TORONTO – Too late and too little: a film already seen, during this interminable Covid-19 pandemic. The provincial Government eventually decided to implement some mild restrictions to try to contain the new wave of Omicron that is sweeping Ontario as well as the rest of the world. 

Last week, in the face of all the indicators that foreshadowed a progressive worsening of the epidemiological picture, we witnessed a tug-of-war between the executive led by Prime Minister Doug Ford and the Technical Scientific Committee on the measures to be taken in the face of this new threat.

At first the Conservative leader chose to adopt a wait-and-see approach, only to have to retrace his steps and activate some restrictions such as cutting capacity in non-essential shops, pubs and restaurants, as well as in structures that have a capacity greater than a thousand seats.

Other jurisdictions, in North America and Europe, have chosen the hard fist instead. In Quebec the government led by François Legault has put in place very harsh limitations that seem to be the preamble for a lockdown in the immediate future, in the Old Continent we move from countries that have chosen the lockdown – such as the Netherlands, where all non-essential shops will remain closed until January 14 – to other countries where very strong restrictions have been approved.

Here in Ontario, once again, the executive is cautious and tries to find the balance between the need to limit the contagion to protect the resilience of our health system and the need not to penalize those sectors of our economy that have suffered most during the most acute phases of the first three waves of the pandemic.

But we must take into account another factor: the threat posed by the Omicron variant is unprecedented. The new strain has an ease of replicating the contagion much higher than Delta and the other variants of Covid-19: according to some virologists, with the current pace and without further restrictions, we will see the doubling of infections every 2-3 days.
The Canadian scientific community has no doubts: to break the chain of contagion it is necessary to take drastic measures and, at the same time, accelerate on the vaccination front.

Also in this case the Ford government has retraced its steps more than once, up to the approval of the third dose for all adults starting today. Yet in recent weeks many logistical problems have emerged: being able to book the appointment for the vaccination recall has often proved to be a titanic undertaking between inconveniences, technical problems, unavailable places and so on. Now from today it will become even more difficult to be able to book. Last year, in this period, the first doses of vaccines were injected: in the following months the big problem was that of the lack of doses.

Now instead of doses we have millions, enough stocks for booster injection for everyone, but the province is not able to create the logistical-organizational apparatus to speed up the immunization of the population. For the government it will be a very difficult challenge.