The typical culture at most companies has been: come to work even if you are sick, unless you are VERY VERY sick. Their corporate policies supported this by requiring a signed form from a doctor saying that you are sick enough not to come in if you were going to be out more than a day or two. You had to prove it and pay for the privilege (doctors appointments are not free) and often doctors would refuse to sign said paperwork out of a worry of liability. This is common EVERYWHERE, and has been for DECADES.

In my entire adult life neither I nor anyone I know has had a work experience like this, so maybe you just work in a shit-ass industry. I've certainly taken time off when sick, and even when feeling a bit off my bosses have necouraged me to go home and rest up.

Requiring a doctor's note is an insane level of micro management that I have never heard of outside of forums where people share their work horror stories working for shit-ass companies.

Your original comment, in its entirety, said:

Before 2020, you would get in trouble for NOT coming into work even when obviously sick with tons of symptoms, unless you could prove that you were sick enough, usually by filling out some permission slip and paying a doctor to sign it. It's enough of a hassle that just people just always came to work even when coughing, sneezing, high fever, sore throat, whatever, can't afford to miss work, and companies de facto expected and encouraged this as normal behavior. Working when sick was a way to show dedication.

All that changed in a crazy extreme way for the last few years, but my guess is we'll be back to that soon though.

At no point do you mention the middle stage of companies letting people stay home to take care of themselves when they're sick, which is why your second comment seemed completely contradictory