This whole thing sucks ass, right?

CBC: Ontario will step up enforcement powers for police and extend its stay-at-home order to a minimum of six weeks in a bid to stem the exponential rise in COVID-19 cases, but won’t institute paid sick days — despite modelling showing that cases will remain high through the summer without additional support for essential workers. 

Effective 12:01 a.m. Saturday, outdoor gatherings will be prohibited except for members of the same household or one other person from outside that household who lives alone. 

Police will have the authority to ask anyone outside their residence to indicate their purpose for leaving home and provide their address. That includes stopping vehicles and potentially issuing tickets of approximately $750. 

Non-essential construction will be shut down and outdoor amenities like golf and playgrounds will be restricted. Retail capacity will be limited to 25 per cent in all settings where in-store shopping is still permitted. 

Inspectors will also visit law offices, accounting firms and other such locations to confirm that only essential workers are in the building.

Effective 12:01 a.m. Monday, religious gatherings, weddings and funerals will be limited to 10 people, whether indoors or outdoors. Also beginning Monday, Ford said, there will be checkpoints at provincial borders with Quebec and Manitoba with exceptions for essential travel.

https://crier.co/news/hey-ontario-whos-ready-for-18000-new-covid-cases-a-day-new-restrictions-are-coming-our-way-2/

We posted about the new modeling yesterday and I don’t really think I understood the ramifications of the numbers until today.  That’s a full 24 hours.  Think about that.  For one day, it didn’t even register as a negative that we’d go from 4000 cases a day to 18,000 in 30 days.  I shrugged off 2000 ICU patients (normal cap is 450-500).  I didn’t realize at that time how serious those numbers are and what they mean.

We get serious (kind of) on Monday at 12:01 am and the restrictions are a result of a bunch of things.

Workplace infections, house parties, schools, large gatherings, personal selfishness, Trudeau gambling, and losing when it came time to secure vaccines, and Doug Ford deliberately choosing to grease his friends’ pockets.

Here’s what you should be prepared for.

Prepare to be locked down for 8 weeks, not six.  The numbers are so bad today, Dr. Steini Brown said over the next two weeks, there is literally nothing we can do to change what’s going to happen.

We may have between 8-10,000 new infections per day

Expect to be pulled, stopped, and questioned by the police.  Especially if you’re black.

Expect not to be vaccinated until July if you are under the age of 40.

Expect every one of our public officials (other than Dr. Steini Brown) to lie, minimize, and deflect.

“Is there anything we can do to avoid catastrophic ICU numbers of 1500-2000”
‘The short answer is No’. #ThanksDoug. pic.twitter.com/HggkVh9UnY

— Dean Blundell (@ItsDeanBlundell) April 16, 2021

Expect a worst-case scenario, act accordingly and you’ll probably be fine.  

Here’s a list of every closure/restriction courtesy of CP24. I highlighted the important/dumb shit.

Interprovincial travel

• Starting Monday, the province is setting up checkpoints at all interprovincial borders. Ontario will limit access to border crossings between Ontario and Manitoba and Quebec.
• Travellers who are coming into Ontario for work, medical care, transportation of goods and exercising indigenous treaty rights will be exempted.

Stay-at-home order

• The stay-at-home order, which went into effect on April 8 and was expected to last for 28 days, will now be extended for an additional two weeks. It will now be a six-week long order that will last until May 20 at least.
• Residents must remain at home at all times, with exceptions for essential purposes, such as going to the grocery store or pharmacy, accessing health care services, for exercise or for essential work.
• Businesses across the province must ensure that any employee who can work from home, does work from home.

Outdoor gatherings limited

• Starting Saturday, all outdoor social gatherings and organized public events will be prohibited, except for members of the same household. A person who lived alone could join one other household.
• All outdoor recreational amenities such as golf courses, basketball courts and playgrounds, will be closed.

Retail capacity slashed 

• Non-essential stores must open no earlier than 7 a.m. and close no later than 8 p.m., including hardware stores, alcohol retailers, and those offering curbside pickup or delivery.
• Capacity limits for in-person shopping in all retail settings where in person shopping is permitted, including supermarkets, grocery stores, convenience stores and stores that primarily sell food and pharmaceutical products, will be limited to 25 per cent capacity.

Places of worship

• Starting Monday, capacity at weddings, funerals and religious services will be limited to 10 people indoors or outdoors.
• Drive-in services will be permitted.

Non-essential construction

• The government says non-essential construction will close, including construction at shopping malls, hotels, and office towers.

New Enforcement Measures

• For the first time in Ontario since the pandemic started, police officers will have the authority to require people to provide their home address and purpose for not being at their residence.
• Police will have the ability to stop vehicles to inquire about and reason for people leaving their homes.

Effectively, if you get caught doing anything other than the bare minimum this week, Ontario police will have the ability to make your life absolutely fucking miserable.

Not Ideal.

Neither is where we are.

But we are here.  THIS is the new reality we live in and fighting reality will only make the next 8 weeks 1000 times worse.

“No person has the power to have everything they want, but it is in their power not to want what they don’t have, and to cheerfully put to good use what they do have.” – Seneca

What you need and what you want is a very different conversation than the ones we are having on social media.

What you want is something those conspiracy Jack Wagons like Chris Sky keep screaming about.  Freedom.

Well, what you need to do happens to be the only way you will get what you want; Staying at home for 2 months while we attempt to vaccinate the fuck out of the province.

According to Dr. Steini Brown, the only way (and the fastest way) back to normal is to shelter in place and wait your turn for a vaccine.

Instead of fighting the objective truth, what if you were all in?  What if you embraced it?

What if you spent 4 hours a day making your life what it can be instead of bitching about what you don’t have?  What if you went for a walk instead of tweeting about police states and Doug Ford’s incompetence for hours on end?  What if you embraced the opportunities presented to you instead of being perpetually angry about something you will never be able to control?

If you are pained by any external thing, it is not this thing that disturbs you, but your own judgment about it. And it is in your power to wipe out this judgment now.
– Marcus Aurelius

Doug Ford and Justin Trudeau don’t control you, your emotions, perception, or perspective.  This life isn’t free of obstacles and we are not exempt from them.  It’s what you choose to do with that obstacle that will define and sustain you.

“The obstacle in the path becomes the path. Never forget, within every obstacle is an opportunity to improve our condition.”
― Ryan Holiday, The Obstacle Is the Way

The lessons we learn through hardships become who we will be.  We can either choose to stop fighting what we can’t change or we can drive ourselves, and everyone around us crazy by acting on our cognitive biases and emotions.  We can allow our emotions to dictate our response or we can react according to what we need.

You don’t want to just survive this bullshit, you need to thrive despite it.  You don’t want to make it out alive, you want to be emotionally bulletproof after this whole thing is over.   You control this entire process whether you believe it or not.

The soul is dyed the color of its thoughts.

Think only on those things that are in line with your principles and can bear the light of day.

The content of your character is your choice.

Day by day, what you do is who you become.

Your integrity is your destiny — it is the light that guides your way.”

– Heraclitus

If you really want to be sustainable happiness, there’s no other choice.  You’re not changing laws or speeding up your vaccination appointment.  You’re not going to pressure the government into dropping their mask mandates.  You’re not going to get your kids back in school or back into sports.

We don’t need restrictions to do the right thing.  If you have an objective perspective based on fact and truth, neither do you.  The rest – Anti Mask Protests, Stay at Home Orders – is just noise.  Use this obstacle as leverage to become a better you by investing in yourself instead of giving it all away.

Dean