The ridiculous levels of illness in the community right now are coming up against 19th century command and…

The ridiculous levels of illness in the community right now are coming up against 19th century command and control sick leave policies. The same command and control economy that caused this pandemic. Beginning with the idiocy of the doctor’s certificate. /1 https://t.co/rWdvORk5BY

There is not one single way a doctor’s certificate is about the health of either individuals, or the community. It’s employers hijacking the health system to control the leave their staff take. A weapon against ‘sickies’. /2 https://t.co/m3wxvMlV9n

The rationale being that if you want to take more than a couple of days off, get a doctor’s certificate, otherwise we suspect you’re using your sick leave for something else. Who cares? Do we ask holiday resorts to certify that we used our annual leave for holidays? /3

It’s leave, or it isn’t. It doesn’t need to be policed to make sure you’re using the leave for the ‘right’ reasons. If somebody wants to use up all their sick leave going to Spain, then they’ll have to use leave without pay when they’re sick. It’s self-correcting. /4

Never mind the already grossly overworked GPs having to see a conga line of the infected, just to get these idiot certificates signed, for employers. Driving the sick out into the community to spread their illness even further. /5

Now that we have combination RATs for common infections, employers should just pay for those. You can already hear their lobbying groups crying ‘we can’t afford that!’ /6 https://t.co/1Gk6JGZCD9

You know what they can’t afford? Their workforce being constantly sick, and away. The costs of paying for testing are a tiny fraction of that cost. It takes enormous load off the health system. And means you don’t have to drag your sick body to the GP to infect others. /7

Or the common (government-mandated) advice now that you can come back to work when you’re ‘symptom-free’. Another pearler with not one link to either individual or community health. We know Covid for example often has no symptoms. /8

But even worse, in reality people don’t have the sick leave for the continuous torrent of infections disease right now. So what are they doing, in REALITY? They’re coming to work, sick. ‘Symptoms’ are abundant. They can’t afford not to. /9

The new benchmark is ‘if you can stand up and breathe unaided, that’s good enough’. I’m surrounded by horribly sick people every day right now. Coughing and sneezing, weeping eyes, horrendous headaches, dizziness etc. /10

In just this past week I’ve experienced staff in multiple workplaces in tears, through the strain of having to be at work to get paid, but absolutely sick and exhausted. They’re at their wits’ end. They have no way out of this complete insanity. /11

I Tweet a lot that we don’t need to stop any infectious disease. We just need to slow it down, and then maths and reality will stop it. Put testing into workplaces again. That will slow the lot. The benefits to the wider community AND business would be immense. /12

If we’re not going to ventilate critical workplaces like schools in a hurry, then pay for the RATs. Test everybody, every day. If you want a functioning workforce. And increase sick leave allowances in the interim. Better for the business, better for everybody’s health. /end