There are provisions in the statute to allow a carrier to waive the hours of service in extremely unusual circumstances. Records and explanations are required and, one might argue this could apply to employees covered by the Hours of Service Act during the Covid-19 emergency.
Casualties, Unavoidable Accidents, Acts of God. Section 5(d) of the Act states the following: “The provisions of this Act shall not apply in any case of casualty or unavoidable accident or the Act of God; nor where the delay was the result of a cause not known to the carrier or its officer or agent in charge of the employee at the time said employee left a terminal, and which could not have been foreseen.” This passage is commonly referred to as the “emergency provision”. Judicial construction of this sentence has limited the relief which it grants to situations which are truly unusual and exceptional.
Cornell Law School