Many Quinte residents unhappy about lockdown situation

From Premier Doug Ford’s Twitter account.

By Charotte Oduol

BELLEVILLE – Ontario announced an extension of its COVID lockdown on Thursday, and it seems many Quinte-area residents won’t be happy about it.

On Tuesday, QNet News asked local residents on Facebook for their thoughts on the possibility of the lockdown being extended beyond what was then the May 20 deadline. There had been rumours of an extension to June 2, which Premier Doug Form confirmed Thursday afternoon.

“Remind me again the definition of insanity? Doing the same thing over, and over, and over again, expecting a different result,” said Cathy Orr, one of the respondents to the Facebook post.

“Honestly, lockdowns have gone on long enough and clearly aren’t helping much,” said Jennifer Diane. “People are tired of being stuck at home with nothing to do! If they had kept schools, airports, etc. closed after Labour Day when cases were down, we wouldn’t be in this current situation. How much longer do they think people can take of this lockdown?”

But not all the respondents were opposed to an extended lockdown.

“I think they should extend it because it’ll be 2 weeks after Mothers Day. It’ll show people couldn’t stay in for a holiday,” said Natalie Gannon. “If you loved your mother you’d stay home or at least wear masks and (do) distance meeting up outdoors.”

Wes Cawker said that although he remains no fan of the lockdowns, he would rather have an extended one than open up only to close down again.

Meanwhile, Jill Raycroft, the chief executive officer of the Belleville Chamber of Commerce, told QNet this week that she was hoping for a slow reopening and not necessarily an extended lockdown.

Raycroft said it is definitely hard for people to stay positive.  

“Every time we get our hopes up that this is going to be almost over, something seems to stand in the way.” 

Raycroft said that when people access safe spaces where a lot of protocols are in place to keep them safe the numbers decrease, but when put in lockdown mode, more people will do things they are not supposed to.

“Now that we are in that third stay-at-home order our (COVID) numbers aren’t really decreasing, so this suggests that there are two things: one is that … these variants are much more transmissible, so we’re not really dealing with the same thing we were before, but the other side of that is when people go to private places without protocols, that’s where we also see community spread start to happen.”

The impact of these lockdowns on businesses and their employees can’t be ignored, Raycroft said. 

“My heart breaks for any business that is dependent on every single hour that they’re open, for every single haircut, for every single bed that is slept in (at) the hotel, for every single meal that’s served at a table.”

The government continues to extend different kinds of relief and funding programs, and she encourages businesses to take advantage of them where possible, she said.

“If there are resources or programs that aren’t serving their needs, letting the chamber know is really important because we are advocating on their behalf at the provincial level and the federal level.”