Juno News - June 14, 2021


Were the lockdowns worth it？

Mentioned
Doug Ford
Ryerson Conservative club’s lonely defence of Egerton Ryerson Futile Apologies

Episode Stats


Length

4 minutes

Words per minute

156.73

Word count

715

Sentence count

49


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

In the wake of the recent reopening of Ontario s premier Doug Ford s plan to reopen the province, do you think the lockdowns were worth it? In this episode, we talk to people in the community about whether or not they think the lockdown was worth it.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.000 I'm Jessica Schwintaniewski for True North, and I'm out in Toronto today at Trinity Bellwoods Park.
00:00:12.120 Now, some of you may have heard of this park before.
00:00:14.560 This is where the original Cove Idiots were dubbed and where the city of Toronto fenced off cherry blossom trees and painted social distancing circles in the grass two years in a row.
00:00:26.020 Now, in recent weeks, Ontario Premier Doug Ford has announced his reopening plan.
00:00:31.820 We're now in a position to look at a slow and measured reopening of the province.
00:00:37.440 And working in lockstep with our public health officials, we have created a plan to safely reopen in the coming weeks.
00:00:47.220 With these lockdowns, thousands of small businesses were forced to shut their doors and millions lost their livelihoods.
00:00:53.680 We now have a mental health crisis in Canada, and we are over a trillion dollars in debt.
00:01:00.100 Some may argue these lockdowns saved lives by theoretically slowing the spread of COVID.
00:01:06.980 That being said, were the lockdowns worth it?
00:01:10.180 Let's hear what people have to say.
00:01:12.040 So, do you think the lockdowns were worth it?
00:01:15.480 Yeah, I don't think the lockdowns were helpful at all.
00:01:19.380 So, yeah, I saw a lot of my friends struggling.
00:01:23.520 With regards to the lockdown, I think the governments are just doing the best that they can.
00:01:27.360 And it's a lot of trial and error.
00:01:30.460 Maybe they shouldn't have forced this big of a lockdown from a personal opinion.
00:01:35.580 I think the lockdown has been, like, so long, like, way too long on people that, like, mental health actually, like, worth thinking about right now, also economy.
00:01:49.120 I think it's been worth it because slowly but surely we are improving.
00:01:53.480 So, we're hopeful at least have a half a summer, you know, not like last year, people were depressed and, like, pretty much drinking themselves to sleep.
00:02:02.960 It just doesn't make sense to me, you know, like, if you're locking down, people are losing their jobs, mental health.
00:02:08.800 Like, I've gained a lot of weight since the pandemic started.
00:02:11.140 The gyms are closed.
00:02:12.500 I would have liked maybe a stricter lockdown that was shorter.
00:02:15.220 Maybe that would have been better.
00:02:18.400 First of all, the first lockdown should be a little bit longer because I think that that's the time when we're more, like, not sure what's going on.
00:02:26.480 Like, people are more, like, not afraid, but, you know, like, we're just more careful about everything.
00:02:32.580 And if that time was a little bit longer than what it was, it probably would have been better.
00:02:37.080 I mean, if the lockdown from way, like, early from the beginning, if they actually locked down, not partially, but completely, like, as many cities, other cities in the world did, I think we have might done better.
00:02:55.020 I have a son, too, and I saw a lot of moms struggling, kids struggling mentally, emotionally, physically.
00:03:03.840 What I've seen in my surroundings, it was, it did more harm than it did good.
00:03:11.320 Can I ask, did you yourself follow the stay-at-home order?
00:03:16.700 No, but that's because, again, I live alone and I kind of just make sure that I'm, you know, safe.
00:03:26.940 To a certain degree, no, no, I did not.
00:03:30.200 Like, not completely, yeah.
00:03:33.100 But I have a bubble.
00:03:35.100 I do have a bubble that I, like, I see the same people, but I do see people.
00:03:42.200 Not one little bit.
00:03:44.260 And I feel healthier than I've ever felt before.
00:03:47.720 And I think it has something to do with me meeting with friends, you know, enjoying my time outside, getting fresh air, being together with people that I love.
00:03:58.640 And, yeah.
00:04:00.240 Honestly, I'm not going to lie.
00:04:01.360 I've been around, but not, like, with 10 people or something.
00:04:06.800 You know, me or my girlfriend, we go out just, you know, just for a walk or if we want to go port credit or whatever.
00:04:13.960 You know, we do our normal things.
00:04:15.320 Well, there you have it.
00:04:17.360 Quite a bit of mixed reactions on whether or not the lockdown should have been more strict, less strict, shorter, longer.
00:04:24.020 But what one thing is clear is that Toronto is ready to put this behind them and get back to normal life.
00:04:31.420 For True North, I'm Jessica Schwintaniewski.