The pandemic has made post-secondary students’ mental health even worse
As college and university students face a mental health crisis, faculty and institutions are looking at making structural changes By Julia Mastroianni
Wes Hicks/Unsplash
Among the many negative effects of COVID-19, deteriorating mental health of post-secondary students has been one of the most serious and widespread.
Mental health stressors are a major issue for post-secondary students in particular, though the pandemic has only exacerbated a growing crisis in Canada.
“Things were going downhill in mental health for students across North America before COVID,” says Paul Ritvo, a psychology professor at York University who has been studying the effects of mindfulness on student mental health. “What COVID has done is it has put health and health science in the top headlines, and we have become a more health-oriented society.”
Paid sick leave is essential to stopping the pandemic
But the Ford government is not budging on calls to provide 10 days of paid sick leave as the virus spreads among frontline workers By Julia Mastroianni
Samuel Engelking
As Ontario struggles to contain the second wave of the coronavirus, the lack of paid sick days for essential frontline workers is only adding to the number of cases.
On Monday, the Toronto Board of Health voted unanimously in favour of a motion asking the provincial government to ensure workers have access to 10 paid sick days during the pandemic. But the Ford government remains unmoved.