We could have more sympathy for Ford if he told us all the facts
Ontarians with strong opinions on how to approach COVID-19 fall into two basic camps. One group argues that Premier Doug Ford is inept because he has closed restaurants and gyms in so- called hot spots without solid, demonstrable proof that these businesses were contributing to the spread of the virus. The other group believes Doug Ford is inept because he didn’t close more things in more areas sooner, and the best thing would be to put the economy in a politically induced coma until the virus goes away.
These contradictory criticisms make life rather uncomfortable for Ford, but they make it confusing for everyone else. What is the right thing to do?
A definitive answer is difficult to find and if your first inclination is to rely on experts, good luck. You can find experts arguing for everything from full economic opening and herd immunity to dramatic lockdowns.
The wide variety of opinions is frustrating even to experts. This week, Eastern Ontario medical officer of health Dr. Paul Roumeliotis complained about how hard it is for public health officials to do their jobs when they are getting so much criticism from other doctors who are experts in infectious diseases, epidemiology or intensive care, but not in public health.
Throughout the pandemic, Ford has been slow and cautious with the economy, while leaning decidedly toward public health officials who most often choose protection from the virus over competing concerns about the economic and psychological damage pandemic restrictions cause.
The premier’s approach is drawing opposition from some municipal politicians and the restaurant and fitness sectors. They are raising important questions about what justifies a tighter lockdown, what benefit it delivers, and what standards have to be met to get businesses open again.
The business concerns are important and understandable. Restaurants and gyms have spent millions of dollars meeting the government’s safety restrictions and yet gyms are closed and restaurants restricted to takeout in Toronto, Peel, Ottawa and York. Health Minister Christine Elliott says health officials tell her that they are sources of infection. New numbers presented Thursday suggest the number is small. If a gym or restaurant has a problem, close it down, but what’s the gain in penalizing those that are operating safely?
Restaurants can be called “non- essential” businesses, but they are also a vital part of our social fabric. Closing gyms restricts people’s ability to exercise at a time when colder weather is limiting outdoor options. These businesses have been closed once, spent a lot of money to reopen, and are now closed again. They can’t afford to do that indefinitely.
It’s frustrating for business owners and the public not to know what it will take to move the province’s most populous areas back to Stage 3. The most visible trigger is total case numbers, but that’s affected by variations in test
volume. The percentage of people testing positive is a more useful number, but we don’t hear much about that. Or maybe it should be the reproduction number, the average number of additional cases generated by each affected person. How about hospital admissions, intensive-care bed use or deaths?
At a briefing Thursday, the province’s leading health officials spent 45 minutes providing new detail on all of those indicators, but they gave no indication of what numbers would be required to get the four Stage 2 communities back into Stage 3. That’s kind of an important omission.
Without a clear sense of what constitutes meaning
ful progress, it’s hard to tell if we’re making any. While Thursday’s presentation offered a lot of new numbers, it’s difficult to determine whether the decisions based on those numbers are logical. For example, health officials said that restaurants and gyms constitute a risk because people are indoors and not wearing masks. OK, but wouldn’t that be the case throughout the pandemic? Other than being a hermit, nothing is risk free in a pandemic.
Ford is being increasingly criticized for balancing health and economic needs. It doesn’t please those who want him to do more, or less. It’s still the right thing to
do. The issue is not whether health and economic needs should be balanced, but where the appropriate point of balance is.
Ford’s job now is to explain to the public what numbers are required for a return to something closer to normalcy in the province’s urban areas. The premier likes to remind Ontarians that he is “a business guy.” Businesses rely on facts, numbers and goals to measure progress. Government should, too.