There's been a lot of magical thinking about COVID. The most persistent magical meme is that we've turned the corner. Alan Freeman writes:
As we head indoors in our small family units for the next six months or so, there is no way we’re going to be partying at Christmas. Perhaps next Easter, but then only if we have an early spring. Hopefully, new efforts by authorities to slow the spread by reducing social contacts will soon have an impact. But if they do, will we want to plunge into another upward spiral by letting down our guard too soon as we did this summer?
The fact is that the pandemic is far from over. The pain, both social and economic, is likely to persist throughout 2021 and politicians should stop trying to make us feel better. They need to tell us the truth even if we don’t want to hear it.
Masks, distancing and hand washing will not be enough. Faster and more readily available testing will help but until there is a safe, effective and well-distributed vaccine, some activities are just not going to be safe. We are going to have make tough choices. If schools and factories are to stay open, bars, gyms, saunas and theaters will likely have to close, especially in hard-hit regions. And we’ll have to stop visiting friends and family indoors.
Unfortunately, there's been a lot of magical thinking in Quebec. The number of infections in la belle province keeps rising -- partially because Quebec keeps insisting that it will do its own thing in its own way:
From the start, Premier François Legault has seemed more interested in a distinct Quebec approach to the pandemic than the right approach. During the early weeks of COVID-19, Quebec officials compared the province’s performance with Portugal and Germany, not even deigning to look at the more successful approaches in B.C. and Alberta, let alone neighbouring New Brunswick, which essentially kept the virus out, reporting just two deaths since March.
When Canada’s chief science adviser, Mona Nemer, openly criticized Quebec in May for failing to put together an adequate testing and tracing strategy, Dr. Horacio Arruda, Quebec’s director of public health, hit back, declaring he wasn’t responsible to “this lady” and calling her a back-seat driver. Of course, she was right. It took months for Quebec to boost its testing numbers and its tracing efforts remain weak.
Thinking that Quebecers outside Montreal were somehow immune to the virus, Legault called on Quebecers to take their summer holidays throughout the province. They responded in droves, flooding places like Gaspé in July and August, turning summer vacation into a super-spreader event. By the end of September, the Gaspé region was reporting the highest active case rate in the province.
When schools reopened in the province, students were told to wear masks in corridors but not in the classroom. Of course, the decision was announced after Canada’s chief public health officer, Dr. Theresa Tam, said it was a good idea to enforce mask wearing throughout the school day and Ontario had signed on to the idea for its schools. When an English-language school board in Montreal decided that it would rather be safe than sorry and made masks mandatory in class as well, it was overruled by Quebec City.
Quebec isn't the only place where magical thinking has flourished. We live in a town which depends on summer tourism. This summer all kinds of tourists raised a middle finger to the rules. Luckily, COVID numbers here are still low. But there comes a time when your luck runs out.
8 comments:
My city is reporting 326 new cases in the last day or so, and numbers throughout the province are climbing steadily. Public health experts at U of T consider the shortening of bar hours to be next to useless and are calling for bars to be shut down and restaurants limited to take-out and delivery in the major urban areas. Models are predicting Quebec-level case loads by mid-October if Ontario doesn't return to stage 2 restrictions, at least in Ottawa and the GTA. Ford, however, is hesitating. This isn't looking good.
Cap
I agree, Cap. Our leaders are afraid to do what they -- and we -- must do.
Quebec has shown gross incompetence with the pandemic. Per capita death rates are at Belgian/UK levels, while Germany has a rate less than a half of Canada's, which is itself skewed upwards by the almost 6,000 deaths in PQ.
Quebec has 3 1/2 times the per capita death rate of Ontario. Let that sink in.
Gallic logic feelings of innate superiority where it's entirely unwarranted, meant that a couple of weeks ago, Legault was asking for more money from Ottawa to run his own response more completely. Money down the drain if Trudeau had acceded to that nonsense! Of course Dougie Fraud (and his Con premier pals across the country) did his level best to say Ontario wanted to do the same thing, because all these completely useless Con premiers bar Higgs would do that kind of whining, saying provinces should be more independent anyway. Right. Without the feds, this country would have dissolved into a pack of incredibly poorly-led provinces, unable to see which way was up. There is a reason for federation, and it's to prevent local political nincompoops from going off on fishing expeditions injurious to their general populace. Look at the USA with its states rights uselessness. Look at Alberta, which would have been completely sunk without Canada, and the idiot kenney who thinks he's a tin pot god.
In addition, Canada had to send in the Army to help Quebec out in seniors' long term care homes back in the Spring. Examining himself in the mirror, Legault is, for some unknown reason beyond strutting peacockism, highly pleased with the reflection, like so many Conservative imcompetents. Left completely to its own devices, Quebec would have been the worst place in the world during the pandemic, because it's right up there on the leaderboard as it is. I am not exaggerating.
Neither Quebec nor Ontario's leaders (ha ha, pfft -- leaders?) seem to be able to issue consistent and understandable re-opening/shutting down "orders", leading to the type of rebellion from younger people we've already seen. They know there are a bunch of provincial dolts running things who haven't got the first clue what they're about.
Death rates per million:
USA 656
Canada 256
Belgium 880
Germany 116
UK 637
Quebec 687
Ontario 202
Source for Canada, Globe and Mail/Johns Hopkins
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-coronavirus-cases-canada-world-map-explainer/#
Source for the world, Johns Hopkins:
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/coronavirus/
Pretty obvious that Quebec is incompetent. Worse than Boris the Bozo in England, which has done worse than Wales/Scotland and Northern Ireland.
Don't even get me started on why, prior to the pandemic, English speakers from the Atlantic provinces driving to Ontario don't stop in Quebec. It's been a deeply unfriendly place going as far back as the early 1980s and rude with it. Inclusive it is not.
Glad so far in this pandemic I live in the Atlantic Bubble, I must say. Covid deaths are but one measure of this disaster, however. Low positive case loads are really what we all want, because that describes the cost in anxiety and money to both individuals and society. Look at the Atlantic Bubble case loads in that Globe and Mail link (it's not behind the paywall) compared to the rest of the country. No wonder we, I, can sit here and lecture the rest of you, because results count.
BM
The Atlantic premiers have done an excellent job, BM -- proof that the virus can be dealt with. Unfortunately, that kind of leadership has not surfaced across the country.
@ Anonymous
Wow, great rant about Quebec.
I, an anglophone, lived there for ten years and was proud to say "Je suis Québecois".
I grew up in Quebec, jrk, and I love the province. But Quebecers are fond of saying, "Quebec se faire." They insist on doing things their own way. That is not going to change.
Owen, JRK and BM: Five years ago I assisted my then 25 year old daughter in a cross country move to Newfoundland. She did french immersion here in BC and is bilingual. I am not. While in Quebec I insisted she do the speaking in french even though she didn't feel confident having not used it consistently since graduating from school. Yet she did use her french during the three days we spent in Montreal and Quebec City and everyone was gracious and polite to us. The locals seemed to be pleased that this young woman from BC was communicating with them in their first language. We showed respect and we received it in return. BM, you have said you were born in the UK and maybe you still have a bit of the accent when addressing Quebeckers in english which might be why you have encountered indifference. Which is not an excuse for the way you have been received in Quebec or anywhere else. While you have had more than experiences in La Belle Province than I have, my time there was certainly different than yours.
mr perfect
It was almost always my experience that, if you made an attempt to speak French first, you were well received by French-speaking Quebecers, perfect. If your accent gave you away, many Quebecers switched immediately to English. There were always those who refused to speak English -- just as there were anglophone Quebecers who refused to speak French.
Post a Comment