A sensible step into summer
It’s a holiday known by many names, one celebrated since 1845 in these parts, back before Canada was even a country.
But this Victoria Day long weekend — this May Two-Four, or May Long on the Prairies, or National Patriots Day in Quebec, or “Firecracker Day” to the long of tooth — might be the most eagerly anticipated and sorely needed of them all.
“We believe that pandemic fatigue is at a very high level,” Dr. Adalsteinn Brown, co-chair of Ontario’s science advisory table, said this week as the province announced its reopening plan.
Of that, the good doctor can be quite certain.
With vaccination rates and temperatures rising, with the third wave of COVID-19 and caseloads in ICUs in decline, the pent-up energy bursting for release is palpable after 15 months of various shades of lockdown.
On Thursday, acknowledging the cost and sacrifice of the stay-at-home order in place since March, Premier Doug Ford outlined a three-stage plan for reopening tied to vaccination rates.
It is, on balance, sensibly paced, while providing a clear incentive for vaccination.
The premier’s opening play was the easiest, unshackling as of Saturday golf courses and driving ranges, tennis and pickleball courts, soccer and football fields, baseball diamonds and batting cages, bike-riding trails and horse-riding facilities — measures that many public-health experts and opposition critics had been urging.
After that, the staged reopening will occur, if all goes well, in increments of 21 days triggered by vaccination targets.
Step 1 kicks in on June 14 — if 60 per cent of adults have received one dose of vaccine — and would allow outdoor gatherings of up to 10 people and outdoor dining for up to four at a table.
Religious services, rites and ceremonies could be held outdoors with capacity limited to permit physical distancing. Essential retail could open to 25 per cent capacity and nonessential retail to 15 per cent. Day camps, campgrounds, outdoor pools and splash pads could also operate.
Step 2 — at 70 per cent vaccination — increases the size of outdoor gatherings, the capacity of retail outlets and provides for small indoor gatherings of up to five people.
Step 3 — kicking in when 25 per cent of people are fully vaccinated and 70 to 80 per cent have received one dose — will allow for indoor gatherings, dining, religious events, sports and recreation facilities such as casinos and bingo halls.
The province’s science advisory panel said this week that keeping some public health measures in place until mid-June will make for “a good summer.”
But notably, the premier’s alarm at projections suggesting a case spike of up to 11 per cent if schools were reopened by early June left that vexing question unanswered.
To date, Ontario has seen more than 523,000 cases of COVID-19 and more than 8,500 deaths. Globally, the pandemic has killed more than 3.4 million people.
The province’s latest modelling, released this week, shows that case rates, positivity rates and hospitalization rates are all falling. But the health-care system — especially ICUs — remains under significant pressure.
While Brown and Dr. David Williams, Ontario’s chief medical officer of health, expressed cautious optimism that the battle against COVID-19 is being won, they implored Ontarians not to drop their guard.
What’s needed is a triumph of our recent experience over start-of-summer exuberance, a recognition that previous pandemic long weekends — with their socializing and gatherings — produced a spike in COVID cases.
Medical experts say that to make this summer better than last, vaccination must continue apace while public health protocols are observed.
Even outside, people must either maintain physical distancing or wear masks, they said, and travel between regions should be avoided.
Brown said crowds and indoor gatherings remain the biggest risk and variants are a wild card in any modelling, a theme Ford hammered repeatedly as a product of leaky border control by the federal government.
Over the decades, Victoria Day — held on the last Monday before May 25 — has grown in symbolism even as its origins have faded from public consciousness.
It is almost uniformly recognized as the unofficial start of summer, the reopening of cottage camps, launching road trips, unleashing the feeling of rebirth, freedom, possibility.
But a survey a few years ago found that only about half of Canadians knew the holiday celebrates the birth on May 24, 1819, of Queen Victoria.
This year, the province was essentially told that this Victoria Day weekend will be looked back on — either as the beginning of our return to something like normal, or the opportunity that we screwed up royally.
For Ford’s government, the chance to point to a coming dawn after the long season of pandemic restrictions was an obvious relief — rendering his obligatory side-swipes at border controls and teachers’ unions relatively tepid. “We’re almost there,” said Health Minister Christine Elliott. At that, even dear old Queen Victoria — who famously uttered the timeless royal complaint “we are not amused” — might have indulged in a smile.
Careful and cautious, of course.