A delay that risks lives

If there has been a low point in the past seven months of lows, it may well have occurred on Friday afternoon.

That’s when Premier Doug Ford emerged to concede the obvious — that the second wave of COVID-19 is gathering speed in Ontario at a frightening pace — and to announce what he should have announced at least a week earlier — that tough additional measures are needed if we’re to have any hope of stemming the tide.

Ford looked sombre and emotional as he confirmed that his cabinet has approved a 28-day ban in Toronto, Ottawa and Peel Region on indoor dining and drinking, closing gyms, cinemas and casinos, reducing the number of people allowed at social gatherings and public events, and so on.

These are the measures that Toronto’s public health authorities and mayor had been demanding for a full week, a week while the pandemic spread at what the experts say is an exponential rate.

The numbers didn’t quite reflect that for much of the week, allowing the premier to make the incredible claim on Tuesday that we were already flattening the new curve. But by Friday, Ontario was reporting a record 939 cases.

The disturbing truth seems to be that the sharp rise in cases was actually concealed by the turmoil in the province’s testing system. When Ontario put restrictions on who could be tested and how to get a test, the numbers of those testing positive didn’t reflect the real increase in the spread of the disease.

That’s pretty obvious, but it seems to have taken the vaunted “health table” that the premier relies on for advice by surprise. It, through chief medical officer of health Dr. David Williams, told the city of Toronto that it needed to see more evidence before going along with new restrictions.

The new evidence, meticulously compiled and presented to the premier on Thursday evening, just confirmed what Toronto and others had been saying all along. But by the time Ford green-lighted them, a precious week had been lost. At a time when the disease is spreading so quickly, that means the fight to contain it will be just that much longer and more difficult.

Ford clearly agonized about imposing new restrictions on businesses that were hit hard during the lockdown of March, April and May and have struggled to get back on their feet.

He said he didn’t sleep the night before announcing Friday’s measures; he comes from the world of small business, he knows how hard they work and he feels their pain.

That speaks well of his concern for them, and explains the $300 million the province is setting aside to cushion the blow for businesses that are directly affected. But the whole situation doesn’t speak well of his grasp on the challenge we face with the second wave of COVID-19.

It’s never been clearer that the economy can’t recover until the pandemic is well and truly contained. All those small businesses won’t have a solid future until people are confident they can go out safely in public, eat at restaurants, attend cultural events and so on.

As long as people have good reason to fear infection, there will be a chill on all those activities and more. Failing to impose restrictions when the disease is spreading is doing no one any favours, including the businesses involved. If COVID-19 starts getting out of control in other regions, the province should not hesitate to crack down there, too.

The new restrictions in Ontario mirror ones imposed a few days earlier in Quebec, where the second wave is even bigger. Taken together, they are depressing proof we can no longer hope that COVID-19 can now be contained through targeted measures like testing and tracing. Governments have bungled that effort, and the pandemic genie is now well and truly back out of the bottle.

The new measures, however late, should come as a sharp warning of the seriousness of the situation. They will hurt the businesses directly affected, but for the time being we can live without drinking in bars and gambling in casinos.

What we can’t live with is out-of-control spread of a deadly disease.

By the time Premier Doug Ford gave the green light to the new restrictions, a precious week had been lost