The film director Billy Wilder said that "Hindsight is 20/20." We should keep that in mind when we look back at the pandemic. Heather Scoffield writes:
The pandemic has meant Canadians have been through some deep trouble in terms of their living arrangements, work arrangements, economic prospects and personal finances. Their mental health, physical safety and trust in one another have been shaken.
And the effects have been felt disproportionately, revealing — and at times exacerbating — the profound weaknesses in our society that go far beyond the health-care system.
COVID's effect on women has been particularly revealing:
The research was commissioned by the Royal Society of Canada midway through the pandemic, at a time when it was obvious that women were paying a high price — not just in terms of employment and income but also in terms of caregiving for the old and the young.
The researchers found what we know almost intuitively — that in addition to steep losses in employment, the pandemic also escalated demands on paid and unpaid caregivers, exacerbated gender-based violence, undermined mental health for girls in school, and made women’s transition to the workforce more difficult.
At the same time, government income supports and programs often missed the mark. Very rarely did thinking around support fully recognize the cascading challenges of race, disability or gender, the researchers found.
For example, women with disabilities — physical, mental or intellectual — make up about 24 per cent of all women in Canada, but rates of disability are higher for Indigenous and Black women. Those women also face disproportionately higher rates of poverty, unemployment, violence, incarceration and homelessness, as well as disease and dementia, writes contributor Bonnie Brayton.
It should not have been a shock that they were hit harder by COVID-19 than other demographics, but you wouldn’t know it by the public supports that were available, she argues.
And then there are the supply chains issues:
Inflation, a concurrent economic slowdown or recession, plunging real estate values, soaring rents and even a children’s Tylenol shortage are all linked to Canada’s persistent inability to fully shake the pandemic.
And we know all too well that those economic spinoffs of the pandemic double down on the same demographics that are hurt most by the public-health aspects of COVID-19, compounding their vulnerability.
Some of us survived COVID much better than others:
The pandemic didn’t just reveal weaknesses in our health-care system and our ability to produce vaccines and masks. It also exposed serious issues with our social-safety network, our financial markets and our understanding of inflation and global supply chains. And it exacerbated the inequities that are constantly bubbling away.
Those weaknesses must be addressed. Because there will be a next time.
Image: Corporate Finance Institute
4 comments:
One 0f the major upsets from covid is that Drs. seem to enjoy dealing with patience by telephone. I realise that in Ontario they had to avoid meeting with so many people but now it seems to be the norm with no one looking to get back to personal meetings to discuss patience concerns albeit one symptom per meeting. My Dr. runs a botox clinic on the side and will all know thats not done by phone or through public billing. ca ching ca ching.
Doctors are retiring where we live, zoombats. And we're not attracting new ones.
Wilder was also credited - likely mistakenly - with saying, "If you're going to tell people the truth, you better be funny or they'll kill you. I think about that a lot. Maybe people can't hear the message because we need to couch it in something more palatable.
It seems, Marie, that during the pandemic, people lost their sense of humour.
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