I am sitting here at my computer, on Day 421 since I began working from my apartment in self-isolation for my university library system, and I am totally and completely pissed off at my government.
Things are not going well here in Manitoba. In fact, Manitoba is now third highest out of all Canadian provinces and U.S. states when comparing COVID-19 cases per capita:
On Mother’s day the government announced that all K-12 schools in Winnipeg and Brandon will close on Wednesday, and switch to online remote learning. Frankly, there’s not too much more that can be shut down at this point, except for non-essential retail stores (and I expect that will come soon, too). We are in, for all intents and purposes, a third pandemic lockdown on the cusp of summer. At this point, I am only leaving my apartment to pick up my groceries which I ordered through the Walmart website, to get my winter tires switched to summer tires at my local car dealership, and to see my doctor about my diabetes.
Premier Brian Pallister and his government say that they are being “proactive”, but that’s not true at all. They ignored the advice of doctors and scientific experts, who warned that this would be coming. If they had bothered to be proactive, they would have pushed harder to get more Manitobans vaccinated sooner. If they had bothered to be proactive, they would have had a short, sharp, full shutdown earlier, instead of this plodding, piecemeal approach.
Now, we are all going to have to go through a longer, more painful lockdown to avoid overloading our already-stretched-to-the-breaking-point healthcare system. So yes, I am pissed off. All of this could have been avoided with the proper leadership. I hope Manitobans remember this massive clusterfuck when it’s time to go to the polls in the next provincial election. Brian Pallister and his team deserve to have their asses handed to them on a platter.
