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Photo by Stan Behal/Toronto Sun/Postmedia Network

That may well be an overreaction at this point in time. But it could also well be that if we don’t do this now, we’ll be doing it in a week or two, and the only difference that delay will mean is that we have a much bigger problem to deal with.

Normally, we value prudence and caution from our governments. Our institutions are slow — that’s often annoying, but can still be seen as a feature, not a bug. Our political system does not enable rapid, radical change. It is (using the term in a non-partisan sense) fundamentally conservative. That’s good.

But it’s also, sometimes, a weakness. Given the possibility of an Italy-style worst-case scenario in Canada or any of its provinces, we should overreact now and revise later. Governments could make a point of publicly revisiting all the various restrictions, say, during a weekly press conference. Public health officials could explain why each measure is being enhanced, maintained or reduced. This would help bring some order to a public communications process that has been a bit scattershot thus far, and also seek to allay concerns among citizens about the necessity and efficacy of the various measures.

In short, it’s time to accept the fact that the countries around the world that have handled this pandemic the best are the ones that responded aggressively and quickly. Due to the lag time in diagnosis and case confirmation, our government officials are probably only able to respond, on a day to day basis, to information that’s already days out of date. It’s time to start projecting forward a week or so and adjusting our posture to what we fear we could be dealing with then. This will be disruptive and costly. But it may also save thousands of lives.

Ontario took some smart steps today. It should go further. And so should our federal government.

National Post

magurney@postmedia.com

Twitter.com/MattGurney