Peel Region begins ordering workplaces with COVID-19 outbreaks to close as new measures take effect in Peel, Toronto

From the article in The Toronto Star:

Farah Mawani, a social epidemiologist at Unity Health’s MAP Centre for Urban Health Solutions, said she hoped the order “encourages workplaces to put more measures in place to prevent closures.”

Workplaces must “receive any support they need to do that from the city and provincial levels so that they and workers are not bearing the burden of the closures,” she added.

But further, permanent measures are also necessary, said Mawani, who recently contributed to a report on global COVID-19 economic responses for the United Nations. Those measures include permanent, robust paid sick leave and income support accessible to even the most precarious workers.

Her recently published research shows high-income countries are the least likely to offer workers paid sick leave.

“It just breaks my heart to think that we haven’t protected workers adequately, including essential workers who are enabling all of us to live through this global crisis,” said Mawani.

“We are not adequately protecting at this stage, when their lives are in the most danger of all.”

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