I had planned to write a story this week on the message confusion in Ontario. It's been a mess, there's no denying that. But a certain point I'm not sure how much readers benefit anymore from journalists telling them that everyone's confused.

And the thing is, outside the high-level fog, the experts on the ground in the hot spots in Ontario almost universally agree on what ordinary people should be doing right now to keep themselves and others safe.

I talked to seven infectious disease specialists working right now on the ground in Ontario and the top public health officials from Toronto, Peel and Ottawa, and their advice was almost exactly the same.

You can't control what the government is going to do or not do. Neither can I. But you can control your own behaviour. And I worry that people that are going to use the government's soup-thick messaging as an excuse not to change right now.

I wrote about that advice for today's paper. I asked a bunch of experts really basic questions about what kinds of behaviours they recommonded you avoid right now and what they think is okay https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/cutting-through-the-covid-fog-what-experts-say-you-should-and-shouldnt-do-during-the-second-wave

This isn't to let the government off the hook. The communication needs to get better and it needs to get coordinated. These are issues that should have been solved months ago. There's no excuse at this point.

But knowing that doesn't help ordinary people get used to the idea the new normal, the relatively relaxed life we were able to live in late summer, is over, for now. That's a super hard, cognitive and emotional adjustment.

This is what I wrote today: "We tricked ourselves, in a way. And no wonder. For many of us, that’s what we had to do to survive. We had to act like this was a one-way journey, like we were moving through phases we would never see again."

But right now, if you listen to the people who are facing this directly, in the public health units and the hospitals, the advice is clear: we all need to dramatically cut back our close contacts inside and out.

If you don't live in a house, don't go inside that house unless you're a care provider or an essential support for someone who does.

If you are going to see friends outside, double down on physical distancing. “There’s nothing magical about (being) outdoors,” @DrMichaelGardam told me. Don't meet people who won't stay at least two metres away. Don't put yourself in situations where that's going to be tough.

I should point out that not one person I talked to recommended that people who live alone stay alone. Build a small, self-contained bubble with others. Mental health is health. It matters.

Also, purely for my own reasons, I asked @TorontoIDDoc if an outdoor, strictly distanced tennis game is still okay. He gave me the thumbs-up.