Five students in my kid’s 8th-grade class got COVID-19 last week. Parents only found out about it through the grapevine because the reporting changes instituted by the province some weeks ago no longer require schools to notify parents unless at least 30 per cent of the school is infected. Needless to say, the prospect of our entire household and those of other parents being infected by the virus is unnerving and not something anyone should have to contemplate.
But the pandemic is over, according to Premier Doug Ford, so let’s not worry about that.
Ford announced the lifting of mask mandates last week. Effective March 21, masks will no longer be required in most indoor settings, including schools. All COVID restrictions will be gone on April 27.
Some schools boards have expressed concerns that it’s too early for that. Both the Hamilton and Toronto district school boards notified parents after the premier’s announcement last week of the changes. The former said it would be keeping mandates in place. The latter encouraged students to “continue with the layers of protection that make you feel comfortable.” Ontario universities have also announced that they will be keeping mask mandates until at least the end of the winter semester.
It’s the safe thing to do given that cohort requirements that have been in place in schools since the beginning of the pandemic will also be lifted when kids return to classes after the March Break. The head of the province’s science advisory table on COVID-19 has also stated that it’s too early to lift masking mandates.
But the premier is having none of it. He insists that schools must follow the advice of the chief medical officer of health, Kieran Moore. School boards are not the experts, Ford railed. They will have to seek permission from Moore, it seems, to keep mask mandates. That was after Ford said on Wednesday that those who choose to can continue to wear a mask after mandates are lifted. Indeed, there is no such requirement for private schools. What happened to individual choice?
The premier’s hypocrisy is a slap in the face, really, to the majority of Ontarians who have made personal sacrifices by getting their vaccine shots, wearing masks and taking the precautions necessary to protect themselves – and others – and save our health care system from collapse.
But it’s not those folks that the premier is interested in these days. It’s those among his base who never believed the pandemic was real to begin with that Ford’s message is directed toward.
With an election around the corner, it’s the “freedom convoy” sympathizers who held the country hostage for three weeks demanding the lifting of vaccine mandates and COVID restrictions that are important to Ford’s re-election chances. When it comes to masking mandates, individual choice is okay for them but not everyone else, it seems.
It used to be that the decision not to wear a mask was a political statement. Now, Ford wants to turn a decision to wear a mask into a political statement. It’s not. It’s an “I don’t want to get sick and die,” statement.
On Saturday, the premier appeared to backtrack again on mask mandates, posting a tweet encouraging “everyone to support each other and respect every person’s decision.” But the premier’s insistence school boards lift mask mandates come March 21 is setting us up for a bigger confrontation on the streets and other public spaces between those who may choose to continue to wear masks and those who don’t. It’s already happening on public transit, for example, where masking mandates will be lifted April 27. Perhaps we’ll be in a better place by then.
Ontario is still registering thousands of new COVID-19 cases a day. We don’t know the exact number for sure because the government did away with contact tracing and testing months ago.
While the Ford government is more interested in giving the appearance that COVID-19 is no longer a threat and that we can go on with our merry lives, test positivity is going up. Just sayin.’ The experiences of the last two years should tell us that we can’t ignore trends in other countries and right now those are not going in the right direction in China, Denmark or the UK.
It’s been a popular refrain of the premier’s that we all have to learn to live with COVID. But that doesn’t mean we stop doing the things that protect ourselves and each other from the virus.
