Help me out here.

Why are so many Ontarians still being diagnosed with Covid-19? Each day since March 17th, when Ontario declared an emergency, an average of 320 Ontarians have been diagnosed with Covid-19.

On March 12th Ontario announced that elementary schools would be closed for two weeks after March Break. That was a strong indication that something serious was happening.

Then, on March 17th Ontario Enacted a Declaration of Emergency to Protect the Public and it renewed that Declaration on March 30th. The last time such a Declaration was issued was in 2003 in response to the power outage that knocked electricity out across most of the province. Again, a clear message that this was serious.

Fast forward to yesterday, April 16th. Symptoms of the virus present themselves in 7 to 14 days after infection. That means that if you were diagnosed with Covid-19 yesterday, you became infected some time in the previous 7 to 14 days. If we add up the numbers, 4,081 more cases were detected in the 7 days before April 16th and 6,585 cases were diagnosed in the 14 days before April 16th. This means that these people became infected some time between April 2nd (assuming that they tested positive 14 days after they were infected) and April 9th (7 days before they were diagnosed). These dates are 16 to 23 days AFTER the two Declarations of Emergency to Protect the Public.

This suggests that about 6,000 Ontarians did not take sufficient precautions to protect themselves from the virus, even though two Declarations of Emergency had been issued.

Now, I've heard repeatedly that about 50% of the cases of Covid-19 are in Long Term Care facilities, so for the purposes of discussion, we can drop that number to about 3,000 Ontarians. Get with the program people!!!

David McLeish, Owen Sound