Give Ford credit for trying to strike a delicate balance
With caseloads rising, it was his time to act
During this COVID-19 pandemic, the choice for politicians everywhere is the same: would they prefer more deaths or more economic destruction?
Ontario Premier Doug Ford has tried hard to keep a balance between the economy and public health, but Friday the pressure to lean toward the safety of the public became unbearable. The package of new restrictions he announced is a blow to the economy, but they are still in keeping with the targeted approach he has promised.
This is not the sweeping overreaction that Ontarians saw in the first wave of the pandemic. Instead, the government is imposing relatively modest changes in Toronto, Peel Region and Ottawa, the province’s three virus hot spots. Things remain unchanged in the rest of the province, as they should.
Unlike the first shutdown, retail remains open in the hot spots and restaurant takeout remains open, while indoor and outdoor gatherings have been limited in size, but aren’t banned. Friday’s announcement is still bad news for restaurants, which l ost indoor seating; for gyms, which have been closed for unclear reasons; and for a string of other businesses, such as movie theatres and casinos, which have been running with severe attendance limitations.
The focus is on limiting people’s opportunities to gather and transmit the virus. The vast majority of the economy, however, will remain open, as it has throughout the pandemic.
Ford has taken a lot of heat for being too slow to act, but this was not an easy decision. It’s one thing for the Ontario Hospital Association or individual medical experts to call for an economic clampdown. They don’t have to take responsibility for the consequences of closing more businesses and eliminating more jobs.
Give Ford credit for being consistent. As the economy reopened, he was slow and cautious in allowing business to return to some semblance of normalcy. He has been slow and cautious in adding economic restrictions, too.
His medical advisers made a compelling case for action, one Ford would have been hard-pressed to ignore, especially after continuously telling people that he acts on their advice. The key points are that case numbers have been rising consistently, the percentage of positive tests in the three worst- hit areas has reached a worrying level, the virus is spreading into the older population, and hospital volumes are heading towards a level that could strain the system.
The government’s latest data presentation at least gives us a clearer idea of the previously opaque thresholds that compel the province to act. It seems that Ford and his advisers can live with daily case totals of 500, but not over 700. Similarly, positivity rates above two per cent of those tested are a cause for action.
It will be interesting to see if Ford’s moves do anything to lessen recent dissatisfaction with his government. Ford is being blamed for botched testing, school opening and hospital capacity. Many of the criticisms are off-base, but that doesn’t stop people from believing them.
The issue with testing is lack of lab capacity and it is not easy to resolve due to lack of materials and qualified workers. The mistake Ford made was promising to ramp- up testing like no one has ever seen. Without a parallel increase in test processing, it was a guarantee we’d see the backlog the province has now. It has also undermined the validity of the test data, as the data are not a reliable reflection of what happened the day before. Not that the weakness of the information stopped the government from acting on it.
Despite widely predicted disaster, the school reopening has been a success so far, at least in terms of health risk. There have been some outbreaks, but not many.
Hospital capacity is still an issue. Some, like The Ottawa Hospital, have put in place solid plans for how to handle a COVID surge, but others seem to lack leadership. The capacity issue needs to be addressed because, as the medical experts pointed out Friday, hospitalization numbers will go up despite the most recent moves.
In all, Ontario’s new restrictions can be fairly argued as too much or too little, too soon or too late. That’s an indicator that Ford is still on a balanced path. That said, the damage that will come from Friday’s announcement is a worry. When we look back at this pandemic, we are likely to see that the economic devastation caused by the disease and government’s reaction to it is far more serious and lingering than COVID-19 itself.