Responsibility to follow rules lies with all of us

More than one-third of Ontarians aren't respecting public health restrictions meant to curb the spread of COVID-19, according to provincial numbers released Tuesday. How many deaths will it take to get their attention? Consider:

■ Since Jan. 1, about 200 long-term care residents have died of COVID-19 and there have been more than 1,000 deaths among long-term residents since the second pandemic wave started in September. Forty per cent of Ontario's long-term care homes are now in outbreak;

■ In the last four weeks, there has been a 72-per-cent increase in hospitalizations for COVID across Ontario, and a big jump in the number of patients in intensive care. Other health treatments — heart surgeries, cancer therapies, and so on — are being delayed, which will also cause more deaths;

■ The “positivity rate” — the percentage of COVID tests that show a person has the virus — has been steadily climbing and the highest rates today are in younger people. Under some provincial scenarios, by mid-February Ontario could be looking at between 20,000 and 40,000 new cases daily;

So back to those folks who aren't following public health guidance. Thirty-five per cent of people surveyed, according to the province, said they never or only occasionally practise physical distancing. Thirty-two per cent said people had visited their homes in the last four weeks for a meal or gathering. Among this latter group, one-third did not follow measures such as masking or distancing indoors.

You probably know someone in these categories; it wasn't just conspiracy theorists who bent the rules over Christmas. It was your neighbour, who usually hosts 20 guests and decided this year to invite “only” six or seven. It was the family who still wanted the weekly cleaning lady in.

It was (here's the premier's example) teenagers meeting up outdoors without distancing, then coming home to their parents, who then visited a grandparent, inadvertently infecting the older person with a sickness the family didn't know it carried.

This is not just about loopy anti-maskers deliberately flouting rules. It's about you and me.

That dilemma is why Premier Doug Ford has issued tighter “stay at home” orders, which local Ottawa leaders said Tuesday they support.

It's up to individual citizens — of all ages — to decide if we care about the lives of those around us.

If we do, we need to change our habits. It won't kill us. And we won't, inadvertently, kill others.