Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Robert Reich offers some lessons we need to draw from the coronavirus pandemic - including the recognition that while billionaires won't save us from collective action problems, effective government can.

- Renju Jose reports on Melbourne's instant reaction to community spread of the particularly dangerous B.1.6172 variant. And Matt Elliott rightly praises young Ontarians for wasting no time in getting vaccinated. 

- But Bartley Kives calls out Brian Pallister for being more interested in casting shade than doing anything to ameliorate Manitoba's ugly third wave. Paige Parsons reports on a call from Alberta doctors to avoid reckless reopening, while Andre Picard makes a similar plea more generally. And Justin McCurry reports on the International Olympics Committee's appalling call for people to make public health sacrifices in order to ensure that a sports exhibition can proceed.

- Kenyon Wallace reports on the abuse and neglect of residents of Ontario's long-term care homes. And Tamara Daly, Ivy Lynn Bourgeault and Katie Aubrecht call for a shift toward a virtuous cycle of care - rather than the current vicious cycle squeezing any ethic of care out in order to maximize short-term profits.

- Finally, Jordan Barab and David Michaels note that we shouldn't take the CDC's vague phrasing about lifting masking requirements as an excuse to put workers in further danger. Hayes Brown points out that what corporate lobbyists are attempting to spin as a "labour shortage" amounts to nothing more than employers' refusal to offer acceptable wages and working conditions. And Alex Press writes about the increased exploitation of workers into taking intolerable hours for insufficient pay - and the need to reshape the balance of power to reverse course.