By: Greg Staley
Make no mistake about it, Premier Ford’s “reopening plan” is nothing more than a plan to fail Ontarians. The Premier doesn’t care about your business, your job or your family and the veil that allows him to pretend as though he does care has worn thin – Ontarians are seeing right through him and his government.
The Premier announced to reporters yesterday that he was aware that his government’s measures “came with a great price” but said, “speaking to you today I can say that these measures have worked.” Now it’s time to debunk the Premier because by all accounts lockdowns don’t work and we’ve known this fact since August of 2020 (Lancet paper). Now new studies are coming out that appear to show that COVID-19 is seasonal and affects countries with lower average temperatures to a greater degree. This all suggests that we need to learn to live with COVID and resume life as normal with precautions in place for our most vulnerable.
Some Studies suggest COVID-19 is seasonal
“Between the time when COVID-19 transitioned from being an epidemic to being declared a real pandemic of global significance, regions with higher temperatures (>20°C) still reported lower numbers of COVID-19 cases than those with lower temperatures. Notably, 90% of SARS-CoV-2 transmission occurred within temperatures ranging between 3°C and 17°C in February and March 2020” – “Is coronavirus disease (COVID-19) seasonal? A critical analysis of empirical and epidemiological studies at global and local scales”
To clarify, between February and March of 2020, 90% of SARS-CoV-2 transmission (cases) of those studied occurred within regions where temperatures ranged between 3 degrees and 17 degrees. In essence, our fall and winter seasons (influenza season) appear to be the ideal environment for COVID-19 to spread in. Now the government puts their lockdowns in place towards the end of influenza/COVID-19 season and they can pretend like their draconian lockdowns are the reason the cases decreased – not the weather.
Ford’s Reopening Plan is a bust
You can read the full details of the Premiers Reopening Plan here.
First things first, the Premiers reopening plan for the province hinges heavily on vaccination rates. The Reopening plan itself says that “Step One of the roadmap may begin after 60 percent of Ontario’s adults receive at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine.” The reopening plan provided by the Premier also included a big IF included in it. It says that “if public health indicators, such as hospitalizations, ICU occupancy and new admissions and case rates indicate the province can safely move to this step of the roadmap.”
What does that mean? What do those numbers look like Premier? Does this mean the province will open essentially only if you feel like it is politically viable to do so? Thanks for the details and transparency Premier!
Breaking down the 60% vaccination target – its a pipedream
The Premier hinged step one of reopening the province on achieving a vaccination target of 60%. This means that to begin receiving back scraps of freedom and the ability to live your life and operate your businesses – 60% of Ontarians must vaccinate themselves with an interim approved vaccine that has no long-term studies on it. Even if 60% of Ontarians are willing to vaccinate the question is how long would it take to achieve this target? To answer that question we must look at the world’s leading nations in COVID-19 vaccination rates.
Nations like Israel and the UK have led the world in giving their citizens their first doses of the COVID-19 vaccine with rates of 1st dose vaccination at 60% in Israel and 56% in the UK. One thing is certain – Canada is months and months behind both of these nations in our vaccine rollout – so is reaching a target of 60% of Ontarians becoming vaccinated in the near future reasonable? Can Ontarians really expect to have step one occur during the summer? If so how late in the summer?
We could be months away from hitting the Premier’s arbitrary vaccination target of 60% and even if we do we will only get back scraps of our freedom. The way I see it business owners have been left with two choices. The first choice is to listen to a government that has contradicted itself countless times and keep your business closed and as a result you will likely lose everything. The second option is to open your business and face the heat of the government threatening to take everything from you and hope that other businesses follow suit in unison as there is strength in numbers.
Business Owners aren’t only ones being effected – massive job losses are being posted
Business owners aren’t the only ones being affected as people lose their jobs in massive numbers due to government lockdowns. In April alone, Statistics Canada posted that Canada had lost nearly 2 million jobs in April alone – this is the cost of these measures. In 2019, nearly half of all Canadians surveyed were within $200 of insolvency – how much higher is that number due to all of this?
Article: “Dan Kelly CFIB President “We’re really close to a societal breakdown” – 1 in 5 Ontario businesses expected to close due to lockdowns” – “data shows that across Canada we are expecting 180 thousand business fatalities – 75,000 of those in Ontario. This is on top of the 60,000 businesses that closed in 2020. That means that across Canada 1 in 6 businesses will close and in Ontario 1 in 5 given the length of the measures. That’s 20 percent of Ontario’s businesses we expect to disappear because of the lockdown measures.”
“We’re not done with this pandemic yet”
The Premier finished his short speech before handing the mic over to Health Minister Christine Elliott by saying that “we’re not done with this pandemic yet.” The Premier is clearly not done with the pandemic indeed as he is seeking to extend his emergency powers all the way to December 1st, 2021.
NDPs Peggy Sattler rails against Ford Government for seeking emergency power extension
The NDPs Peggy Sattler of London West railed against Premier Ford and his government for seeking an extension to the emergency measures. She said, “there is no possible justification for this one-year extension on the emergency orders unless it is to continue the attack on worker rights that we have seen repeatedly taken by this government since it was elected in 2018.”
Sattler also said that she would question “whether these emergency powers have had any discernible impact on Ontario’s success in dealing with the pandemic.” She noted that these emergency orders “allow employers to override collective agreements” and that “they did nothing to prevent the third wave.”
It is a crazy world when I find myself agreeing with the NDP. These measures are a blatant violation of our Charter and they haven’t done anything to prevent the “third wave” as Sattler noted. These measures have also allowed employers to “override collective agreements” according to Sattler. Perhaps more desirable than anything else to the Premier is that these emergency measures allow the Premier to do as he wishes without having to explain himself to the House – perhaps that’s why he wants the extension.
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