Doug Ford has released a new colour-coded approach to COVID. Bruce Arthur writes that he is waving a white flag:
Seven months into the pandemic Ontario praised itself for posting clear COVID-19 restriction speed limits. But they set the speed limit everywhere at 200 miles per hour, and our police force isn’t fast enough to keep up. Drive safe, everyone.
“This is throwing in the towel,” said one source familiar with the process of setting new thresholds.
Certainly, the epidemiologists are worried:
This is going to be very ugly,” said Dr. Andrew Morris, a professor of infectious diseases at the University of Toronto, and the medical director of the Antimicrobial Stewardship Program at Sinai-University Health Network. “We’re following the European approach here. The very first question that should be asked is in the presence of ongoing growth, how can you in any way justify loosening measures? That makes absolutely zero sense. The one thing you shouldn’t do when you’ve got a losing strategy is take on a worse strategy. Which is what they’re going to do.”
Under this plan, nothing changes for bars, restaurants, sports and recreational facilities, meeting and event spaces, retail, personal care services, casinos, bingo halls, gaming establishments, cinemas, or performing arts facilities until the system tips from orange to red; they continue to operate with new restrictions. And bars, restaurants, casinos and gyms still have indoor service in red.
In other words, this is designed not to intervene in the economy until it’s already too late, and even then, the province reserves wiggle room, saying “decisions about moving to new measures will require overall risk assessment by the government.” Meanwhile, Ontario’s seven-day average is rising, test positivity is rising, raw testing numbers are falling, public health communication is poor, our test-trace-isolate architecture can barely handle what’s happening now in some regions, and winter’s moving in.
Other scientists are sounding the alarm:
“It’s like public health is treading water, and the premier is pushing their heads down,’” said Dr. Michael Warner, head of critical care at Michael Garron Hospital in East York. “It’s government that makes the decisions on public health, and not public health.”
Meanwhile, the people who were going to have trouble protecting themselves now have less of a chance to protect themselves. This government failed to upgrade testing and contact tracing and long-term-care staffing in the summer, failed to intervene when case counts started to climb in early September, and has now decided to move the goalposts as far towards the horizon as they dare.
Ford started out well. But now he's showing his true colours.
Image: hoodmemorial.org
10 comments:
This half-assed response is rapidly turning into a no-assed response.
Some more calculating right-wingers might see opportunities in the chaos (wealthy people abandoning crowded public classrooms for private schools for example) but I think the main thing is that Doug Ford is so ideologically opposed to deficit spending and higher taxes on corporations and the wealthy (people like himself) that he's just going to stumble the province into a catastrophe and hope that his sad eyes and expressions of sympathy for his victims allow him to continue governing.
We spend too much time coddling the stupid arguments of "anti-maskers" and the people with the power to enforce things spend way too much time agonizing about the threat to individual liberties implied by forcing people to wear masks during a viral pandemic and quarantining people to prevent its spread.
As a result of this stupidity the pandemic spreads farther and lasts longer costing far more in lost economic output and human lives than ever needed to be the case.
Your comment is spot on, thwap. We can pay now or pay -- much more -- later. Ford has chosen the second option.
Is this what the End Times is supposed to look like?
There are times when I really wonder, Mound. Surely, we can do better than this.
The problem with politicians is that they don't feel any need to know you or I, Owen, or what we might think --- until its time for them to get voted back into their comfortable seats. So, every 4 years we become their very best friends and $upporter$. Otherwise, their first priority is to the business community and that has proven to be a recipe for disaster. If they had stuck to the health specialists' advice, even if it did change some in the beginning of this pandemic, I think we all would have fared better as well as had better results.
The other half in my household has a compromised immune system and gets very nervous when I head out every 10-14 days to get a few necessities such as food and my favourite wine, otherwise I am contributing very little to their vaunted GDP and as long as this Virus is continuing to spread like wildfire, I won't be out shopping for anything else.
My wife agrees with you, Lulymay. We live in a retirement community. Several of us have medical issues. My wife goes out and gets the groceries and other necessities. That's it. She doesn't want to bring anything back here.
Anonymous Lulymay said...
The problem with politicians is that they don't feel any need to know you or I, Owen, or what we might think -
With due respect.
I have known a few BC , NDP politicians that remember me by name and also contribute to my political issue of the day .
They are quite aware that I vote Green!
That said i know a NDP politician that almost ignores me whilst I speak to him!!
TB
I am led to believe that with each case of the virus comes one more chance of a mutation that possibly is uncontrollable hence the panic slaying of millions of Mink in Europe.
TB
There are lots of politicians who know our names, TB -- in the sense that we are on their mailing lists. But lots of those politicians know nothing about the people behind the names.
As The Buffalo Springfield sang decades ago, TB: "Paranoia strikes deep//Into your life it will creep."
Post a Comment