Lockdown ontario 202212/12/2023 ![]() There's not a great deal of confidence out there among teachers, administrators or parents that regular in-person classes will resume fully on Jan. Moore's forecast that all employment sectors will face 20 to 30 per cent of staff either calling in sick or having to self-isolate due to Omicron factored into the most controversial measure imposed this week, the closure of schools.ĭuring the pandemic, Ontario has shut down its classrooms and put students into online learning for longer than any other province and more than just about every nation in western Europe. The sheer speed of Omicron's spread also means the nurses and doctors who provide care are getting infected or exposed to COVID-19, stretching Ontario's burnt-out health-care workforce even more thinly. The modelling presented in mid-December forecast upwards of 10,000 new cases per day by Christmas and that's exactly what transpired.Ī small percentage of those who got infected over the holidays now need care in hospital, but even a tiny percentage of hundreds of thousands of infections still amounts to a lot of patients. ![]() Ontario lockdown means these workers are out of a job - again.Ontario's COVID-19 case counts are unreliable, so these metrics will tell us when Omicron wanes. ![]() It's the first time since the initial declaration of a state of emergency back in March 2020 that the government has brought in significant new restrictions without presenting full-fledged modelling as a justification. "Ford was inundated with calls from hospital CEOs, labour leaders, corporate presidents and public health officials, warning that Omicron was contributing to mass staffing shortages, which threatened to disrupt the province's labour force," writes Robert Benzie, The Toronto Star's Queen's Park bureau chief, in this story on the reasons behind the government's moves. Just 72 hours after that announcement, Ford and his ministers were in an emergency cabinet meeting. Kieran Moore announced that school would resume with in-person classes the following Wednesday, only two days later than scheduled. That's when Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. We'll also never know how well Ontarians would have adhered to such measures if they'd been in place over the holiday period.Īs recently as last Thursday, the government seemed headed in the direction of a pretty much normal new year. We'll never know what difference it would have made had things kicked in three weeks sooner. ![]() Some two million Ontario students, including four-year-old Sasha Mitsui, are currently learning online as the provincial government has ordered schools closed until Jan. That's when the pollsters found growth in voters feeling the government wasn't doing enough. The chief exceptions: when Ontario neared the second and third waves without imposing significant new restrictions. Polling firms that have been tracking Ontarians' views throughout the pandemic have generally found more voters saying the government was getting it right on COVID-19 restrictions than voters criticizing the measures as either too loose or too tight. Will this Omicron-driven rise in cases and hospitalizations - or the government's move to shut schools and ban indoor dining at restaurants in response - spell a drop for Ford in the polls? ![]() Ford's approval ratings and favourability numbers in published polls remain in the 40 per cent range, and that's enough for an election win in Ontario politics. When can we expect things to get back to normal? CBC Queen’s Park reporter Mike Crawley answers some of the most frequently-asked questions about the road ahead.ĭespite plenty of criticism on Twitter of the Ford government's handling of the pandemic so far, Twitter isn't representative of the average voter.Įvery published poll since last spring has showed the PCs leading. Duration 4:12 Ontario's chief medical officer of health says it's going to be a tough January because of the Omicron variant. ![]()
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