In 2020, the FFCRA, also known as Families First Coronavirus Act was created and had two provisions – the Emergency Paid Sick Leave (EPSL) and the Emergency Family and Medical Leave (EFML) Expansion Act. Both of these provisions required employers to provide their employees with paid sick leave up to 80 hours to those employees who needed to take off to quarantine for numerous reasons whether that be for showing symptoms of COVID-19, COVID-19 exposure, taking care of a sick family member, etc.

FFCRA leave is no longer a requirement for employers to provide to employees as of the end of 2020, however some employers are now choosing to provide their employees with voluntary FFCRA leave. For employees with voluntary FFCRA leave, they will not be able to receive additional paid time off under EPSL or EFML if they already utilized it in 2020 but can continue to use it in 2021 if they should need to. If their paid time off under FFCRA was already used in 2020, they can still take time off but it will no longer be reimbursed.

As of now, the Biden administration is currently looking into possibly extending the required FFCRA leave which would again require employers to provide employees with paid sick leave related to COVID-19.

Source: SHRM