7 minute read
NEWS
By V.S. Wells
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Chantal Moore knows what it’s like to fear for your child’s life.
Her elementary school-age daughter was hospitalized with a respiratory infection as a toddler and nearly died.
“It’s absolutely terrifying,” Moore told the Straight. “Even if your child is hospitalized, and then recovers, it’s still a traumatic experience.”
Respiratory illnesses have been a concern for the Vancouver-based family ever since.
When BC lifted mask mandates in schools and public spaces in March, Moore’s daughter said she “felt safer at home this year.” She’s now being homeschooled, as it felt difficult to mitigate the risk of serious illness.
Since April, there have been no public health measures in BC to prevent the spread of COVID-19 beyond a vaccine booster program. For many people who are immunocompromised, disabled–or protecting a loved one who is– or who simply do not wish to catch COVID-19, removing public health measures has led to a huge mental health strain.
“I don’t feel protected,” Moore said. Besides her daughter, her father is also at high-risk for COVID-19: he has been in hospital and then long-term care since he caught COVID earlier in the pandemic.
“I’m still visiting my dad in long-term care often and so, you know, ‘Am I going to bring the virus? Is he going to get reinfected?’ It’s definitely worsened [my] mental health.”
Kayli Jamieson, who developed long COVID after an infection in December 2021, said she has had to take medical leave from her post-grad degree and her work due to ongoing symptoms.
“I’ve developed clinical depression and anxiety, because when you’re robbed of your previous bodily autonomy, there is a lot to get acquainted with,” she said. “There’s a lot of grief in that process, and further grief when you’re witnessing ableism in this society.”
When she started a petition asking for Simon Fraser University to keep the mask mandate on campus, she was met with “a lot of backlash and online hate.”
“That was what definitely shocked me most,” she said, “the notion that disposability and death is fine.”
In November, Dr. Henry rejected calls to re-implement a mask mandate, saying people could make decisions on where to wear masks “where it makes sense.” But masks work best at preventing illness when everybody is wearing them.
“We reach a collective benefit of masking when everybody is,” Jamieson said. “There’s only so much that one person wearing a mask can do.”
Along with the stress that getting COVID-19 again could worsen her symptoms, Jamieson also had to deal with the practicalities of avoiding getting sick. When Jamieson took transit, she avoided rush hour, waited for quieter SkyTrain carriages, opened windows on buses and took a CO2 monitor with her.
The burden of protection “is disproportionately placed on disabled, immunocompromised people,” she said. Having to make that much extra effort “further marginalizes” already vulnerable communities.
There’s also the social isolation. Continuing to take precautions to stay safe can put people out of step with the current laissez-faire approach.
Kerri Coombs, a community organizer with grassroots advocacy group Protect Our Province BC, told the Straight many members had been struggling with the fact that their activism did not seem to influence policy.
“We all worked really, really hard last year to try and pressure the province to introduce evidence-based public health precautions,” they said.
“When you are ignored by the policymakers, after making your best argument and putting up your best fight, it’s disheartening."
Protect Our Province provided a strong support network for Coombs, as people dealing with the same worries and stresses were able to connect and vent shared frustrations over lax public health measures.
“A person who is in isolation, who doesn’t have that kind of support network … if you don’t have others around you, you can start to feel super crazy, like it’s gaslighting,” they said.
So far in Canada, at least 48,000 people are confirmed to have died from COVID-19. According to Our World In Data, more people have died so far in 2022 (18,213) than in 2020 (15,736) or 2021 (14,545).
Moore would love to send her daughter back to school, but the risks of catching COVID, flu, or respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) means it’s impossible unless there are protections in place.
“I’ve approached so many people: the district, I’ve written the principal, I’ve met with the school teachers … I reached out to my MLA, who is [now-Premier] David Eby,” Moore said. She wants schools to improve ventilation and filtration, whether with HEPA filters or more concrete upgrades.
“I met with [Eby] last year over Zoom. I said, ‘Could we please do something about these classrooms and make it safer for these kids?’ I was told he’ll get back to me, and I never did hear back.”
The province has said it has invested over $166.5 million in improving classroom ventilation since the beginning of the pandemic, and the federal government has promised the province $11.9 million for similar work. It is unclear how the federal money will be spent.
COVID-aware people aren’t asking anyone to stop having fun. They just want that fun to be done in a way that doesn’t cause unchecked spread of a potentially deadly virus.
“This summer, I was really having to contend with seeing friends go to parties, raves, clubs, maskless everywhere, despite knowing what happened to me,” Jamieson said. She wishes their freedom didn’t result in her isolation.
“These are people that I love and care about. And they’re all just processing the trauma of the pandemic differently. It’s very life-altering for people in different ways. I’m just wishing that the lives of disabled people would be more considered.” GS
Photo via Shutterstock
NEWS BCFED says workers need more sick days
By V.S. Wells
Workers in BC need more than the five paid sick days currently available under provincial legislation, according to the BC Federation of Labour (BCFED).
At the recent BCFED convention, over 1,000 delegates from dozens of unions across the province voted to support a motion aimed at expanding paid sick days. The motion calls for lobbying the government for 15 days of paid sick leave, along with educating employers and workers about the benefits, and removing the 90-day probation before employees are eligible.
“We’re hearing stories, more and more, about workers not being able to make ends meet and worried about losing their jobs,” Sussanne Skidmore, newly elected BCFED president, told the Straight. “They have to make the tough choice about whether or not to go to work sick.”
BC currently has the most generous sick day policy in Canada–workers can now take five days off annually. That was a compromise between workers’ groups like BCFED and business groups.
Other countries around the world have more comprehensive sick leave legislation, including New Zealand and Australia (10 days per year), and Germany (up to 30 days per year).
A 2021 report by the Centre for Future Work found that a 10-day sick leave policy would increase business costs by 0.21 per cent. Several factors blunted the cost, including the fact that not every worker would claim all of their entitled sick pay.
One of the main upsides to paid sick days is lessening the spread of infectious diseases.
“During the pandemic, whole entire places had to shut down because everyone was sick in the worksite,” Skidmore said. Workers couldn’t stay home without fearing reprisals. So people went to work sick, illnesses spread, and the costs to businesses were higher than if they had paid sick staff to stay home, she explained.
Five days covers one week of illness. With the continuing COVID pandemic, rising flu levels, the mass return to inperson employment, and high levels of illness in children, it is simply “more realistic” that workers need the ability to take more time off to look after themselves or their family without worrying about losing income, or their jobs.
Meanwhile, the 90-day probation means that many different workers in contract-based industries like construction or film are entirely excluded from sick pay.
“Those folks are never, ever covered by paid sick leave. They’ve been left right out of the calculation,” Skidmore said.
Fiona Famulak, president of the BC Chamber of Commerce, told CBC that the increase in sick days would be “catastrophic,” and said that it was “premature” to call for an expansion to the sick day program only one year into it.
When asked by the Canadian Press, provincial Labour Minister Harry Bains did not commit to increasing the number of paid sick days, nor to removing the 90day probation.
“You need to establish yourself as an employee. That means that you are committed to the employer,” he said.
Skidmore said that BCFED would be looking at its strategy priorities in the new year. She hopes her two-year term as president will see further expansion of the sick pay program, including for app-based workers who are currently excluded. GS
