TORONTO -- More than half of Canadians say they are unable to self-isolate and stay home from work when necessary, according to a new survey.
The survey, conducted by researchers out of the University of Guelph and the University of Toronto, found that 51 per cent of participants said they feel "unprepared" to stay home and self-isolate if they or a family member were to contract COVID-19.
"That's a significant proportion of the workforce who can't stay home if needed," said the study's lead author Gabrielle Brankston, a PhD student at the University of Guelph, in a press release.
The findings were published Thursday in the Canadian Journal of Public Health.
According to the study, researchers surveyed nearly 5,000 Canadians in May 2020 on their attitudes to public health measures, including limiting contacts and staying home when sick.
While researchers reported that the majority of respondents said they believed current public health measures were effective, many said they would also be expected to go to work if sick. Additionally, only 51 per cent of those surveyed said they would still be paid if they had to self-isolate at home.
The study's lead investigator Amy Greer, an associate professor of population medicine at the University of Guelph, said in the release that the data "clearly" shows that not every Canadian has the same ability to comply with public health guidance.
"We know that to reduce transmission, we need people to be able to stay home when they are sick. As we now see increasing transmission in many parts of Canada, these data remain relevant and important even though they were collected almost a year ago," Greer said.
According to the study, researchers found that demographics was a "significant factor" in respondents' ability to self-isolate when sick.
The survey results indicated that younger individuals were more likely to report they had no access to paid sick leave and would be expected to go to work even if sick.
Those with lower income, who cannot work from home, and those without paid sick leave were less likely to feel confident that they could comply with public measures, according to the study.
"These findings reinforce the fact that if we want people to self-isolate to avoid spread, we need to provide more support for those who need to stay home but don’t have the means to do so," Brankston said in the release.
"In these cases, we may be asking people to choose between feeding their family or avoiding possible further disease spread. And we need to make avoiding disease spread the easy choice," she added.
As the COVID-19 pandemic continues, Brankston said there need to be social supports in place, including paid sick leave, for those who have to self-isolate and also changes in workplace policies to discourage employees from coming to work when sick.
"If our collective priority is to maintain an open economy, we need to ensure that individuals are able to comply with public health measures that prevent and control transmission of the virus," she said.
Thomas Tenkate, director of Ryerson's School of Occupational and Public Health, said the "key driver" of being able to self-isolate is whether employees have paid sick leave.
Tenkate, who was not involved in the study, told CTVNews.ca on Thursday that those without paid sick leave will likely turn up at work because they can’t afford to stay home.
"If you're a well paid professor like myself, I can stay home, but if you're a minimum wage worker at a grocery store… there's a big difference there if you get COVID and what can you do," Tenkate said.
While some employers may not be able to offer paid sick leave to employees, Tenkate says it should be the responsibility of the federal and provincial governments to "make up the difference."
"The aspect of access to paid sick leave is actually a really important component of the COVID response plan and I think it's also one of the areas where the government hasn't really stepped up enough to be able to recognize that and to support workers in that," Tenkate said.
Tenkate explained that too much of governments' focus in response to the pandemic has been on health aspects including securing vaccines, contact tracing, and acquiring personal protective equipment, and not enough on providing workplace support.
"All of those resources and public health measures actually get undermined if people can't afford to stay at home when they're supposed to," Tenkate said.
