Using pandemic models to help business reopen with confidence

Recently a member of Ontario Premier Ford's cabinet, solicitor general Sylvia Jones, was asked why they delayed issuing a stay-at-home order to control the third wave of COVID.

The Ford cabinet misunderstood how scientific models should be used. Scientists use data and knowledge to put together a model, they test it on historical data. When it seems to work, they offer it up to help our leaders make decisions, based what could happen, before people get sick and hospitals get overwhelmed.

I think that Premier Ford has made the mistake of waiting too long to act as this third wave of COVID has taken off.

BUT, there is another chance to use models at the end of this third, and hopefully last, wave. Models can be used to tell us when we can reopen our economy, and how to reopen so that businesses can be confident that they never have to shutdown again. This is the confidence that businesses need to put time and money into reopening and rebuilding. This is the confidence that we need to rebuild a strong economy so we can pay for all the social supports that we needed and will need.  This is the confidence that models, used properly, can help provide.