Premier Doug Ford needs to ‘un-scare’ Ontarians.

Good to see focus on restarting economy

If there is one thing that Ontario Premier Doug Ford has made clear, it’s that his ever- so- slow restart of the Ontario economy hinges on safety. That was evident in the long- overdue plan that Ford released Thursday.

It’s still a document that specifically outlines only first steps, and even services set to open next Tuesday are dependent on the province’s wonky COVID-19 testing system continuing to spit out low numbers. Still, it’s good to see the premier finally focusing on restarting the economy and moving past pandemic paralysis.

Of course, it’s one thing to announce that businesses can reopen and another to persuade the public to participate. That should be the next phase of the government’s communications strategy — starting now.

While safety was mentioned innumerable times Thursday, It won’t really be on offer until a vaccine or treatment for COVID-19 is developed, and neither is imminent. Ontario’s real challenge now is risk management, and that can’t be done intelligently without more facts about what is happening in stores, factories and workplaces. How unsafe are they, really?

Much of the economy continued to operate during the pandemic while the government issued stern warnings about the dangers of human interaction. Ontarians continued go to the bank, the bakery, the grocery store and the liquor store. It has even been OK to go to Walmart. And yet, there have not been reports of huge numbers of workers or shoppers falling ill or dying.

That’s a good- news story that offers plenty of insight into risk and how to minimize it. Take the government- owned LCBO. It operates more than 670 small and medium- sized liquor stores across the province. Since the pandemic began, the company has reported just seven of its 9,100 workers testing positive for COVID-19. If the LCBO can operate safely, other retailers can, too. It was good to see a significant loosening of retail restrictions in Thursday’s plan.

A week ago, Ontario Finance Minister Rod Phillips said the big lessons learned from the LCBO were about cleaning, protective measures for staff and controlling flow of consumer traffic. These are the same things that other businesses figured out for themselves, but never mind, at least there is consensus that they are effective.

What’s more, those standards are exactly what the public expects.

A poll by Abacus Data at the end of April showed that more than 70 per cent of people would be comfortable using transit, going to a mall or office, even going to a restaurant, as long as those basic conditions were met.

Closed schools and daycares are a big impediment to a broad reopening of the economy, but there is an untold good- news story in the works there, too.

Ontario has already opened 117 licensed childcare centres and another 30 will open soon. They are serving children of frontline workers. So far, there has been one outbreak among staff and no reported illness among children. The education ministry is studying the results to inform its plan to reopen schools. If the youngest children can be managed safely, we ought to question the supposition that older ones could not.

The government also needs to give the public a more useful perspective on COVID- 19 testing. The testing the government has been conducting has public health value in identifying people who have the virus, but it is of limited use in determining whether it’s safe to restart the economy. For that, testing of the broader population is required, and Ontario Health Minister Christine Elliott says that is coming soon. Testing should focus on workers in sectors that are reopening. Mass testing of everyone is not feasible.

The provincial government is on the verge of doing the right things, but it needs to show that the reopening is safe by relying on what we have already learned, not just by referring to public health numbers that have questionable statistical utility.

The premier needs a new approach. As a first step, Ford should cancel daily briefings from public health officials and replace them with an end- of- week progress report. The daily case figures tell us little, but they distract attention from what should be the government’s main message.

Ford should also consider limiting his own appearances to those days when he has something to say. On Tuesday, he teased the public about big reopening news coming, backed off Wednesday, then finally got to it Thursday. It’s an approach that has more in common with a striptease than a communications strategy.

They can still do better, but Ford and his team are making progress, at last.