The simplest explanation is this:
Each step along the way the data has been in and clear for weeks before Dougie made the decision to bring in any restrictions. When you're dealing with exponential/epidemic growth patterns every day of inaction makes the wave ultimately longer and higher, which can lead to 100's-1000's of additional cases that simply would not have occurred if sensible social restrictions (which absolutely work, there's simply no counter argument against them) had been put in place at the point the data was clear. We're not talking about locking everything the fuck down every time someone coughs, but when virus reproduction numbers increase, what comes next is nearly as clear and obvious a law of nature as any other (sit on a tack and bleed from the ass, fall out of a tree and hit the ground, whatev). When reproduction numbers go above 1.0, it's time to pull back the reigns a bit. Restrict indoor gatherings (there's no reason for the ACC to have been full at any time since ~Dec 1), cut max capacity of indoor retail/shopping, set up tax reimbursement programs for any business in the province to install approved air moving/hepa systems, etc, etc. We still to this day have places of work (schools, LCBO, etc) that won't allow their employees to wear N95 masks and force them to wear provided surgical masks due to provincial mandates that fly in the face of the established science on covid.
There's a pile of things they could have been doing (why do I feel like I write a similar post 2 weeks into every fucking wave?) and choose not to because I dunno, it costs money, would require him to actually care, etc.
So yeah, Dougie does some of the right things, but too late for them to have the positive effect that they could of. A good analogy is the brake pedal in your car. When you see someone running a red light, you don't wait to see if everything is going to sort itself out before hitting the brakes, you get on the brakes early because the earlier you do it, the better your chance of limiting damage is. Even if the accident is unavoidable, the more speed you scrub before impact will lessen the severity. The exact same principle applies here. The quicker we're able to stall reproductive growth in any way, the smaller the overall impact it will have on society.
