Is it too early to reopen our businesses?

Short answer: they never should have been closed in the first place, because that decision was based entirely on panic and not an objective analysis of the situation at hand...

...but, we're long past that point. We've now committed to "locking down" society even though these lockdowns have been nothing but a joke at best and I don't know how effective they really are.

Anyway, for better or for worse, we have a strategy...or at least I thought we had a strategy.

On March 17, 2020, the Canadian Province of Ontario imposed its version of the lockdown, on a day when Ontario gained 12 new cases of COVID-19 to bring its cumulative total to 189. The previous two days had seen case counts grow by 31 and 41, and the day after the lockdowns started, the case count grew by 25. In the days ahead, case totals would grow by a magnitude of a hundred and then eventually by the hundreds, leading up to today where 521 new cases were added giving Ontario a cumulative total, as of May 1, 2020, of 16,608 confirmed COVID-19 cases.

So, in the course of about six weeks, Ontario's COVID-19 totals have increased practically tenfold, and the daily number of new cases has also increased by a factor of 43, and there doesn't seem to be any signs of these trends abating.

Now, we can finagle about the numbers, raise questions about testing, bring up the death total (which, at 1,121, is just as grim), complain about prevalence and where it's "truly" spreading...but the fact of the matter is, the confirmed COVID-19 case number is the one number the public most easily understands and most readily available, with the confirmed case number being the standard bearer for discussing the severity and impact of the disease worldwide.

Having said that...it would stand to reason that if Ontario ordered a lockdown when they only had 189 cases and a new case count of 30 or 40 per day, you'd think that there'd be no discussions- at all- about ending the lockdowns when we're still getting 521 new cases a day and our case total stands at 16,608. If the situation then merited a need for drastic measures, why would the situation right now be any different?

Yet there is Ontario Premier Doug Ford, announcing today that on May 4, certain businesses can reopen. They're most just small scale businesses that don't deal with a lot of people- home and garden centres with curbside pickup, auto dealerships by appointment only, marinas but only to prep for boating season and golf courses, but only for maintenance.

It's a very, very, very, very, very, very small relaxing of restrictions...but it's a relaxing of restrictions nonetheless, and Ford has promised to do more in the coming weeks.

Now, I will grant that- like many other jurisdictions around the world who are also beginning to open things back up- Ford is likely receiving growing pressure from businesses to relax restrictions and allow them to reopen.

I'll also concede that Ford has been more measured in his approach than that of other places, like everyone's favourite punching bag, the State of Florida, who began reopening their beaches on April 19, or the Province of Quebec, which plans to reopen just about everything in a matter of days (even bars) despite being much harder hit by COVID-19 than Ontario was.

Still, a reopening is a reopening and...you know that saying about floodgates. Once you open them, even a little, you can't stop the flood.

Before long, Ford's list of allowed reopenings will include just about everything, because everyone else will want in on the action too. Especially the hospitality industry and the entertainment industry, who need the summer tourist season as their moneymakers.

You may be wondering why I sound opposed to Ford's idea and that of so many other places reopening when I said I didn't support their closure in the first place. Aren't I getting what I want?

The problem is that I just don't see any real government strategy when it comes to dealing with COVID-19- it's just based on reactions and panic. Just how people panicking over whether they were going to get distressingly sick back in March forced the lockdowns, businesses panicking over their rent is what is driving governments to reopen in May.

...and, quite frankly, that shouldn't be happening. If certain conditions caused the government to respond in a certain way, then it stands to reason that the government should continue its response until it can demonstrate that its response needs to change.

In other words, if all it takes is Ontario to have 189 cases of COVID-19 and 30-40 new cases a day to impose a lockdown so "the healthcare system is not overwhelmed", then it should stand to reason that, until we get back to only having 30-40 new cases a day and 189 active cases (or thereabouts) then there shouldn't be any discussion about ending the lockdown.

Unless Ontario says that now they can handle this caseload, which raises questions about why they put in the lockdowns in the first place.

Ultimately this all goes back to the lack of transparency and foresight that has blighted the COVID-19 crisis. Not just have years of healthcare cuts hampered our ability to deal with the crisis now, the inability of the government to put in meaningful measures to mitigate a situation they created means they don't have any hope to get the public to all buy in to their strategy.

Because if governments really did care about public health, they'd develop a strategy and stick to it, and do everything they can to make sure that strategy is successful. No one should have to worry about making their rent or their bills in a time of crisis and it's utterly ridiculous that governments have failed to take that into account.

Because if the government isn't going to take this seriously, then why should I?

-Daniel Arnold