Joe Biden says the pandemic is over. Millions of people agree with him. But COVID hasn't receded into the history books. Glen Pearson writes:
Covid-19 hasn’t receded into the past, and it likely never will. The record of its effects on us has been brutal – 4.3 million cases with 45,648 deaths. Ontario had the worst count (14,495), but every province and territory had fallen into the pandemic’s grip. It has changed our outlook on life, perhaps forever. How we view employment, the economy, our communities, our future, and even one another has left us unsure of how to proceed. The old formulas no longer work, and the alternatives remain unclear.
It’s difficult to move on when new variants continue to fill our hospitals, and recent deaths are announced weekly. Before the pandemic, we had received consistent warnings that things like Covid were not only possible but imminent. We largely ignored those signs and blindly moved on. We are now running the dangerous risk of adopting that attitude once more, individually, collectively, and institutionally. While we may hope to get on with our daily pursuits, our health systems remain woefully underfunded, under-resourced, and under pressure every moment of the day while the Canadian population and its leaders continue to ignore both the potential and severity of future pandemics.
With the Canadian economy threatened by recession and two years of pandemic debts to be repaid, the funds required to bring our health systems up-to-speed will prove difficult to secure. And with a partisan political climate more concentrated on theatrics than the efficient delivery of services, the chances of inter-party cooperation to deal with the health crisis are minimal at best.
Pandemics are not new. And experience has given us the knowledge to deal with them:
This knowledge is second nature to us, but we have placed an increased distance between awareness of the threat and the steps necessary to reduce it. Disease has a context, fed and manipulated by societal conditions neglected over time. Permit social conditions to deteriorate or remain under-resourced, and the threat to human life will be inevitable. Canada has learned this lesson well enough to lead the world in healthcare awareness. But knowledge without action leads to eventual decline. Failure to address the problem is to accept it, and to tolerate it is to fall prey to our lack of watchfulness.
Pandemics require societal responses. Unfortunately, we live in an age of unbridled individualism and magical thinking. And so it continues.
It ain't over.
Image: tvo.org
10 comments:
No, it's not over. Far from it. Ford, Legault and other premiers see the collapse of our healthcare system as an opportunity to privatize it. But privatization won't get us more physicians, nurses and other healthcare providers. All it does is reallocate resources to those who can pay. Ford's making an omelet and we can expect a lot of cracked eggs.
Cap
Disaster Capitalism, Cap. We know how this operates.
Our denial ism of the dangers of Covid strolls along with the same attitude toward politics and the environment .
We have difficult choices to make ; shoving our heads up our collectives arses serves none.
Perhaps this is why those that offer simplistic answers to complicated issues are so popular nowadays?
TB
You're spot on, TB. Simpletons with simple solutions offer false hope.
I just head an interview with our medical officer of health who was announcing that all sorts of respiratory viri are floating around besides the Covid-19 ones. Oh goody! I may speed up vacc IV.
Still, I am sure Dougie is doing his best. I blame his father.
The whole Ford crew is not interested -- has never been interested -- in a societal response, jrk.
"Pandemics are not new."
OK. Covid, on the other hand, is vey 'new' in its level of transmissibility and mutations.
Denying the on-going pandemic - which seems to be the way of the world outside China - will likely cause some real problems.
It will be interesting to see which approach works better:
Extreme authoritarianism/quarantines etc vs haed in the sand hoping it will go away.
We seem to prefer hiding our heads in the sand, PoV.
Covid will be with us for the rest of our days, one way or another. When I read that it had been discovered in China, knew it would come to Canada. Two weeks before it arrived on Vancouver Island started practising my protocols and haven't stopped yet.Maybe the only person in a grocery store wearing a mask, but I haven't had covid yet. Did pick up a viral lung infection though and its nasty, its been hanging around for 6 weeks. Others have had it for 2 to 4 weeks.
My flu shot is scheduled for next week and my 5th covid shot in Dec.
Politicians are pretending covid is over because its good politics in the moment. Long term, not so much. At any time we could have a spike and covid cases are up in Canada with more in hospital than last year.
People might want to understand, you could die of covid, but if you don't it could be worse, Long Covid.
Some people just need to learn the hard way and some have jumped on the anti vaccine, etc. band wagon because it gives them something to do, feel important, and more in control (of what I don't know) but there really isn't much control over your life unless you live away from "civilization". Then you;re subject to control of the weather and the animals on four legs.
Anti-vaxers believe they're free, e.a.f. But they have responsibilities to others besides themselves.
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