3212.18.
(a) This section applies to all of the following:(1) Active firefighting members, whether volunteers, partly paid, or fully paid, of all of the following fire departments:
(A) A fire department of a city, county, city and county, district, or other public or municipal corporation or political subdivision.
(B) A fire department of the University of California and the California State University.
(C) The Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.
(D) A county forestry or firefighting
department or unit.
(2) Peace officers, as defined in Section 830 of the Penal Code.
(3) Health care employees who provide direct patient care in an acute care hospital, as defined in subdivision (a) or (b) of Section 1250 of the Health and Safety Code.
(4) (A) Fire and rescue services coordinators who work for the Office of Emergency Services.
(B) For purposes of this paragraph, “fire and rescue services coordinators” means coordinators who are in any of the following job classifications: coordinator, senior coordinator, or chief coordinator.
(b) In the case of a person described in subdivision (a), the term “injury,” as used in this division, includes direction to
enter into quarantine by a licensed health care professional, a public health officer or agency, or the employer as a result of, or exposure to or contraction of, a communicable disease, including coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), that occurs on or after January 1, 2020, and that is the subject of a state or local declaration of a state of emergency that is issued on or after January 1, 2020. For purposes of this section, the injury may occur prior to the declaration of a state of emergency.
(c) For an injury described in subdivision (b), the compensation shall include
includes all of the following:
(1) Full hospital, surgical, medical treatment, disability indemnity, and death benefits, as provided by this division.
(2) (A) Reasonable costs of reimbursement to the employee for all of the following:
(i) Emergency equipment or personal protective equipment (PPE) that provides, or is ancillary to other emergency equipment or PPE that provides, protection from the injury for the person.
(ii) Emergency equipment or PPE that provides, or is ancillary to other emergency equipment or PPE that provides, protection for other persons from transmission of the injury by the person.
(iii) Reasonable medical
expenses relating to protection from or treatment of the injury and, in addition, reasonable living expenses, other than temporary housing costs, that exceeded the living expenses usually incurred by the person and that were incurred as a direct result of the injury.
(B) An employee is not required to have been directed to enter quarantine in order to be eligible for reimbursement of the expenses described in clause (i) or (ii) of subparagraph (A).
(3) (A) Temporary housing costs, under the circumstances described in subparagraph (B), incurred by an employee in the scope of performing duties relating to the declaration of a state of emergency, as described in subdivision (b), or for the purpose of protecting others from being exposed to or contracting the communicable disease.
(B) An employee
shall be reimbursed for reasonable temporary housing costs if the employee is ordered by the employer or is advised by a licensed physician to enter into or remain in quarantine in temporary housing because the employee was exposed to or shows symptoms of the communicable disease, or because the employee would place other persons at risk of being exposed to or contracting the communicable disease if the employee remained in the employee’s principal place of residence.
(d) The injury so developing or manifesting itself in these cases shall be conclusively presumed to arise out of and in the course of the employment. This presumption shall be extended to a person described in subdivision (a) following termination of service for a period of 90 days, commencing with the last date actually worked in the specified capacity.
(e) (1) It is the intent of the
Legislature in enacting this section to fully compensate the peace officers, firefighters, and health care employees whose lives are placed at risk when they are exposed to or contract COVID-19 or other communicable diseases in the course of performing their duties. To that end, the Legislature finds and declares that whenever a state or local state of emergency, as described in subdivision (b), is declared, both of the following policies and goals should be implemented:
(A) Funding necessary to implement this section should be prioritized over other funding authorized for purposes of addressing the state of emergency.
(B) An employee who is eligible for compensation pursuant to this section should be reimbursed as described in this section and should not be required to use the employee’s accrued vacation leave, personal leave, compensatory leave, sick leave, or any other leave,
other than applicable benefits made available pursuant to this division, in order to be reimbursed.
(2) It is the intent of the Legislature to strongly encourage the development and implementation of the policies and goals described in paragraph (1) in order to effectuate the intent of the Legislature in enacting this section.