Juno News - Is Ontario's COVID response heading in the right direction？

00:00:00.000 The Ontario government has announced their timeline to be done with pretty much all COVID-19

00:00:10.060 restrictions. Lots of conversation about it, lots of opinions on it. What do you think about it?

00:00:15.460 I'll tell you what I think about it. And my first thought, my sort of top-line response to it all,

00:00:20.380 is that it is at least good news that they are setting these timelines, these targets,

00:00:25.560 even if they do couch them all with, well, if things change, we can move them around and so forth.

00:00:30.300 We're all familiar with the moving of the goalposts. But I think it sends a good signal that they are

00:00:35.380 saying to people, look, all this stuff, it's going to be gone sometime and sometime soon.

00:00:41.000 Because we all know there are voices out there who would like to keep these things in place

00:00:44.720 pretty much forever. We've all seen those opinion columns saying, we're going to have to be masked

00:00:49.440 for years and so forth. And those people clearly want that. And there are some people who want that

00:00:54.580 and they should be allowed to do that if they want to stay in masks for years. But

00:00:57.920 the rules have to change to allow everyone else to be able to make up their decisions

00:01:02.520 for themselves. So here's the substance of Ontario's announcement. They have said that

00:01:06.840 pretty much effectively, immediately, all capacity restrictions are done. Now that's great news,

00:01:12.320 but I think in some respects, it's bigger news than the government's making it out to be.

00:01:18.160 Now I heard from Chef Michael Hunter recently, I recorded a podcast episode with him where

00:01:22.260 he was talking about the fact that his popular restaurant in downtown Toronto, it's called

00:01:26.100 Antler Bar, it seats about 45 people. But because of Ontario government rules that were limiting

00:01:31.260 him to 50%, he could only have 22 people there. I mean, that's not a lot of diners for a place

00:01:36.900 where, I guess on busy days, he could get people in there fully. He could get 45 people in there.

00:01:42.620 And of course, he deserves to be able to do that. And it's good that the rules are changing for him.

00:01:46.460 But then when you look at a whole lot of other places, gyms, for instance,

00:01:49.600 yeah, I guess at peak time, they maybe sometimes get close to their capacity. But

00:01:54.340 generally, most of the time, they were not at their previous capacity anyway. So the fact that

00:01:59.780 the capacity limits are being further lifted, it is not the great expansion, the sort of big news

00:02:06.160 announcement that I think some news stories would have you believe. The more substantive stuff that

00:02:13.060 the government has announced, that's not going to come into place for a couple of months.

00:02:16.180 January 17th is the day that they say they're actually going to begin rolling back the controversial

00:02:22.800 domestic vaccine passports. Really interesting. I made the point a while ago when it was first

00:02:28.020 announced and first introduced that Doug Ford, who didn't want it originally, he said it would create

00:02:32.620 a split society. Oh, and by the way, he was right about that. And that's why he didn't want to do it.

00:02:37.200 Well, he went ahead and did it anyway. And then he said, it's not going to be in place for a day

00:02:42.520 longer than it needs to be. I said, well, okay, well, what does that mean? Which day is the day

00:02:47.200 it doesn't need to be in place? And he would not say. And I was writing about the fact, hold on,

00:02:53.040 you need sunset clauses. You need exit clauses for this sort of thing. Why aren't you setting a date

00:02:58.600 where you're at least hoping it's the day you will be lifted? Well, they've put that in place now,

00:03:02.600 January 17th. So whatever you think, whether it should be sooner or that the passports should

00:03:07.320 never been in place in the first place, at least you have this day to try and hold them to now.

00:03:11.540 The pressure is on him. And also those folks who would like to think that these passports will

00:03:16.340 be in place for the rest of our lives. Well, they've been now served notice that, that the

00:03:20.040 narrative, that the conversation is not trending in their direction, in their favor. When it comes

00:03:25.140 to masks, masks will not be lifted throughout Ontario until March 28th of 2022. That is the earliest

00:03:33.100 time. There's a lot of different approaches to masks going on across the world right now. In the UK,

00:03:40.020 it's just not happening at all. No mask mandates. In fact, all across Europe, there are a number of

00:03:45.680 countries, Finland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, they don't have any mask rules. And places that do,

00:03:51.220 Germany, France, they have other little revisions where, for instance, kids in low-risk school areas,

00:03:57.900 they're not wearing masks. A lot of exemptions that just show that Ontario and other provinces,

00:04:03.160 we have really strict mask rules. In the United States, most states do not have mask rules. Only

00:04:10.740 10 of them have mask mandates. Most of them are states with smaller populations. California and New

00:04:17.560 York, yes, they have mask mandates, but vaccinated people are exempt. And most people are vaccinated.

00:04:23.880 So most people are not under that mask mandate. So it's kind of interesting that Ontario has the

00:04:31.120 vaccine passport, which many places don't have, and has mandatory indoor masking, even in those

00:04:36.800 vaccine passport situations. So we actually have the most severe of all worlds in Ontario, 0.75

00:04:43.180 and those mask mandate rules not going away until March 28th. I think the mask rules should definitely

00:04:47.540 go away much, much sooner. And I think because we've seen elementary age kids not wearing masks

00:04:54.660 in the school system in various places around the Western world, including in BC for much the time,

00:05:00.300 although they've recently changed that, I think it's a clear sign that we should be able to take

00:05:03.520 the masks off our kids ASAP, and bottom line, make masks a choice for people. So there's a situation

00:05:10.880 in Ontario, the announcement, we'll see if they actually go ahead with those dates. Maybe they'll push

00:05:14.340 them back. Maybe they'll move them forward. But it's a good thing we're talking about the dates

00:05:18.220 now. And it's a good thing that we are hopefully moving this direction and people got to keep pushing.

Juno News - October 24, 2021

Is Ontario's COVID response heading in the right direction？

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