Open up province, let people decide

The provincewide lockdown imposed by the Doug Ford government has made the COVID-19 crisis worse. The Ford government claims they have put public health first, but I believe that is not true. They imposed a lockdown to make it look like the government has taken action.

Some medical experts have said that lockdowns are not the way to go since they can cause more harm. Examples include the tsunami of cancer, increased drug overdoes and a mental health crisis.

In Ford's Ontario, there is a mental health crisis never seen in Canada. The Canadian Medical Association in September 2020 reported 10 per cent of adults had “recent thoughts and feelings of suicide” — which is four times the normal rate.

Tens of thousands of businesses have also been forced to shut down. The unemployment rate has doubled and 320,000 people have not regained work. Ontario is faced with a catastrophic wave of small-business bankruptcies and the Ford government has no plan to get small business back up and running.

The government claimed they are worried about hospital capacity, but I believe there are no capacity issues. Numbers I checked show

ICU capacity was at 81 per cent in December and 81 per cent on Jan 4. This is lower than the 91 per cent (2018) and 84 per cent (2019) of daily-average ICU occupancy.

More significantly, the Ontario government pretends overcrowded hospitals are a new phenomenon caused by the pandemic, when “hallway medicine” has been the norm at many Canadian hospitals for years.

This crisis is in long-term care homes, not schools. Premier, stop scaring people, let people get back to their normal life and make their own personal choices.

Eric Renaud, Windsor