In Hamilton, nearly a quarter of all COVID cases reported in June – 180 of 747 – involved health-care workers. A job-by-job breakdown shows PSWs bear the highest burden with 57 cases. Nurses are the second-highest with 48. Hamilton Public Health, which released the data, says 82 per cent of infected workers are women. RNAO CEO Doris Grinspun says the data make sense since the majority of health-care workers in Ontario are women. In the case of PSWs, many receive lower wages, are people of colour, and work more than one job, Grinspun adds. This is why workers need to be better protected, not only with better access to personal protective equipment, “but with good jobs that pay well and where people don’t need to be struggling,” she explains. Of the 180 Hamilton health-care workers who tested positive in June, nearly 50 per cent caught the virus on the job, with their case connected to a facility or institutional outbreak. A quarter of cases are community acquired, meaning public health doesn’t know how they got sick. (Hamilton Spectator, June 11)