Ford Forces Ontario back into Lockdown – Kenney Refuses to Ease Restrictions

In spite of Ontario hospitals not being at full capacity, Premier Doug Ford is forcing Ontarians back into what is now the third full-scale lockdown.

In a statement Ford said: 

We are facing a serious situation and drastic measures are required to contain the rapid spread of the virus, especially the new variants of concern….I know pulling the emergency brake will be difficult on many people across the province, but we must try and prevent more people from getting infected and overwhelming our hospitals.

Currently, Ontario hospital ICUs are occupied at 88 percent of available capacity, although they still have more room to take in patients and that the current rise in cases is not stressing ICU capacity much more than a month ago. Ford seems to not be able to handle the media pressure on him to close everything down once again.

It seems rather strange that ICU capacity is even viewed as an issue to Ford’s PC government seeing as there was so much talk at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic about the need to set up field hospitals for the sole purpose of taking on patients with COVID-19 or COVID variants.

What should be fairly clear at this point as well is that lockdowns are not responsible for reducing cases of COVID-19 overall and nor is the lack of lockdowns a direct cause of the spread.

Although Ontario had gradually reopened in large part during February and March the relatively mild rise in cases only started appearing in late March. 

The states of Texas, Georgia, and Florida saw declines in cases of COVID-19 and variants after removing all lockdowns which was counter to what most experts were projecting would happen. Although nobody definitely knows whether or not sunlight and outdoor activities to reduce stress help prevent further infections, at the very least there is no reliable correlation between the lack of lockdown measures and the spread of COVID-19 and its variants. 

Doug Ford is not alone in bending to pressure about locking down for the “third wave” of the pandemic, out west Alberta Premier Jason Kenney is also hitting the brakes on his reopening strategy and taking major steps backward.

At a press conference today Kenney stated that:

Instead of delivering a message of openness and optimism, I’m here instead with a plea: Please, please, follow Alberta’s health restrictions and guidelines this weekend and in the weeks to come…. All of our leading indicators are telling us that we are now in a significant new wave of COVID-19. How bad that wave will be is up to all of us…

Kenney also mentioned that he sees Alberta returning to normal life in several weeks’ time, but Alberta’s Chief Health Office Deena Hinshaw said at the same press conferences that, “People really, really want to be able to do the things that they love and right now. What we’re telling them is that you can do those things in a few months’ time.”

Alberta’s government promises on reopening shouldn’t be taken too seriously moving forward as Alberta is currently on step 2 of its 4 step reopening plan despite Alberta currently only having 292 current hospitalizations for COVID-19 but the province has yet to move to step 3 of opening despite it setting the bar at less than 300 hospitalizations to move to that step.’

Alberta will be seeing maximum indoor capacities of 10 people being placed back onto social gatherings over the long weekend in which brings Albertans back into certain elements of step 1 of the reopening plan. 

There seems to be a disappointing trend in Canada of many Conservative elected officials morphing themselves into centre-left politicians who cater to the liberal mainstream media during the pandemic, something clearly observable in the case of Kenney and Ford.

Although very rational arguments against lockdowns and the further sacrifice of the economy to theoretically reduce the spread of COVID are there to be made, neither Kenney, Ford, or most other Conservatives for that matter, are willing to make the argument, and to the detriment of Albertans, Ontarians, and Canadians overall.