Omicron is taking over. And its shaping up to be a far more contagious and serious version of COVID-19 than the ones we’ve dealt with prior. Just ask the head of Ontario’s COVID-19 Science Table.
Which is why the Ford government has decided to review it’s grand re-opening plan that was supposed to mark the new year. You remember? This plan:
Now those plans have been sidelined.
So what is the take away from this? Is it to show the repeated bad behaviours of the Ford government? Perhaps but not really. I mean I didn’t have a lot of confidence that the planned reopening was going to happen. But then again everyone I talked to had the same amount as I did. So I don’t think I’m bringing anything new to the table there.
What I think we need to take away from Omicron, is to take this as a cold slap in the face of reality. COVID-19 isn’t going away anytime soon. While we are enjoying high vaccination rates in Canada, we are not in the safe zone yet. Far too many are unvaccinated. 20% remain unvaccinated and are proving to be our Achilles heel in truly overcoming COVID-19. However there is another risk that we tend not to talk about that often.
Poor countries are not vaccinated. The WHO has pleaded for months now for countries like Canada, America and the UK to give extra vaccines to poor nations. The risk is that as populations remain unvaccinated it is the prime breeding ground for COVID-19 to mutate into strains such as Omicron. As sizable populations remain unvaccinated, the disease will continue to mutate and find ways to come back time and time again.
So, what do we do? I’m not a scientist, but I’m going to say, forget the idea of returning to a pre-COVID-19 times. It’s not going to happen. COVID-19 is going to keep coming back in one form or another. Which means we need to adapt our lives to it. We have the tools and education to do it, we just need to double down on it. We can’t keep going into lockdown. Our mental health and economy can’t handle it. Our masking protocols work. More importantly our vaccines can work if we get our numbers up. Enforcing vaccine mandates and encouraging third doses is the best thing we can do to stay ahead.
Joel MacLeod.ca 