TORONTO -- The leader of Canada’s largest private sector union is accusing the Ontario government of encouraging the spread of COVID-19 through a directive that allows staff who test positive for the virus but are no longer showing symptoms to return to work.

In a statement issued Thursday afternoon, Unifor National President Jerry Dias said the directive is putting health-care workers and residents at long-term care homes at risk.

"The directive states that staff who have tested positive and have symptom resolution and are deemed critical may return to work ‘under isolation,’” Dias said in a statement.

“Sending what we know are potentially infectious people back into the most high-risk and vulnerable institutions demonstrates a lack of care that really borders on heartless. Someone must explain to me how a front-line caregiver can work under isolation.”

The directive was issued by Ontario’s Chief Medical Officer of Health, Dr. David Williams.

“Staff who have tested positive and symptomatic cannot attend work. Staff who have tested positive and have symptom resolution and are deemed critical may return to work under work isolation,” the document says.

When asked about the directive on Tuesday, Williams said that if the worker wore personal protective equipment and was approved to return to work by their employer, they could resume their duties.

“The essential worker … could, if it was really critical and agreed on by all parties … return to the work situation if they were still asymptomatic and wear proper PPE while on the job,” he said.

The statement was made on the same day that Ontario Premier Doug Ford issued an order prohibiting health-care workers from working at multiple facilities in an attempt to stop the spread of the virus.

Health-care workers have been redeployed to various facilities to help deal with staffing shortages amid a surge in COVID-19 patients in hospitals and long-term care facilities. The order restricting the movement of staff was meant to help curb the spread of the virus from one place to another.

Katha Fortier, a nurse and an assistant to Dias, said in a statement that the union has been “pounding on Doug Ford’s door for years” to fix the long-term care system.

“Now a real challenge has brought all these problems into the public eye in a very sad and devastating way,” she said.

“Again, these COVID heroes are left to fend for themselves and again, I’m pleading with the Ford government to do what’s best for these workers and their residents.”