The response of employers to the COVID-19 pandemic has been a mixed bag. Some have been successful in balancing employee productivity and health and safety through creative work arrangements, rules and regulations. Others, not so much.

As the economy reopens, employers face new challenges navigating health and productivity pitfalls when bringing workers back to physical premises. Research conducted at the Toronto-based Institute for Work & Health shows it can be complex when large organizations co-ordinate the return to work of employees. Through the lens of this research, return-to-work success is shaped by both worker behaviour and workplace responses.

The National Basketball Association’s experiences returning to the hard court last season was a well-publicized achievement. The NBA recorded zero cases over nearly 100 days last season. The teams played a total of 172 games to finish in October in a controlled campus setting known as “the bubble” with a price tag of about $180 million.

GUEST: Dr. Arif Jetha, Scientist at the Institute for Work & Health and an Assistant Professor at the University of Toronto’s Dalla Lana School of Public Health

Previous economic downturns have followed a specific pattern: a greater impact on men’s employment, with women’s job gains leading the recovery. But during the COVID-19 pandemic, that formula has been flipped.

The disproportionate impact of this pandemic recession on women’s jobs – evident in hair salons, food courts, restaurants, travel agencies, pubs and bars across Canada – means that the tried-and-tested stimulus measures of downturns past won’t cut it. Measures offering targeted support for women are needed in the upcoming federal budget, according to economists and labour market analysts. And the stakes are very high.

GUEST: Tanya Van Biesen, Senior Vice President of Global Corporate Engagement with Catalyst Canada

The COVID-19 pandemic has occurred alongside a worldwide infodemic where unprecedented levels of misinformation have contributed to widespread misconceptions about the novel coronavirus. Conspiracy theories, poorly sourced medical advice, and information trivializing the virus have ignored national borders and spread quickly. This information spread has occurred despite generally strong preferences for domestic national media and social media networks that tend to be geographically bounded. How, then, is (mis)information crossing borders so rapidly? Using social media and survey data, we evaluate the extent to which consumption and propagation patterns of domestic and international traditional news and social media can help inform theorizing about cross-national information spread.

GUEST: Aengus Bridgman, a PhD Candidate in Political Science at McGill University

The Bill Kelly Show Podcast:

The province is seriously considering another stay at home order and possibly a state of emergency.

Premier Doug Ford warned earlier this week stricter measures were coming, and we'll find out later today what we can and can't do.

ALSO: A year into Ontario’s battle against the COVID-19 pandemic, why does it feel like the provincial government is still making decisions based on guesswork? Are vaccines getting into the arms they should? And has public trust in elected officials completely eroded?

GUEST: Laura Babcock, President, PowerGroup

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A team of doctors at Hamilton's McMaster University is preparing to test blood samples from across Canada in search of a rare type of clot linked to the AstraZeneca-Oxford COVID-19 vaccine.

There have been no cases of vaccine-induced prothrombotic immune thrombocytopenia (VIPIT) in Canada, but there have been cases in Europe, prompting NACI to recommend pausing administration of the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine to those under age 55.

The McMaster team is preparing to screen blood samples of Canadian patients who may have had VIPIT.

GUEST: Dr. Ishac Nazy, Associate Professor in the department of Medicine and principal investigator with the McMaster Platelet Immunology Laboratory

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Despite the lack of data documenting benefits to children, and emerging evidence of several drawbacks and harms, the Ontario government is discussing making full-time online schooling a permanent "choice" in public education.

For children, fully online learning creates the conditions for further educational inequality. It is a particular risk for children with special education needs.

With all the issues implied by full-time online learning, why would Ontario consider making this a permanent feature of public education? 

GUEST:  Dr. Lana Parker, Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Education at the University of Windsor