As Ontario reopens, fight ‘caution fatigue’

It turns out COVID-19 isn’t the only serious health issue we have to fear these days.

Another dangerous condition known as “caution fatigue” is on the rise, according to public health officials.

It spreads like wildfire when people grow so tired of the restrictions put in place to stop the pandemic that they become careless. They ignore the very safety guidelines that are finally defeating the coronavirus. Then some of them become the last thing they wanted — a COVID-19 patient.

We’ve needed to guard against “caution fatigue” for weeks. Now, as most of Ontario enters Phase 2 of its reopening, we have to be more diligent than ever in resisting it. As people in communities such as Waterloo Region taste freedoms they’ve been denied since mid-March and can again dine on a restaurant patio, get their hair done, swim at an outdoor pool or attend a religious service, they’ll be hungry for more.

Others, in places such as Hamilton and Toronto, which are still stuck in Phase 1 of the reopening, will bristle at being left behind. And the temptation provincewide could be to throw caution to the wind and try to return to life as it was lived pre-pandemic. That could be fatal.

The only cure for “caution fatigue” is to slow down and keep following the rules. Realize that the unprecedented measures taken by governments in Canada during the lockdown have worked. On Thursday, the Ontario government reported the lowest number of new COVID-19 cases since March 28 — 11 long weeks ago. That’s progress.

Back in April, provincial health officials warned that without strong government intervention, 100,000 Ontarians could die of COVID-19. Yet as of Thursday, 2,487 people had died of the illness in Ontario, a tragic, staggering number but nowhere nearly as devastating as it might have been.

It’s depressing to know there are still some holdouts convinced the lockdown was pointless. Such skeptics should consider the findings of a report undertaken at Imperial College London that concluded 11 European countries would have experienced 3.1 million addition deaths because of COVID-19 by early May had they not imposed lockdowns.

A separate study at University of California, Berkley found that the strong measures taken by governments in the United States, France, Italy, Iran, South Korea and China dramatically slowed the spread of the disease. Indeed, the actions taken by those six countries prevented 62 million new COVID-19 cases, which resulted in 530 million fewer infections.

All this proves that shuttering so much of our society saved countless lives. Yes, we need to be cognizant of the heavy social and economic costs of the lockdowns. But we must understand that we would be in far worse shape, not just in terms of our collective health but socially and economically, if our governments had not taken and we had not accepted extraordinary measures.

Trying to end the lockdown prematurely now would be reckless and irresponsible. And so, for instance, while the country’s vast tourist, travel and hospitality sector is lobbying the federal government to reopen Canada’s borders to international visitors after June 21, Ottawa should say no, at least until much later this summer.

As for all those suffering “caution fatigue” we’d urge them to keep physical-distancing when they’re in public. Where they can’t do that, they should wear a mask. And they should continue washing their hands — frequently.

We are, to be sure, slowly digging ourselves out of a deep, pandemic hole. If we’re foolish, we’ll fall back in.