Sick time should be separate from vacation time for that reason. Otherwise, people have an incentive to come into work while sick so that they can use their paid time off for holidays and vacation when they aren’t ill.

On the other hand, I guess there are some people who when given a separate bank of sick time feel it’s ok to use it as a 2nd pool of PTO. My workplace gives a separate set of sick time though and it’s always seemed a better way of handling things to me.

For office workers, the whole remote experiment of the last year seems to be the equilibrium. You can still "come to work" even if you feel like death, you're just allowed to do it from home until you're not contagious.

That's quite a privileged perspective. Many low wage, non-union workers don't have that flexibility.

> People can do that, stay home when sick. Then they just have fewer vacation days.

I experienced that too, when I lived in the US.

In Denmark I have separate sick leave. Staying home sick doesn't count as PTO. For more than a few days I'll need a note from the doctor.

I think it's around 6 months before sick leave is grounds for termination.

In any case, in the US people don't take sick days unless it's really bad. Obviously, this must cause more infections.