Anthony Furey: It’s Just Bizarre That Some People Still Want COVID Measures

Let’s start off with a little pop quiz. Please read this headline from CTV News and tell me the year the story was published: “Ontario will not require masks in schools this fall despite uptick in COVID cases.”

I’d like to think that it is from 2021, and that while people were still relatively concerned about the virus, the government determined that it should be up to parents whether or not their kids wore masks in class.

Alas, this is not true. Ontario still mandated masks at that time.

OK, so it must be fall of 2022 then? That sounds about right, because it is true that there were no mask mandates in Ontario schools at that point and the majority of kids chose not to wear them.

It’s not from then, though. This is a news headline from just the other day—September 2023. Why is this considered news? Why is a media outlet even reporting about COVID and schools right now? Was the government even considering a mask mandate?

These were all good questions that people asked on social media after the story went live. The last one is probably the most important one, because it would be very worrisome if the government was in fact considering such a mandate.

“As is the case with every jurisdiction in Canada, masks will not be required in Ontario schools,” Education Minister Stephen Lecce said in an emailed statement to CTV. He then went on to talk about ventilation measures in the classrooms.

Lecce did not give a press conference on this issue. The ministry didn’t even send out their own press release. While the story doesn’t spell this out, it seems like the intrepid reporter randomly asked the Education Ministry this question out of the blue for the sole purpose of writing this story. The fact that Lecce’s statement began with a nod to how nowhere else is doing this can probably be interpreted as a bit of an eyeroll at the news outlet for even asking the question in the first place. Good.

It’s just bizarre that some people still want COVID measures right now, and the sprinkling of news stories currently cropping up seem to just play to that increasingly small and oddball base.

A recent Toronto Star story discussed how small businesses are nervous about having to potentially face COVID restrictions this coming fall and winter. But the business advocates they quoted were just responding to random hypothetical questions put to them. It’s not like there was any government official or credible medical voice who was saying such things were in the works. It’s an entirely manufactured narrative at this point.

The unfortunate part is that while most people won’t even notice these stories and just go about their daily lives, there will be a small number of people needlessly alarmed and frightened by them.

Now I’m aware that my simply writing this column is in some ways playing into the efforts of those voices trying to get the COVID band back together again. They clearly want people talking about it as much as possible, even if it’s in opposition to them, just to get the discussion ramped up again. The best response is really just to totally ignore them and the whole narrative.

One thing that we still haven’t received, though, is accountability when it comes to those who were so horribly wrong. Last fall, some alleged experts tried to claim that the back-to-school season would be a disaster without restrictions and children would suffer greatly from COVID. That didn’t at all come close to happening. So if you were an expert before you made such grandiose predictions—ones that came with calls to restrict the lives of children—the consensus should be that you are no longer an expert. Instead, too many people were encouraged to say ridiculous things and there was no follow-up to check in on how wrong they were.

The good news, however, is pretty much everyone has tuned out all of this noise by now.

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