Welcome to Ontario, where we are in lock down again.

It is really unfortunate we are in this situation again. We didn’t need to be. We could have been substantially more rigorous about how we approached testing for COVID, constraining vectors of transmission, and minimizing spread of the virus.

This may sound odd, but sadly Ford’s Ontario government’s focus on the economy has missed extraordinary opportunities that existed. We could have done so much more for the economy AND constrained the spread of COVID.

What is interesting is these opportunities are STILL present. We can still implement these now, just without the same impact it would have had six months ago in the summer.

The first thing to note is now we have to up our game: COVID is mutating given the number of people infected and how we are fighting it. We need to be prepared for this by minimizing spread as much as possible to reduce opportunities to mutate and overcome our efforts to immunize.

First are all the notes we made in https://www.oneoddsock.com/2020/08/10/covid-19-and-the-ontario-education-guidelines/.

Since I posted this we have learned a lot about how effective school is at present. It is clear that it isn’t working effectively.

Students don’t reliably have effective spaces or resources for learning that school provides. So when learning remotely (as high school students are obligated to 3/4 of the time and now all students have to do ALL of the time), accommodations are needed to make education effective.

The following are additional recommendations:

• The current situation is stressful and anxiety inducing. It is really hard to focus and work in this environment (I deeply appreciate this after trying to work during a divorce). Reduce the school time and curriculum to 3/4 to 1/2 time. The rest can still be “class” time but support, working through material, etc. It means changing the curriculum to reflect this, but students can focus more on what is relevant.
• Internet is a critical component of learning remotely. While schools can supply some resources, internet is required. Minimum internet connectivity should be provided to all students. Honestly, it should be provided not just to all students, but everyone–it is the only way to connect to others. Minimum connectivity should be provided to all.
• A lot of internet providers have limits for data. Some data should be excluded from these limits. Video chat of any kind (such as for school, medical appointments and consultations, etc) should be excluded.
• Camera, headset, and microphone are required for students to effectively communicate in class in a manner that isolates them from siblings that are also in classes. Video should be a requirement for classes. The past term has been an excruciating demonstration of students signing in and then leaving during class with no visibility to the instructor.
• Instructors desperately need to have reduced classes. Arranging classes for 60 students is untenable at best. Teachers have their own lives to deal with too and can’t handle that many students across multiple classes.

In terms of additional opportunities the Ontario government could have (and still could) pursued:

• Investing in companies that provide services to retrofit schools and businesses to provide a safer environment for COVID. In particular, the investment could have been structured as loans with returns on investment as they help Ontario recover and get back in business. Possibly even as shares that the company could then buy out later at a higher price for publicly shared companies.
• Investment in new industries, activities, and the corresponding education to reinvest in Ontarians can shift our productivity and position into a better situation on the world stage. Shipping and transport have been severely impacted by COVID. What are we missing out on that we could manufacture and develop here ourselves? The most obvious that is apparent to me are chips for all kinds of products–computers, cars, devices. Building up our own manufacturing capabilities here could serve a shortage throughout North America.
• Investment in testing, tracing, and feeding that back to people. We have reduced testing, our tracing is barely visible, and there isn’t transparency. We have already identified discrepancies between schools reporting to what school boards report to what appears on the Ontario COVID tracking for schools. Those discrepancies undermine any semblance of honesty and transparency by the government and any corresponding trust anyone should have in the government. If Ford wants people to trust him and get elected again, he should be completely clear about circumstances and stepping up to what is and isn’t going well and investing appropriately to address what isn’t working.

We need to up our game, as COVID is mutating while we are floundering. Those mutations are contributing to greater infectiousness that undermines the original belief that children were not an effective vector of COVID. That is no longer a claim we can rely on. The longer we continue to provide environments for COVID to generate mutations that can infect more effectively, the more we are going to completely undermine any economy we are trying to maintain.

The sick and dead are terrible at contributing to the economy. We could be improving dramatically here and exporting excellence elsewhere for profit.