Someone, please, what’s the plan for helping migrant farm workers?

Two weeks after two migrant farm workers died of COVID-19, the novel coronavirus continues to march through the agricultural sector — 50 of the 58 new cases last weekend, five of the seven cases Monday, 14 of the 26 cases Tuesday, six of the 14 cases Wednesday.

Now Mexico refuses to send more workers to Canada “until we’re certain workers that come can arrive in safe conditions,” as the consul for Mexico in Leamington, Alberto Bernal, said Tuesday.

And the assessment centre established to test workers closes Thursday, only nine days after it opened, because few workers were coming to be tested. The goal was to test all 8,000. Only 750 — one tenth — have been tested.

So what did the slew of people responsible for the workers’ safety say during a video conference Tuesday?

Nothing.

Ontario’s ministry of labour talked about the more than 60 visits to farms in Essex County checking pandemic measures and investigating complaints.

The assistant deputy minister of agriculture talked about providing education and support and assessing risk.

The Ontario Greenhouse Vegetable Growers talked about ensuring farms know public health guidelines, have access to protective gear and have places for infected workers to isolate.

Medical Officer of Health Dr. Wajid Ahmed talked about the orders he has issued, everyone’s responsibilities and factors like social determinants of health.

Only Bernal got to the point, quite concisely.

“We’re still short,” he said. “The problem is we’re having more cases ... And unfortunately, we’ve already had two dead.”

So what’s the plan?

No one talked about a plan. Assistant deputy minister of agriculture Kelly Aslan called mass testing, including testing asymptomatic workers, key.

“I encourage everyone to continue to focus on this as a key priority,” she said.

Is that the plan? Because clearly it’s not working.

Ahmed acknowledged “fear and apprehension” among workers about being tested.

“We need to recognize that and work on it to find solutions,” he said.

Is that the plan? To work on it?

The bunkhouses that workers live in “are not designed for a pandemic in mind,” admitted Justine Taylor of the OGVG. That needs to be addressed, she said.

But she denied her organization has been slow responding to the pandemic. Then she appeared to blame public health in part, saying her organization relies on public health.

The thing is, we knew all this when we fought to bring the workers here amid a pandemic.

We knew we were putting vulnerable people at high risk. They’re from a foreign country. They don’t speak the language. They’re not familiar with the culture. They’re worried about keeping their jobs. They’re housed in bunkhouses where infectious disease can spread like wildfire.

And there is a history of concern about how they’re treated.

Yet here we are, three months into this, looking for leadership.

It’s a disgrace that Mexico can’t trust Canada to protect its citizens. We should be ashamed.

If the deaths of Bonifacio Eugenio Romero, 31, who died alone in a motel room, and Rogelio Munoz Santos, 24, who was extremely ill by the time he made it to a hospital, don’t move people, think about the threat to the food supply and the agricultural economy if we can’t harvest our crops.

Think about the threat to the communities that host these farms. And businesses across Windsor and Essex County that can’t open because of these cases.

The only people here who seem to be doing something about this are the ones who aren’t even responsible for it.

Windsor Mayor Drew Dilkens asked Premier Doug Ford to order mandatory testing of migrant workers.

The city is also arranging hotel rooms for infected workers to isolate and will check on them and provide meals, charging the farms.

Windsor Regional Hospital CEO David Musyj also called for mandatory testing.

Even Windsor-essex Regional Chamber of Commerce CEO Rakesh Naidu said we must “focus our resources” on the crisis.

Ford said more than two weeks ago we’re going to test all migrant farm workers. What happened? He begged farmers and workers Wednesday to get tested. Why can’t we do this? We tested every resident in longterm care. We tested almost 5,000 people in the community, confirming what we already suspected: community transmission is low. Only eight people tested positive. Meanwhile, Rome burns.

Everything we’ve done has been too late.

Health officials didn’t visit workers in isolation until after two died. We had no plan if we ran out of places for them to isolate — until we ran out. The province announced only today mobile testing teams will be sent to farms. Everyone has said repeatedly that the bunkhouses are a problem. We haven’t done anything about that.

Now we want the 5,000 additional workers who were scheduled to arrive in the next several months to come, even though we can’t protect the ones already here.

We call them essential. But we treat them like they’re disposable.

Public health board chairman Gary Mcnamara accused a critical Dilkens of “throwing people under the bus.”

It’s migrant farm workers who are being thrown under the bus.