1/ Lockdowns are painful. Even Ontario's version will cause suffering for a lot of people. Compliance is high when people see results that are working and can see tangible proof that the tumult in their lives is contributing to the greater good.

2/ Most people's measure will be daily case counts. By delaying our mockdown 5 days Ford has basically endorsed family gatherings for Christmas day.
So that leaves us with our already record case counts about to be added to from a Christmas surge.
3/ People, who are already sacrificing so much, will see an increase of cases by the middle of January rather than a drop. At that point, they will have been "hunkered" down for 3 weeks and instead of a decrease, they'll be seeing similar or higher numbers.
4/ This is why these 5 days, at this time of year are so important. Modelling from yesterday showed a SIX-week lockdown started *immediately* would take current case counts down from 2300ish to around 500.
5/ The current mockdown is 28 days which even without the Christmas surge would not be enough to have a meaningful impact. Here's the issue, by delaying 5 days, even after all the sacrifices people have made, the numbers will still be high when we add the Xmas surge.
6/ So how does Ford sell an extension of the original 28 days, which we will ABSOLUTELY need, when people will have been "locked" down for a month and seen little to no effect?
7/ This is why you are seeing so much anger at the 5 day delay.
There was low compliance for reducing Thanksgiving gatherings and do you think there will be higher compliance for *Christmas* when the Premier has basically okayed it?
8/ This also has an effect on vaccine programs as the more transmissible variants mean we need to vaccinate a greater percentage of the public and high case counts increase the chance of escape variants just when we are starting the jabs.
9/ These are some reasons why the difference of just 120 hours can wreak so much damage.

More from For later read

There is some valuable analysis in this report, but on the defense front this report is deeply flawed. There are other sections of value in report but, candidly, I don't think it helps us think through critical question of Taiwan defense issues in clear & well-grounded way. 1/


Normally as it might seem churlish to be so critical, but @cfr is so high-profile & the co-authors so distinguished I think it’s key to be clear. If not, people - including in Beijing - could get the wrong idea & this report could do real harm if influential on defense issues. 2/

BLUF: The defense discussion in this report does not engage at the depth needed to add to this critical debate. Accordingly conclusions in report are ill-founded - & in key parts harmful/misleading, esp that US shldnt be prepared defend Taiwan directly (alongside own efforts). 3/

The root of the problem is that report doesn't engage w the real debate on TWN defense issues or, frankly, the facts as knowable in public. Perhaps the most direct proof of this: The citations. There is nothing in the citations to @DeptofDefense China Military Power Report...4/

Nor to vast majority of leading informed sources on this like Ochmanek, the @RANDCorporation Scorecard, @CNAS, etc. This is esp salient b/c co-authors by their own admission have v little insight into contemporary military issues. & both last served in govt in Bush 43. 5/

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