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A few thoughts on reports of a province-wide lockdown:
1) We have had a few times this fall in which “reports” have come out of what the province is considering, and two days later the announcement comes up a little short or different. I’d normally assume it’s not actually going to be as severe as what they’re saying...
1 cont’d) Except that this one has been widely reported and accepted as truth enough that I’m guessing the source that approached 680 had written proof that this was beyond just “the province is considering” and were otherwise considered reliable. Which leads me to believe that:
1) the province leaked this on purpose to get a few days of anger/outrage out of the way and also give major retail employers a few days to deal with logistics.
2) This is easy to do right now because school is out. And while workplace outbreaks remain a problem...
2) This is easy to do right now because school is out. And while workplace outbreaks remain a problem...
2 cont’d) My guess is some of those working parents will have no choice but to take time off to be home with kids. With schools out of the picture and possibly fewer people at work, we are likely to see new infections slowly go down after a few week.
2 cont’d) Buuuut not enough. When you have this many active cases, it takes a LOT of time. Nevertheless, if after 2-4 weeks we see a notable reduction in cases, it’s very likely the province will say “see? It worked!” and open up again.
3) We have SO MANY active cases and we haven’t even come close to resolved outpacing new cases in a long time, meaning active cases keep ticking up. Active cases lead to outbreak AND community spread. Which means both a) a lockdown is good and b) it is gonna take TIME to go down.
4) It does feel as though Northern Ontario is getting the short end of the stick here; mind you just yesterday I was saying I think it’s managed to withstand this on low population density alone. Nevertheless I truly do hope they only have to deal with two weeks up there.
4 con’t) Especially because those areas already have so little support for houseless and vulnerable people. It’s about to get worse.
5) Ultimately, and I can’t emphasize this enough, as long as food processing plants and fulfillment warehouses operate at normal capacity, there will be spread, and people will continue to turn a blind eye and think it’s all because they saw so-and-so go to a friend’s house.
5 cont’d) You think that viral picture of some people at a Best Buy or whatever is the reason we still have tremendous spread? Picture that every day in a factory. And those people also have to go grocery shopping, take their kids to school, go to the drugstore.
Basically, whatever this is will not make things better for those who need it most. Sorry.
