Long Blog #4-The Ongoing Issue with Ontario’s Numerous Lockdowns
Like any other Ontarians out there, the frustration of the long continuous lockdowns since the pandemic had started is rising as months are going by in the year 2021. Now that the 1 year anniversary of the spread of Covid-19 across the world has passed, Ontario is now in its fourth or fifth lockdown? I don’t know I’ve lost count since Summer ended and schools began in September. Because of Premier’s Ford’s lack of comprehending what is happening and not realizing this is far serious than it has ever been, all of Ontario now have to suffer the consequences. In almost every city, town and region; especially Toronto, there has been no improvement in this ongoing issue with Ontario’s numerous lockdowns and hope is now moving far from what was originally expected.
Since Ford is the province’s Premier, his cabinet has had full control of the situation and has resulted in them not handling it properly or effectively. The Conservatives thought that since the cases were at an all-time low throughout the months of June to August, that it was acceptable for them to re-open schools with populations of thousands of students. But low and behold twas not a great decision and was one of the main reasons for the now ongoing quarantine for everyone since the surge went from 50 cases to 5,000 in just one day.
But that wasn’t the only ongoing issue, the amount of flights going in and out has caused a severe effect on the rising cases. For some reason, this wasn’t resolved or taken seriously at all because almost everyone had access to leave and enter the province if they wanted to and no one batted an eye. Most of the visitors or citizens were arriving from countries with high cases ignoring the rules and regulations and not being held responsible since no one even cared to notice. This was also the main issue in the rise of cases throughout the end of 2020 and the start of 2021. It wasn’t until now that the countries with the highest visitors (Pakistan and India) being seen as problematic to the solution, finally made the government pause flights for 30 days to curve the high numbers of cases. A small resolution, but a positive effect nevertheless while showing the long-awaited pressure for the government to take a stand that would’ve saved hundreds of lives that died of Covid-29.
For instance, “The variant-driven third, and most serious, wave of COVID-19 has brought the province’s hospital system to the edge of critical breakdowns and claimed the life of a 13-year-old girl — among Canada’s youngest victims in one of its most pandemic-ravaged communities,” (Winfield, 2021).
This story being amongst many before and after it proving what exactly is happening right now in the province as we speak.
With everyone enduring the struggle of protecting themselves and living lives in homes for months, the ones that have it worst are the nursing homes. Although they were the first ones to follow the rules that were set when the pandemic began, they had rough interactions with the virus. The reason for this? Seems as though it was the government’s negligence that started it all.
As CBC News states, “Internal government documents obtained by CBC News show few signs that Ontario prepared the long-term care sector for the risks from COVID-19 before the virus began its deadly spread through the province’s nursing homes,” (Crawley, 2021).
Meaning that the government could care less about the elderly since they weren’t deemed as an important issue to be dealt with. Giving another view as to why this pandemic has given Ontarians more stress than ever before because their government isn’t doing their job as they’re supposed to.
Quarantine has financially affected hundreds and thousands of Ontarians from having to be fired from the economy being hit on lack of spending on many rising small businesses, to where some companies went bankrupt. This has led to many relying on government checks such as the CERB and the CESB to afford the bills they have to pay. Some are forced to leave because new restrictions have caused them to lose their jobs as none are seen as essential except for groceries and nothing else. A reasonable answer can be for the Provincial government to help them by allowing workers to be on paid leave right? Well not really.
This isn’t the case here since, “Ottawa is rejecting Ontario’s offer to top up the federal paid sick leave program to $1,000 a week for provincial residents instead of creating its own,” (Beattie, 2021).
As if this couldn’t get any worse now the government doesn’t want to help the citizens that had this problem laid on them by the Province. If that doesn’t display the current atmosphere of what is going on in Ontario, I don’t know what will.
But children up to grade 12, have an entirely different outcome on the pandemic since they are seen as worthy enough to get checks. Unlike struggling workers who are trying to be financially stable, the Ontario government appears to seek their retribution on the kids of the province.
Therefore declaring that, “the government will begin issuing payments of $400 for each child or youth up to Grade 12, or $500 for each child or youth, with special needs, up to age 21,” (Sudbury, 2021).
Another positive outcome on the ridiculousness of Ontario’s government handling the pandemic situation that has negatively affected thousands of lives. However, the question is still unanswered as to how will this all be over and for how long? Will it be another year of confusion and lack of authority on its citizens? Or will the government finally overcomes its dilemma and fix the problem that so many are waiting for. I guess we’ll all have to wait and see…again.
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