Sandberg’s husband suddenly passed away. Some other companies have followed its lead, such as Microsoft, Survey Monkey, and Mastercard. While these few states and companies have acted in the best interests of their employees, they unfortunately remain the exception, not the rule.

“Bereavement leave cannot take away grief. But paid time away from work can enable individuals to begin to sort through the administrative tasks and emotional toll without having to also worry about their job security.”

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 60% of full-time workers took paid funeral leave in the private sector in 2012. This number does not account for public sector and freelance workers, nor undocumented immigrants. And of the employees who are lucky enough to benefit from bereavement leave, it is generally only one to four days, according to a survey by the Society for Human Resource Management.

After each of my parents died, there was a body to identify in the morgue, ashes to pick up, a Mass and service to plan, flowers to order, a eulogy to write, clothes and jewelry to sort through, a house to clean out and put on the market, relatives and colleagues to notify, and a will to review, among many other responsibilities. The administrative tasks alone could have easily filled four days.

On top of a long to-do list, my mental health was the worst it ever has been. I experienced intense sadness, heightened anxiety, and frequent nightmares, which led to insufficient sleep. The mental health issues I faced are not uncommon after a loss.

The unexpected death of a loved one may be a traumatic experience and is associated with the development of psychiatric disorders. Grief tends to lessen with time, but mourners can also suffer from complicated grief, defined by the Mayo Clinic as painful emotions that “are so long-lasting and severe that you have trouble recovering from the loss and resuming your own life.”

» READ MORE: How to talk to your child about grief during the coronavirus pandemic

Because of the conditions surrounding coronavirus deaths, bereaved family members are particularly vulnerable to psychological distress. Many individuals with extreme cases of the coronavirus will die, or have died, in an ICU. According to one study, 52% of relatives experienced complicated grief and over 43% of relatives presented symptoms of PTSD six months after the loss of an adult family member in the ICU.

Due to new hospital restrictions, family members may not be able to say goodbye to a loved one who passed away during the pandemic in person. One study found that the inability to say goodbye to a loved one was a variable associated with both complicated grief and PTSD. Whether the relative was present and whether the patient was intubated at the time of death were additional variables — two common conditions of family members who have lost someone to the coronavirus.

Bereavement leave cannot take away grief. But paid time away from work can enable individuals to begin to sort through the administrative tasks and emotional toll without also having to worry about their job security.

Losing a loved one is hard. Many years after my parents’ death, I still grieve them.

We are currently facing an economic recession and job unemployment is at a high, but we are also a grieving nation. The government must legislate paid bereavement leave so that employees are guaranteed the time they deserve to begin to mourn.

Katie C. Reilly is a writer and attorney. Her writing primarily focuses on grief, women’s health and social justice issues.