March 31, 2021 – One would think after a year of a world wide pandemic that best practices would be the rule of the day for the largest province in Canada.
Sadly we have failed, and that failure starts at the top.
Too many rules without enforcement send the wrong messages to the public. Too many rules with too many loop holes and exemptions confuse stupid people, and for people like renegade MPP Randy Hillier literally lead to encouraging people to behave in contradiction to emergency health orders.
The science is really simple. Face masks work; social distancing is critical, and social gatherings lead to outbreaks whether in the home or elsewhere. Likewise, any activity that involves the removing or not wearing a mask is utter and complete insanity until enough people get vaccinated; especially until we have treatments for Covid which we still don’t have.
Not only that, the more cases of Covid, the more variants that lead to havoc and as we’re seeing now, more illness.
Premier Ford doesn’t seem to have ever really taken Covid seriously enough. His health minister doesn’t seem to have a clue, but we see our Premier making announcements daily while in areas like Eastern Ontario, his highest Sunshine List employee, Paul Roumeliotis bumbles the vaccination process and essentially refuses to charge area businesses and rule breakers regardless of the degree of violation.
Viruses don’t care about the economy, boo boo hurt feelings of depression, or other issues. They just want fresh hosts to spread and grow. It’s that simple, and it’s how all viral outbreaks have worked historically.
Yet we here in Ontario fail again and again to do the very basics. If Quebec can have enforcement why not Ontario? Looking at the numbers where there is enforcement we see a clear result, less Covid.
Ironically #covidiots like Randy Hillier screech about rights and utter nonsense, but he’s still not in jail, and frankly he’s rubbed it in Premier Ford’s face, literally daring to have him charged.
We need clear messaging from Ford down. We need very clear rules without nonsensical exemptions (for example there is literally not a single legitimate medical reason not to wear a mask.) We need to stop being nice and we need to start enforcing rules so we can move forward, instead of backwards. Our local stores in Cornwall are still allowing grocery clerks to just wear a face shield for example which is a recipe for disaster. Instead of fining the stores and correcting the situation Roumeliotis’ crack team told them to wear eye protection and not leave their plexiglass barriers (which they do). If you truly can’t fix stupid then surely you have to replace it?
Lockdowns are not a lot of fun; especially for the vast majority who have to endure them because of a government that has failed to protect the majority that does the right thing and allows scofflaws to run amok.
It’s time to step up or step down. And it’s time to start locking up people like Randy Hillier and his ilk that make a mockery of a virus that his hurt so many in Ontario and around the world.
Photo : Social Media
You can blame the idiot around here. Everyone thinks that it will never effect us took it as a joke with comment on social media or walking in anti mask now our numbers are outrageous. I live in south Glengarry as a member of the local fire department if you want to call it that anymore and we don’t have any direction at all when it comes to Covid. When I called a local politician I was told we’ll talk to the man in charge who is a fire chief and doesn’t have a college diploma. That got to be a first for a person who if you look up makes over 100k but can’t spell covid let alone have direction for medical calls involving covid. Our local mayor goes
To media saying open our business when we were under last lockdown and that all he cares about is money not lives. We won’t get past this Covid situation until our fearless leaders start to lead instead of break rules themselves. The way ppl are around here where they think about only themselves it won’t change or think there above covid and until then we will continue to be the problem not the solution.
First rate editorial. In relatively few words you nailed it. When will they stop looking at poll numbers and take all this seriously?