Hacker News Reader

Comment by guyzero | Hacker News Reader

The Achilles Heel in Ontario's policies have been a lack of mandated paid sick days, so people in warehouses are going in sick and at no point closing down large store or warehouse-type workplaces where the bulk of the transmission is happening.

This is nowhere near enough and is very much a token effort without making any meaningful change. The Ford government refuses to actually spend any money to ameliorate the effects of the pandemic.

View on HN

I mean, I'm always all for better worker rights, but are you saying they had better sick leave policies mid last year?

Because my understanding is that that's roughly when social gatherings restarted and coincidentally when infection rates started to rise again. I'd argue that social distancing protocols at places of business are more strict now than they were then, and I'm not sure better sick leave policies necessarily would help, since a lot of transmission is asymptomatic, and I don't imagine anyone in their right mind is going to allow a visibly sick person to be up and about at a workplace regardless of sick pay.

No, but Ontario has no mandatory paid sick days and you would think that the pandemic might be a good opportunity to fix that situation, but no. The government continues to blame social gatherings when the incoming ICU patients are primarily essential workers. Also the government has abandoned contact tracing, so they're not event attempting to enact evidence-based policies. Just yo-yo lockdowns.

And yes, covid's delayed symptom onset does mean that sick days don't help a lot, but they'd help a little. For all we know people are going into warehouses to work while fully symptomatic.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com