Dear Editor,
If the plan calls for rebuilding trust in the Ontario Government, we are off to a terrible start.
Would you be able to point me to the part of The Statutes of Ontario where the law says that if you’re too young to vote you don’t matter? Or would a person need to contact Doug Ford directly for that information?
Removing all mandated COVID-19 public health measures before people (and yes, Mr. Premier, kids are people too) under the age of five even have the OPTION to get vaccinated isn’t just negligent. It’s criminal.
We have five beautiful grandchildren. The youngest is three. She cheerfully wears a mask all day at Day Care unless she’s eating or drinking. Without complaint. Without being reminded. Maybe when she’s a “grown up” she’ll realize what an imposition that is and learn how to complain. Our oldest granddaughter sometimes forgets to take hers off when she gets home from kindergarten. And has to be reminded that she can take it off. Of course, the three oldest grandkids are now sitting in school beside children whose parents took them to the COVID-19 Capital of the World – Florida – for March Break. Not only did Doug Ford ask their teachers not to tell those kids to keep wearing their masks, he ordered them not to. Why? Maybe Doug Ford knows. It has nothing to do with health care. Probably related to improving his re-election chances. Definitely not because he cares about keeping little kids safe. And guess what? Anyone who has ever met a kid under seven knows that the kids still wearing masks in school now feel uncomfortable and centred out. Thanks Doug!
This is usually the part where a member of Ford Nation pipes up with “You know. A very small number of young children have actually died from COVID-19”. I’m sorry, but “What’s a few dead little kids here and there if it means we all get to go to the Leafs game without masks on again?” isn’t an argument that sells in our house. And I feel very sorry for anyone if it actually sells in theirs.
My friend from Alberta is very smart. Biology graduate. He likes to remind me that the virus decides when it is done with you. Not the other way around. And that the virus just looks for the quickest ways to spread the farthest and fastest way it can. He actually believes the virus doesn’t listen to Jason Kenney and Doug Ford when they say people are really tired of the virus and it needs to go away!
Doug Ford says he’ll reimpose mandates “if we have to”. So obviously the Ford Government has modelled the data and has agreed on a certain number of additional unnecessary deaths, ICU inhabitants, and long haul COVID patients, that Ford thinks are justified – so we don’t need to wear a mask at the grocery store. Or go for beers and wings without the gross indignity of having to show a vaccine passport. Doug has his numbers. Do you have yours?
Maybe it isn’t just kids? Maybe lots of us don’t matter?
Epidemiologists say we are on the cusp of a Spring Wave. We just had a week over week increase in hospitalizations. But Doug Ford said we didn’t need to worry because we have made the investments to “ramp up” to 3,000 ICU beds if we need them.
Read that last sentence again. Carefully. Slowly.
In Ontario we aren’t trying to prevent ICU patients. We’re preparing to house them.
Unfortunately, that’s both a really bad idea and not remotely true. Strangely, and yet again, the Director of critical care at Michael Garron Hospital “cast doubt” on the Premier’s ill-advised reassurance. He says:
“Currently, Critical Care Services Ontario only lists a “total funded ICU bed capacity” of 2,343 for adults. About 70 per cent of those beds are filled.”
“Those of us who actually work in ICUs know that ramping up to 3,000 beds is not only impossible, but a dangerous thing to say,” Warner said. “It provides false reassurance that we have the person power to manage a surge of that size.”
I support rebuilding trust in Government in principle. Completely. But as you can see, at the moment I’m struggling with doing that with the one we have in Ontario.
We saw how well pretending the virus wasn’t real worked out for the United States. A million dead Americans already. And counting. The experts figure it’s probably more like 1,400,000. It seems certain States also like to pretend people who died of COVID didn’t die of COVID.
We’re about to find out how pretending the virus is going away works out. Right here at home in Ontario.
Good luck everybody. Especially you little guys.
Bruce Mason, Meaford
