Robin Sears writes that pandemic fatigue is setting in:
Public health officials have raised alarms almost daily about the risks of letting our guard down, or re-opening without clear safeguards. Yet Canadians have volunteered to talk show hosts that they are weary of hand washing, sanitizing and staying home. So far we have avoided the impact of this COVID-19 fatigue sending caseloads soaring again, as is happening in the American South. But there are limits to everyone’s willingness to put much of their life on hold.
The base level of stress and anxiety that the lockdown has inflicted on nearly everyone is draining. Widespread reports of sleep disruption, distraction and fatigue attest to the hidden costs of COVID-19. The fatigue leads to indecision and anxiety, driving the cycle around again. You can see the impact everywhere.
The fatigue is setting in just as people are in the streets demanding meaningful structural change:
Then there is the contrast of the massive high energy anti-racism street protests around the world. Will they also begin to fade? Perhaps not. By the end of this week the shift in Americans views of police violence was dramatic according to several polls. Being an American election year may mean real legislated change is possible. In Canada, there have been too many politicians and police leaders who bristle at the suggestion that we have systemic problems to acknowledge and address, too. Our political response so far has been somewhat tone-deaf.
The danger is that, just as we are on the cusp of real, sweeping change, we may choose to lay down and go back to sleep. Knowing how to orchestrate change is critical:
Tommy Douglas always encouraged young radicals to lead from the front. He always added the caution to ensure that you are not so far in front that you have left your supporters far behind. A strategy of “étapisme,” that Quebec sovereigntists used to defend their cautious pace to their most radical base, ‘step by step,’ can be an excuse for inaction. But demands for the impossible — like defunding police services — merely pushback the delivery of what is actually achievable. It is a tough balance to find and maintain.
We are, as they say, at an inflection point.
Image: Harvard Health - Harvard University
6 comments:
I've been keeping a close eye on the number of Covid-19 patients in Ontario. The reason given for imposing so called "lockdown" measures was because of forecasts predicting that our hospitals were going to be overwhelmed.
On April 3rd Ontario Premier Doug Ford shared what computer models suggested Ontario's healthcare system was facing. The "best case" scenario, assuming we all did really well at social distancing and all the rest, was for 1,300 patients in ICU beds for my province. Thankfully we never got anywhere near that number.
As I write this Ontario only has 438 Covid patients being treated, 103 of whom are in ICU with 77 of those on a ventilator, (as per CTV)
https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/ontario-records-197-new-cases-of-covid-19-and-12-more-deaths-1.4983610
We avoided the horror of what was called the "best case" (least bad)....whether that was due to luck, because everyone obeyed the rules (we didn't) or because Covid-19 is not as lethal as it was thought to be.....whatever. Now we can start to rescue people from the pain and misery that lockdown measures inflicted...
I too am disappointed in this compulsive need to behave as though the past four months never happened. It's a worry that seems widely shared on Vancouver Island where, having wrestled this virus to the ground (the island is now Covid and every other transmissible virus-free) we await the arrival of the summer tourists from the mainland. We know some of them will bring it with them. We really have no way to stop them. People already bristle when they see the red and white licence plates that signify an Alberta driver.
I worry too for what this portends in our greater challenge, climate breakdown. It can't be fought without sacrifice and pain. There are things we have become accustomed to such as holiday jet setting that we're going to have to give up and there's no will that I can discern to "live smaller" for the greater good, especially for the good of our grandkids or their kids.
This lack of public will translates into a crippling of political will to lead to enact unpopular but essential measures lest voters punish them in the next election.
We're not constituted as a people, as a society, even as communities, to meet grave challenges. We have no appetite for living in harmony with nature.
We live in a part of the province that has been relatively virus-free, Gordie -- perhaps because we live where the population is spread out. But we do rely on summer tourists. And people here are getting worried.
It seems our capacity to do the really tough stuff is pretty thin and not very deep.
As in your neck of the woods, Mound, we have been relatively virus-free -- even in our nursing homes. But lots of people are now walking around without masks. We quickly forget what we were supposed to have learned.
Like you Owen I am in a part of Ontario that has only been lightly affected. I guess what has really gotten under my skin about the lockdown measures, it's the uneven way in which they were applied. While everyone was being told to hunker in their bunkers, others were being told, 'uhm...well, its not THAT bad, if you work at Wal-Mart, Home Depot, the grocery store, a Amazon warehouse or a meat processing plant....well, you'll just have to take your chances with the "deadly" coronavirus....we need some people working to look after all the good people isolating in their homes safe and secure'.
And even more vexing was the reaction of all those snug and secure in their bubbles....getting all high and mighty about the need for everyone to lock down, except for those 'essential' workers fulfilling their consumer needs. No concern for the kids locked down with parents tossed out of work with liquor deemed essential, no empathy for the marginalized people who had their support networks ripped away....suicides, drug overdoses, spousal and child abuse. It was all worth it, so long as the self important didn't get sick and could still have Amazon prime dropping off boxes to the front door, and hydro/internet companies kept the grid running and connectivity alive.
Sad state of affairs in my books....if the "deadly" coronavirus was not so deadly as to keep Amazon workers home, then others should have been given the choice to open their businesses as well.
The virus has laid all of the inequities bare, Gordie. We can no longer claim that we are ignorant of the way we have organized our society. The question we now face is: What are we going to do about these inequities?
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