Sporting his ‘very serious’ face, Ontario premier Doug Ford told the media Monday he made a very “decisive decision” in sending the province back into near-lockdown mode à la mid-2020.
“We face a tsunami of new cases in the weeks ahead,” Ford said. “Omicron isn’t like the other variants…it’s much more transmissible.”
Ford kept repeating that hospitals will be overwhelmed by this apparent “tsunami.”
Of course what the premier didn’t mention – all the while plugging booster shots as a panacea – was that vaccinated people are still getting Omicron. Neither did we hear anything about the strain being much milder – akin to the cold or the flu – and that it has led to far fewer deaths.
Ford said it only took him “30 seconds” to decide to lock the province back down.
That’s 30 seconds to decide to push Ontario businesses already barely hanging on by their fingernails into a death spiral. That’s half a minute to decide to keep kids desperate for socialization and face-to-face learning out of the classroom and to force Ontario residents to hunker down yet again in their homes during a month that already brings with it an array of mental health issues.
Ontarians, like the rest of Canadians, have complied with edict after edict. They’ve gotten vaccinated and boosted, and they wear those silly masks that really only provide comfort to the lawmakers.
Look. As a politician you are damned if you do and damned if you don’t.
But if our weak leaders should have learned anything over the past two years – yes, two years! – it’s that lockdowns don’t work and that the only people who really get hurt are those forced into repeated isolation. Chief among them are school kids who have missed so much proper in-class learning and those who have not been able to access health care for diseases besides COVID that kill.
Before New Year’s, Ontario school kids were returning to the classroom on Jan. 5, two days late but still manageable. The rest of the province’s services would remain status quo, except for the lack of availability of PCR tests for all.
But our easily intimidated politicians went back to moving the goalposts.
Over the weekend, instead of celebrating what should have been a freer 2022, the celebrity doctors, activists, NDP politicians and whiny teachers all got on social media and applied pressure – undue and non-stop pressure. Those of us who criticized their outrageous claims were attacked or blocked.
Countless teachers who probably shopped at crowded big box stores preparing for New Year’s suddenly developed this uncontrollable panic. Of course, it’s all about protecting kids! It’s not the fact that teaching online is far more convenient and cozy in the throes of January.
The legacy media, all of whom waited with bated breath for the latest lockdown, announced the measures with apparent glee on Monday – no need to cover any other news when they can endlessly repeat the government’s COVID numbers.
In Florida, the Omicron cases are at an all-time high too. The difference is that governor Ron DeSantis has the courage of his convictions and has recognized that at some point personal responsibility must play a part. In other words, people must accept their own responsibility to get vaccinated and boosted and to decide whether to mask up.
In Ontario, the government’s overstretch has become the best definition of insanity – that is, doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.
