The Pandemic

We are in the middle of a very messy period with Covid-19 in Canada. Why have the authorities in charge of public health failed in their communications with the public and failed in their planning of the vaccine rollout? Why is the rollout of the vaccine so disorganized and decentralized? Across the country, the approach has been scattered between the provinces. Separate strategies and the application of different levels of expertise means there is no sense of national urgency and little evidence that experts have been involved in problem solving on a broad enough scale to be effective. We are far behind the rates of vaccination in Britain and Europe. The Pandemic should be a test of national resolve and local insight and action. This has not happened.

The failure to test rapidly and efficiently is further evidence of the structural and political challenges we face.The weak efforts to encourage people to avoid each other and to avoid sharing public spaces has been ineffective. The reasons for this are many but among the most important is the failure to use the law to accomplish the goals of preventing the spread of the disease. The fear that some members of the public might be alienated by a more severe message backed up by proper and widespread enforcement is absurd.

This is an emergency, a once in a lifetime emergency. We must all be prepared to make sacrifices to protect those most vulnerable to the disease and ultimately to collectively engage in a unified action to defeat it. This cannot be done by soft peddling the impact of people who don’t care enough to wear masks and individuals who take risks because they have not grasped how our collective interdependence will have an impact on our ability to contain and get rid of the virus. This is even more the case with the new variants which are deadlier and transmit the virus at faster rates. Governments need to step up now!