Let’s try not to squander lockdown this time
Now it’s up to us. Let’s not blow it.
We should give some credit, where some credit is due. Ontario’s government has mishandled the second wave of the pandemic because on a fundamental level, it has not taken the virus seriously. Taking it seriously would mean strong, early interventions, and putting public health before the economy, and giving behavioural advice and incentives that amount to more than a wagging finger. For months, Ontario has been sliding toward lockdowns. Friday, a couple arrived.
But at least Premier Doug Ford and his government implemented something that looked like real lockdowns, in Toronto and Peel. It was late and incomplete, but this was the closest this province has come to hard, responsible moves since the spring. And maybe a step in the right direction can prompt another one.
The lockdowns “probably will have some meaningful effect,” says Dr. Isaac Bogoch, an infectious diseases specialist at the University of Toronto. “I don’t think we should expect miracles. Maybe it’ll slow the rates down, maybe we’ll start to plateau.
“But we’re at the point now where we need rates to slow down, we need to plateau, because our health-care system’s getting pinched. So as much as this stinks, it is the right move, purely because Scarborough’s (hospitals) are getting hit, Brampton’s getting hit, Mississauga’s filling up, Humber’s filling up. They had to do something.”
So they did something, and it actually looks like a lockdown. No indoor gatherings outside your household, and a 10person max outdoors. Indoor dining and bars closed, gyms and casinos closed, non-essential retail closed, and more. It’s expected to be 28 days, but that wasn’t specified.
The bar was low. This has been a goldfish government, swimming day to day, changing strategies on the fly while trying to keep businesses open and preserve votes in 2022. Four days ago, chief medical officer Dr. David Williams said almost every region in Ontario could be in the least restrictive green zone by Christmas. A week ago Ford changed the province’s framework but didn’t include defining a lockdown, and a week before that the same breathtakingly unscientific framework upended the entire strategy that Ontario had purported to employ.
This time, the government took and delivered medicine. It’s one step toward controlling the virus.
So now, do more. York has the third-highest rate of new cases in the province, after only Peel and Toronto, but York region leaders pleaded to avoid lockdown in a letter Thursday. Let’s see how long that lasts. And there still aren’t enough supports available.
“When we had that 28-day lockdown in Stage 2, this is what we needed then,” says epidemiologist Dr. Nitin Mohan, who teaches public and global health at Western University, and cofounded ETIO, a public health consulting firm. “But yes, this is as aggressive as they’ve been. I’m still waiting to hear about paid sick leave; still waiting to hear about how they’re going to build up testtrace-isolate. During these 28 days, if we don’t build up that capacity to where we need it to be, it’s going to be one step forward, two steps back.”
Indeed, without paid sick leave, Peel, home to so many essential workers, won’t be helped enough. The federal government has just passed stronger business supports, but federal paid sick leave isn’t enough. Fix that, and offer isolation facilities for those in congregate living situations, and you fix a lot.
“If we don’t address those factors, while this will bring things down in the short term, it will not necessarily address the risk and the outcomes that the most vulnerable in our community have been facing,” said Dr. Lawrence Loh, Peel’s medical officer of health.
Indeed. And if we don’t truly try to tackle the virus, what are we sacrificing in lockdown life for?
“For me the biggest question is what’s the end game here?” says epidemiologist and modeller Dr. Ashleigh Tuite of the University of Toronto, who sits on the province’s volunteer science table. “It was pretty clear that stronger measures were needed, and the current approach isn’t working. I don’t think that there were a lot of other options in terms of what you do next.
“But it’s surprising to me that there is no meaningful talk about anything beyond the shutdowns in terms of, how are you going to support people through this? I know there was talk of money for businesses, but again, nothing about paid sick leave, or support. What is the goal that we’re working towards? What are we trying to achieve? How do we know when we get there?
“It’s an action and it’s a strong action. It just feels like it’ll have a marginal effect. It’s really, what are we doing in addition to this? And that’s the thing with lockdowns, they’re not an end in and of themselves: they’re a way to buy us time to do other things. Which we squandered in the spring, and squandered over the summer. I guess we’ll see if we squander it again.”
Sources familiar with testing indicate that the province is indeed on track to be able to test up to 100,000 people in a day by January; contact tracing is harder, because contact rates had gotten so high that tracers have been told in Toronto that they didn’t remember who they’d been in contact with, But investments were made in September, and a lockdown should help that.
Long-term-care deaths didn’t move this province, but hospital capacity belatedly did. We don’t need to keep playing this game.
“People are tired and angry and frustrated,” says Tuite. “And it’s hard to get behind this without having a sense that things are going to get better, and if we’re going to have these repeated circles of lockdowns and easing restrictions, it’s just tiring. Don’t squander it.”
Don’t squander it. Institute paid sick leave. Up supports for the vulnerable, and those affected. Rent hotel rooms for people who need to isolate and can’t. Maybe if the province can take one step in the right direction, it can take more: one more, two more, three more, four. Now, more than ever, is the time.