Ontario’s COVID crisis: ‘This scenario was entirely preventable’

Montreal, Canada – Dr Naheed Dosani says healthcare workers in Ontario are angry. “And the second I found out yesterday, immediately I asked them to write up the orders.” But for weeks before that, Ford had been easing restrictions based on case counts in various regions across Ontario despite health experts urging the right-wing, populist premier to keep measures in place as projections showed hospital ICUs could fill up and daily case counts could reach record levels. “The actual number of cases in ICU is well within our projected range, and in fact, is closer to our best-case scenario, rather than the worst,” a panel of Ontario health experts that has released COVID-19 modelling data throughout the pandemic said on April 7, rejecting the idea that Ford was only informed a day earlier about hospital capacity. The actual number of cases in ICU is well within our projected range, and in fact, is closer to our best case scenario, rather than the worst pic.twitter.com/6KJKpS9lPE — Covid19MC April 7, 2021 Experts called for the province to more narrowly define what constitutes an “essential” workplace, and provide more coronavirus vaccines to hard-hit neighbourhoods, especially those home to essential workers of colour, who have been disproportionately affected by the disease throughout the pandemic. “Why does it require an uproar, why does it require a backlash, why do health workers and the people of Ontario have to scream and yell, up in arms, for our government to listen?” ‘I’m scared’ Trudeau announced plans on Sunday to send federal healthcare workers to Ontario, as well as to deploy rapid COVID-19 testing to provincial hot spots, “especially for essential workers and workplaces”.