At last, there is light at the end of the tunnel

If you live within a great swath of Ontario this week, you are probably feeling thankful. Premier Doug Ford has announced that a significant part of the province can move to Phase 2 of his regionalized reopening plan.

In the Peterborough and Waterloo areas, you’ll see outdoor dining and other services being allowed to reopen. If you live in the Niagara, Hamilton, Halton or GTA regions, you’ll be waiting for a while yet. But regardless, we can all see the light at the end of the tunnel.

What is less clear is whether the light is welcome daylight at the end of this long pandemic tunnel, or a train in the form of another wave of COVID-19. Are we ready for this?

The arguments in favour of reopening have been growing stronger and more strident day by day. We have credible experts arguing the shutdown is now doing more harm than good. The economy is truly staggered, with thousands out of work. The Ford government is under increasing pressure to loosen the ties holding down many parts of the province, in particular those that have not been hit too hard by the pandemic.

Phase 1 saw the beginning of that reopening and the difference was notable almost right away, with longclosed businesses open and adorned with long lineups. Traffic is back. Crowds of more than five are not uncommon. Further loosening in the “lucky regions” will see people able to gather in groups of 10 and under by this weekend.

We’re on the home stretch. Or are we?

In some other parts of the world, legal reopening has not equalled economic and social revival to the extent people had hoped for. Major U.S. cities that were reopened by state governors — prematurely, as illness and death tolls are suggesting — have not been flooded by lockdown fevered residents. It turns out, in at least some places, people will start going to restaurants and for haircuts when they feel safe, not when the government tells them it’s OK.

So what will make Ontarians feel confident enough to completely re-engage? Testing and numbers, almost certainly.

After fumbling on widespread testing for too many weeks in a row, the government and public health sector appear to finally have gotten their ducks in a row, and as a result the province reported Saturday that testing labs had completed more than 23,000 tests, the most in any day since the beginning of the pandemic. Public health experts in Canada and around the world have been saying for months that widespread testing will be key in helping people adjust to reopening.

And numbers. Original planning called for reopening only when new daily cases were nearing zero. We are not there yet, but we are reopening. As a measurement metric, raw new case numbers have been shown to be a seriously flawed in terms of accurately reflecting how widespread the infection rate really is. But they remain the most reliable and accessible metric we have. We all need to everything we can to continue pushing it toward zero.

How we deal with reopening and continuing to exercise common sense in terms of distancing, hand hygiene and other aspects of ongoing careful behaviour, could well determine whether reopening is successful or leads to another spike in the pandemic.

And even so, there is no indication at this point that shaken consumers are in a hurry to attend movie theatres or football stadiums. Nor, we would argue, should they be.

Ontario’s reopening is happening gradually, and it’s likely that many Ontarians will re-engage with their external lives the same way.