It’s known that October brings flu season along with it that peaks in February. Influenza every year infects almost 5% and 20% of Americans, and several hundreds of them are even hospitalized. Infected people are advised to stay at home and going out to work can infect their colleagues, which officials said is a big problem.

Researchers during a study found that staying at home during flu usually leads to less work-time loss in the end. They analyzed the cost of ‘presenteeism’ as $150 billion.

A new report by the food-industry consultancy Alchemy and a survey conducted by the Center for Research and Public Policy showed that almost 51% of food workers got to work ‘always’ or ‘frequently’ when they are sick, which is not at all good for food safety.

The researchers found that the two major reasons for going to work despite being sick were not wanting their co-workers down and not wishing to miss out on pay. This reply was given by 45% of the respondents.

Another 34% of the respondents said they came because they thought they were not contagious. A study conducted last year found that 42% of workers said that they worked while sick because they were afraid that there will be big pile of work pending to do.

After surveying almost 78 food-industry leaders, it was found that there was a huge gap between management and workers.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) study found that food workers are less likely to work while sick if there are policies that require workers to tell their manager about their illness.