Let us have a hypothetical shall we.
First Officer A is scheduled to operate a morning flight to Europe with a sign on of 06:00. He has a good nights sleep but wakes up with sticky eyes when his alarm goes off at 05:15 . A condition he recognizes as conjunctivitis
Conjunctivitis - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia . He recognizes the symptoms because both he, his spouse and children have all suffered it at least once since arriving in the dust strewn paradise that is Dubai.
Pilot A has waited 3 long years for his upgrade and will have to wait a bit longer because there are no promotions at present but he is close to the top of the list and will be having his command review in a few weeks. The last thing he wants is an absent day on his record but according to the new policy it is too late to call sick without being marked absent. So lets guess what he does.
Quote " This infection must be correctly detected and treated. Bacterial pink eye is highly contagious and airborne"
The net result of this is that Pilot A goes to work with his condition which may not only impair his vision but also gets passed to his fellow flight deck occupants, perhaps other crew and passengers. After all it is airborne which is how he got it in the first place. His colleague on the flight deck Captain B has been around a while and doesn't give a sh*t anymore so when he wakes up down-route a few days later with sore eyes he reports sick which turns the whole operation on its head. Especially if it were to be somewhere like MRU where there are not many replacements to be found.
Well done EK head shed
Another well thought out own goal. Watch this space for policy amendment.