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
