As tends to happen with a global health scare, face masks are suddenly flying off store shelves.

Some people are looking at door handles and elevator buttons as potentially dangerous objects, while others are practically running away from anyone who has the misfortune to cough in public.

So far, public fear around the new coronavirus has been bigger thanthe actual health impact in most places, including Canada. Indeed the flu, which kills an estimated 3,500 Canadians and sends more than 12,000 to hospital each year, is still the far bigger health concern.

But, since we’re all so focused on infectious disease prevention, let’s at least use this opportunity to revive measures that would make a real difference to how many people routinely get sick in Ontario: paid sick days and an end to sick notes.

The provincial government can do both.

In fact, all the Ford government really has to do is go back to measures that were put in place by the previous Liberal government.

When the Progressive Conservatives came to power, Premier Doug Ford rolled back a series of advances in workplace protections, including the right to two paid sick days.

Ford reduced job-protected emergency leave to eight unpaid days and only three of those can be used for personal illness. (The rest are for family emergencies and bereavement.)

That was a mistake.

Paid sick days can decrease the spread of illness. Workers with no sick leave are more likely to go to work sick, where they risk passing on whatever they’ve got to co-workers.

Generally the people who don’t have the luxury of working for an employer that provides decent benefits, including paid sick leave, are also the low-wage workers who can least afford to miss even a single day’s pay.

Why on earth does the Ford government want people who work in food preparation or in child care or with frail seniors — all areas rife with low-wage workers who have no workplace benefits beyond the minimums the government legislates — to work when they’re sick?

The government compounded the problem of removing paid sick days by restoring the provision that allows employers to require a doctor’s note just to take unpaid days off for sickness.

That forces people who should be home resting to go to a doctor’s office, where they may infect others sitting in the waiting room. Not to mention using up precious health care resources with a requirement that has nothing to do with actually improving anyone’s health.

That’s why a group of health workers sent an open letter to the Ford government last week urging it to bring back paid sick days and put an end to sick notes to help protect against the coronavirus, seasonal flu and other illnesses.

The province has routinely had Ontario’s Chief Medical Officer, Dr. David Williams, reassure the public that Ontario is taking all the appropriate steps to track and contain the spread of the new coronavirus.

The government expects the public to trust what Williams has to say. So isn’t it about time Ford and his ministers did the same by acting on the expert advice that he has long provided on how to prevent the spread of respiratory illnesses?

That, he says, includes “staying home if you’re sick.”

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The Ontario Ministry of Health’s website on flu dangers and prevention also urges people to stay at home when they’re sick because “viruses spread more easily in group settings, such as businesses, schools and nursing homes.”

Great advice. Now the province just needs to make it financially possible for more workers to take it.

The Ford government should bring back the requirement for paid sick days and put an end to routine sick notes.

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