- David Wallace-Wells writes that the U.S.' Omicron COVID wave looks far more severe than Europe's - even if it isn't being met with any meaningful policy response. Chuck Wendig criticizes the inexcusable choice of so many governments to let COVID win rather than working to keep people healthy. And the Canadian Press reports on the widespread hospitalization records being set in the face of a variant which have dangerously tried to portray as "mild".
- Joel Dryden reports on yet another outbreak at the same Cargill meat plant where management staff and government personnel both gleefully chose worker endangerment at the outset of the pandemic. And Anne D'Innocienzio and Dee-Ann Durbin report on the ugly choice facing workers being forced to work while sick if they want to have any income.
- Alex Ballingall discusses how the latest wave has further highlighted longstanding weaknesses in health care systems which have been treated like providers of consumer goods rather than essential services. Jennifer Sinco Kelleher and Terry Tang report on the breakdown of all kinds of public services due to mass infection, while Jessika Guse reports on a new memo showing how Alberta's health care system faces mass redeployment to try to continue functioning.
- Richard Mueller refutes the UCP's spin about needing to slash public servants' incomes. And Harold Meyerson reports that the National Labour Relations Board is examining how to protect workers in gig employment - including through a potential presumption that improper classification of workers as independent contractors rather than employees is itself illegal.
- Drew Anderson reports on the environmental damage done by the oil industry in Alberta - and the liability now being borne by people who later came to own contaminated properties. But Jon Stone reports on the UK Cons' continued willingness to let fossil fuel barons write the rules governing their industry as a signal that governments are refusing to learn anything from decades of pollution, spills and misinformation.
- Finally, Robert Reich discusses where we can still find and strengthen the public good in a deliberately atomized society.
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