THREAD: I went to bed angry and I woke up angry. I am enraged...On the same day that ICUs were so full, more field hospitals were being built and our health experts were calling the 3rd wave of #COVID19 a "humanitarian catastrophe"...the Ontario government let us down. /1

Instead of announcing policies that would actually help people (like workplace protections for essential workers, #PaidSickDays, paid time off for vaccination, access to PPE/N95s)...they announced more policing & enforcement. /2

Enhanced restrictions may be needed in Ontario, but we must always be cautious of what more policing means. Low-income racialized people (many of whom are essential workers) have a very long history of being over-policed. They've also been hardest hit by #COVID19. /3

The sad part? This is a humanitarian catastrophe that NEVER should have happened. Had the Ontario government listened to the experts & made the important decisions upstream around public health restrictions, we would never have been here. This was all so...preventable. /4

As a frontline health worker, I cannot express the anger and emotional pain involved in providing healthcare for people with #COVID19 who should NOT be sick and who should NOT be dying in the first place. It is so demoralizing. /5

Yesterday's announcements are especially concerning because a significant proportion of infections are coming from workplaces. If the Ontario government cared about saving lives, they would take the necessary steps to do that. /6

More policing will not stop essential workers from getting sick at work. More policing will hurt racialized people, people who live in poverty, people who experience homelessness and those who experience other structural vulnerabilities in our society. /7

We can't police our way out of this pandemic. We need paid sick leave & protection for essential workers, now...or they will die. /END