Micklebot
Moderator
- Apr 27, 2010
- 53,783
- 30,983
One big thing they did is take away financial barriers for calling in sick when you are even just a little sick. That's something that should probably stay in place until there is a vaccine.Like you said - saying they did nothing is wrong. If you could work from home on your laptop, that's what you did and are doing. I'm sure many people voluntarily cut down on trips and restaurant visits. But then you see video of crowded cafes and restaurants and you know many are not doing any distancing. And then you compare Ontario at 14.5 million people with a megacity in Toronto, with hundreds of thousands of people flying and driving back from hotspots in the United States and Europe.... we have less deaths than Sweden with 4 million more people. Per capita things just look ugly for Sweden.
How much are thousands of lives in Ontario worth to some people? Is it worth those outings to restaurants with friends and family?
There are lessons to be learned. I do want an inquiry. Not to blame Doug Ford or anybody but to figure out what we can do to avoid this situation next time. Maybe a situation like South Korea or Germany where the lockdown is shorter because there is better testing and tracing infrastructure and better healthcare capacity to deal with outbreaks.
Sweden is not a lesson for Ontario or Canada. It's not even a lesson for Quebec. There are better countries to learn from.
I think there are things to learn from Sweden; the way I see it, they skipped the lockdown step and went straight to the gradual re-opening stage. They've gone a few months trying to figure out how to safely have cafés and restaurants open. There's likely some things they've tweaked and improved on, some that worked right away, and some that outright didn't. I'm sure there are some things we can take away from their experiences that will help improve our future.
So far, they aren't the model I'd emulate on a country wide basis, but I think looking at it on a macro level might not be the right way. What failed in Stockholm might have been fine in a smaller region like Halland where their per capita cases was closer to Ottawas (I honestly don't know the finer details of what's going on by region, just that Halland reported 500 cases and has a population of about a third of Ottawas). Local demographics, things like if there's a senior home, or a meat processing plant, an international airport hub ect might influence the best course of action.