Ontario gambling with lives by ending lockdown

It’s not necessary that we start our economic reopening next week. Ontario could delay this move for another couple of weeks.

On Sunday, it will be one month since the provincial government issued its stay-at-home order, effectively sentencing us to house arrest except when travel is essential.

It was done to bring the out-of-control spread of COVID-19 back under control. And it worked.

On Jan. 14, the day the stay-at-home order took effect, Niagara reported 136 new cases and there were 1,538 active cases across the region. On Friday, there were 38 new cases and 490 active ones. Clearly, the lockdown is having its desired effect. But by rescinding the stay-home order and reopening the economy, even slightly and gradually, the government is in effect declaring victory.

We may be winning the battle, but clearly the war is not yet won.

Local medical officers of health, including Dr. Mustafa Hirji here in Niagara, have warned it is too soon, the lockdown needs a little more time to truly tame the beast. Reopen too quickly — especially with the new COVID variants spreading now — and we risk having to return to a third lockdown in the near future. And lockdowns don’t get any easier, the more we have.

What’s the harm in waiting two more weeks? The latest evidence that we might be moving too quickly, too soon, comes in a study that shows the B.1.1.7 variant is seeing an average daily growth rate of 12 per cent since late January. In that time, it has grown from 50 cases to 236 across Ontario as of Wednesday, and is considered far more transmissible than the original coronavirus.

The variant hasn’t been seen in Niagara or in Hamilton, but is present in Peel, York and Toronto. Coincidentally, those are the three regions in Ontario that will wait a week longer than everyone else to reopen.

When Niagara stores reopen, and theirs don’t, chances of one of the COVID variants showing up here rise dramatically.

Our students only returned to the classroom this week, their first time back since before Christmas. Not enough time has passed to determine the success of that decision.

Reopening widely will only confuse health experts, many of whom advised waiting after the schools reopened before moving on to other parts of society. “If you open schools at the same time as everything else, and there is wide community spread, it would be impossible to know if schools are playing a role in that,” Hirji told the Niagara Dailies in a Feb. 4 story.

If we reopen too soon, before time and vaccines have had their full effects, we also risk forcing yet another closure of schools . It would be no treat for parents or students. In many cases parents don’t have the time or abilities to be assistant teachers and another reversal could cause even greater harm to students.

The vaccine rollout has been delayed but, we are told, will kick back into gear next week and all through February and March with the arrival of more doses.

So far in Niagara, we have managed to vaccinate elderly residents in all nursing homes and many of the at-risk retirement homes. But we have barely scratched the surface for providing shots for healthcare workers, let alone the rest of the population.

There aren’t many health experts urging Ontario to start the reopening process; the move to do so seems driven more by economics. And truthfully, it feels more like a roll of the dice if we reopen now: One of those “close your eyes and squeeze the trigger” moments.