There’s a better way. Here in Finland it’s pretty common that you can just call/text your boss that you have a common cold and you can be on a sick leave for few days (3 days is pretty common limit) just self-diagnosing it. With longer sickness you’ll need a doctors note, but at least on my company with common cold and other minor stuff it’s taken care of either over text chat or via a call with a doctor.

Obviously if the doctor thinks the whatever you have requires more in depth examination they can schedule a meeting, but for seasonal flu and stuff like that it’s pretty rare you need to see a doctor in person at all. And of course they’ll follow the numbers, so that if you call in sick every monday or whatever the rules are more strict and examinations are done more frequently, but for vast majority a few days laying in bed with a fever isn’t any kind of issue.

I absolutely hate this system. I had a young kid starting kindergarten, I got infected with tree hundred variations of the common cold in the span of a year. I couldn’t take more than a single day off per month with self-reporting! The GP kept having to see me, verify I had the common cold, prescribe me with a couple of days of rest. If I wasn’t lucky and I wasn’t healed yet by then, I would also have to go back to see them. Dreadful. And they had to do it for most first time parents! Insanity. Perfect way to uselessly burn resources too… aaargh, still upset at it years later!

You go for sick leave when sickness doesn’t allow you to work, not to not spread it lol. I envy you, wherever you work, that they allow that approach xD