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Covid, contagion is an accident at work even for no vax nurses

Nurses and health workers who refuse to be vaccinated are also entitled to protection for accidents at work but then they become infected with the coronavirus in the workplace. It is the answer of theInail who sent a letter to the regional directorate of Liguria on the case of nurses who refused to undergo the vaccine and then became infected.

The case opened after the case of the five health workers who had not vaccinated themselves and subsequently tested positive for Coronavirus in Treviso and that of the 15 nurses of theSan Martino hospital in Genoa in the same situation.

“Under the insurance profile”, it is written in the letter, “the culpable behavior of the worker, which also includes the violation of the obligation to use personal protective equipment, it does not in itself imply the exclusion of the protection provided by the insurance managed by Inail“. For the workers there would therefore be economic allowance, health care paid by the State and failure to count sick days in the period concerned.

Insurance protection remains, but the employer may not be held responsible. The worker who does not get vaccinated may therefore not be entitled to claim compensation from the employer if he or she refused the vaccine and became infected. Thus it is written in the document: “The culpable behavior of the worker can reduce or exclude the employer’s liability, but does not involve the exclusion of the insurance protection provided by the Institute in the event of an accident”.

This is the logic followed: if it is considered an accident at work when the nurse does not use a mandatory protective device, it is all the more so in the case of vaccine which is not mandatory. “Refusal to be vaccinated cannot be configured as taking an elective risk, as the risk of contagion is certainly not wanted by the worker … It is not relevant, in the state of current legislation on the protection of health and safety in places of work, a specific obligation to adhere to vaccination by the worker “.

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