It's all there.
Every insight and available piece of information you could ask for to properly combat the spread of coronavirus has been posted online. City and provincial officials are begging people to stay home, to do the right thing, to practice proper social distancing.
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Unfortunately, what's also there is the evidence that too many people in Toronto still don't f*cking get it.
Look, staying inside and away from your friends is hard. It's jarring. It's a complete turnaround from how you've lived most of your life.
It's also only been a couple of weeks. And too many people still can't manage it.
If the biggest threat to the containment of coronavirus in Toronto is a 16°C day then we might as well pack it in right now. Spring may be here, but so is COVID-19. And for those of you out there pretending that you can have one without the other, please speak to some of the healthcare professionals fighting for people's lives on the front line. They'll tell you this virus doesn't care what season it is or how sunny it is outside.
Meanwhile, people are ripping down the tape City officials have put across park amenities so that they can still access them, despite the City having officially closed them. This has prompted Mayor Tory to unleash, what is for him, a rather stern response. Not to mention the City's Chief Communications Officer Brad Ross:
"If we continue to see people selfishly ignore the recommendations that have been put in place to keep us safe, we should prepare to continue to see dramatic increases in local numbers," said Toronto's Medical Officer of Health on Saturday. "If you are not willing to do this for yourself, then I would ask that you do this for your loved ones."
On Saturday, 151 new confirmed cases of coronavirus were announced in Ontario. On Sunday, 211 more were announced – the single highest number of confirmed cases in a single day at that point. Just this morning, however, the number of new cases jumped to a terrifying 351. At a time when we're all supposed to be working together to flatten the curve, Toronto's numbers are still rising at a worrying pace. Just four days ago, Dr. de Villa said she believed approximately 25% of Toronto's cases were now attributable to community spread.
The City has declared a state of emergency, as has the province. Businesses, households, and individuals are suffering to a very real and very scary degree. Condo buildings and apartments have stepped up. Almost everything that can be cancelled has been cancelled.
Except the #Covidiots. We can't seem to cancel you. So while the rest of us stay at home and practice safe social distancing measures and wait and watch and go slightly mad, we also have to put up with those of you out on the streets, refusing to refrain from visiting some of the most popular sites in the City because of a half-decent spring day.
Hospitals in the province are already beginning to prepare "last resort" procedures if (and when) the hospitals become overwhelmed and they need to quickly decide who gets to live and who gets to die. If that isn't a sobering enough statement to make you understand the current reality we're living in, perhaps nothing will.
As Camus writes in The Plague, "Stupidity has a knack of getting its way; as we should see if we were not always so much wrapped up in ourselves."
So please, consider unwrapping yourself moving forward, lest both stupidity and coronavirus continue to get their way in Toronto.
