Ontario has begun to re-open its schools. However, Martin Regg Cohn writes there is no one correct answer to schools reopening. That's because the virus -- and our knowledge about it -- is evolving:
One year after COVID-19 changed our world, the only certainty is that there are no certainties. There is only risk tolerance — and rhetoric tolerance.
COVID-19 is a moving target, so we must adapt. A year ago we were told to forget masks, wash our hands faithfully and clean countertops relentlessly to kill infectious fomites lurking everywhere.
Today we know that masks are our first line of defence, whereas fomites are no longer front and centre. Daily disinfection might be overkill compared to the lifesaving benefit of masks for students who, younger than the rest of us, will be last in line for vaccines.
And, just as our knowledge of which protections work best has evolved, so has our understanding of who is infected and why:
The empirical evidence of recent months suggests our youngest students are more protected, older students less so. Distancing between desks matters, but masking and ventilating matter more (best achieved by opening windows, even in winter, and closing up jackets; windowless classrooms need a better fix).
And we now understand the logistics of getting vaccines:
It’s tempting to blame the federal government for not procuring a bigger supply (even if our per capita buy is the world’s largest), nor securing earlier delivery dates (easier said than done). What leverage did Canada have to jump to the front of the global queue, lacking any domestic capacity or international clout in a global zero sum game (more for us means less for others)?
We may think ourselves wiser but we are not mightier than our American friends. Slow to the draw on medicare and masks, they are still the biggest gunslingers on the planet in terms of vaccine production and consumption.
In short, there are all kinds of variables involved in policymaking around COVID. That applies particularly to the re-opening of schools. And we will have to juggle these variables into the future.
Image: corporatefinancialinstitute.com
8 comments:
Nikiforuk has some blunt ideas on what we must do if we're to survive a rapidly mutating virus of worsening lethality. Most of our thinking and policies, however, still focus on the Covid-beta virus that first showed up in January of 2020.
The problem seems to be that Covid, in all its new variants and those that will follow on their heels, is too fast, too agile for our "feet of clay" responses. This seems to be turning into a race in which we're already falling behind.
We've been "behind the power curve" from the outset. Our sacred confederation has undermined harmonic coordination between Ottawa and the provinces, providing all players with plenty of opportunity for the national game - finger pointing.
For all his progressive instincts, Justin Trudeau is not a dynamic leader. He's hesitant, timid, the sort of general whose armies usually wind up in defeat (see 'climate change, electoral reform, inequality, social licence'). Now we're talking about having a facility in Montreal producing vaccines perhaps next summer. Vaccines for what, Covid-beta? Even then it's Novavax that, unlike the mRNA vaccines produced by Pfizer and Moderna with the newest advances in the field, it will be an old school, dial-up grade vaccine of the past. Will it work, who knows? Will any of these vaccines be the answer to whatever the virus becomes by next summer?
The virus with its variants and the vaccines are fluid, making it devilishly difficult to ever get ahead of them. The competing factor, the economy, is solid, anchored, familiar and hence gets great attention. The virus flares, lockdown. The virus begins to wane, business as usual. We porpoise along, winding up back where we began, always over-correcting.
I suppose it's enough that we do our best when we can no longer do what we must.
Australia and New Zealand haven't even begun to vaccinate people, yet nobody's flipping out. With proper public health measures, vaccines can wait. Our Atlantic provinces have demonstrated that too.
The problem in much of the rest of Canada is conservative premiers who don't want to deliver bad news to corporate owners. Things like, no, you're not travelling out of province, and if you do you're going to quarantine for 2 weeks on your return in a government-monitored hotel at your own expense. Or, yes, you are going to give your employees paid sick days so they don't have to come to work with Covid. Or, yes, you are going to add staff to long-term care facilities so employees aren't working double shifts, aren't moving between Covid floors and other floors, and are wearing N95 respirators.
Unfortunately, in the ROC outside the Atlantic bubble, there's no commitment to get to zero cases. The game plan seems to be doing the least necessary, planning for a third wave, and hoping to vaccinate enough people to avoid a fourth. Pathetic, murderous incompetence, really.
Cap
We've been behind from the beginning. what we need, Mound, is a "war room." It must be focused on the virus, continually gathering data and shifting course as required.
Unfortunately, Cap, in the battle against COVID profit still takes first place.
It seems that we're on a downhill pull to.....nowhere! Two years ago we were greatly concerned about 'Global Warming'. A year ago it was COVID19. Now we hear very little about climate change (did it stop? NO!) and COVID19 has morphed into more virulent strains.
Could this be Mother Nature's way to ease us into population reduction?
Just asking for a friend! Personally, I have my three score and ten well spent but would certainly appreciate any additional time, even it is at the expense of cohorting with other octogenarians
Everyone's days are numbered, John. But, unfortunately, COVID is keeping the count shorter than usual.
The Canadian old Tor of punching above it's weight has met it's match with this little virus?
Frankly our insignificance haughty as it may be is of little value on the international scene!
Perhaps if we had perused our 'Blue beret' days with more vigour with the UN and not cow towed to USA foreign policy we would receive more respect?
As it is our insignificance is embarrassing.
TB
The days of Pearsonian diplomacy were our high water mark, TB.
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