Covid is smarter than us
Yoo-hoo. Covid’s back and many people are tired of it but it’s still important to remember that this is not something “they” are doing to “us” – it’s a fact of life we’re all coping with. This Guardian piece is as applicable here as it is in the UK, debunking several myths and pointing out that we simply can’t rely on Covid to get milder, or that having it become endemic means a return to the old carefree days. “Returning to normal behaviour does not return us to normal life. It returns us to a life with more disruption, more sickness and more strain on the [health services].”
Quebec has seen 1200 Covid deaths since sanitary measures have been lifted.
Update: Quebec public health czar Luc Boileau now says all options are on the table to face the sixth wave, conflicting with Christian Dubé’s intention to open everything up – although even he is wavering on his reopening bill.
It does feel sometimes like Quebec favours allowing the weak to die off.
Later Thursday: I may not have Covid but I may have whiplash from trying to follow the Quebec government on Covid. Try to figure out what Dubé is trying to do.
Michael 09:35 on 2022-03-31 Permalink
I don’t think a lot people are tired of covid itself since covid is statistically not harmful to people under 50. We are mostly tired of Legault playing yo-yo with restrictions, back and forth just to show the public he is “doing something”. There is a very vocal minority that screams every time there is a wave.
Legault shuts down the businesses that have shown not to be the cause of covid spread. Restaurants, gyms are always first to go and they account for less than 1% of covid spread.
Quebec’s public health did not recommend a curfew yet Legault did it anyway so he can placate this vocal minority.
If Legault does the correct actions, follows the science, lets it ride out and allow Quebec to live with the virus, people will stop caring.
Kevin 10:27 on 2022-03-31 Permalink
There is no way to say that restaurants and gyms account for less than 1% of covid cases *now* because contact tracing stopped at some point in 2021 — when restaurants and gyms were mostly closed.
People have an attitude that if something wasn’t safe, there’d be a law against it. So when the government has said for a long time that many things closed because they weren’t safe, that means when they are opened they suddenly are safe, like restaurants and bars.
The science is still recommending that people wear masks, improve ventilation, and get booster shots to minimize the chances of getting very sick if you get infected. It does not recommend “riding it out” because that means the virus will continue to mutate and some people will get infected every few weeks as another variant comes along.
MarcG 10:27 on 2022-03-31 Permalink
@Michael I think you mean “follows the healthy under-50 small business owner with no vulnerable friends or family”.
Chris 12:05 on 2022-03-31 Permalink
>The science is still recommending that people wear masks…
“The science” also says that we shouldn’t burn fossil fuels. As I recall you ride a motorbike, likely powered by fossil fuels.
Point being: since when do we run our society only based on what science says? Since never. There are other considerations.
EmilyG 13:09 on 2022-03-31 Permalink
My dad’s company is saying things like, “post-Covid era.” But no, Covid is still here.
At my dad’s workplace, they planned a party. Of course, many people at the party got Covid.
We’re not in a “post-Covid” era, we’re in a “post-many-people-caring-about-Covid” era.
walkerp 13:47 on 2022-03-31 Permalink
It’s quite maddening because it keeps changing. It’s weird that people have so many definite opinions when we really don’t know how the next mutation will behave. We could be in a manage with vaccines program for many years where the vaccines work to reduce hospitalizations and deaths, but we’ll still have enough selfish idiots to keep the disease mutating and harming a certain proportion of the population. And then it could jump to something that our vaccines are useless against and it will be another medical race with renewed lockdowns and restrictions. At this point the only certainty is uncertainty.
Kevin 13:48 on 2022-03-31 Permalink
Chris
So are you agreeing with Michael that the science is saying to let it ride out?
As for my bike, yes it runs on gas–less gas and less resources than a car.
Kate 13:52 on 2022-03-31 Permalink
Letting it ride out means accepting a lot more deaths as well as all the as yet unknown damage being caused by long Covid. There’s a lot of arrogance in this thread.
Tim S. 15:41 on 2022-03-31 Permalink
Based on the people around me, especially at my work, I feel like we’re now in the crisis we’ve worked so hard to avoid over the past two years. It’s frustrating, because we’ve developed all kinds of contingency plans and hybrid options, but now no one’s talking about those because, well, it’s just been decided that we’re done. Meanwhile, there’s nothing normal about a 25% absence rate, and even if I stay healthy (knock on wood) I can see the next few weeks being busy covering for others and helping people catch up with what they’ve missed.
And I’m not even a healthcare worker.
In short, lockdowns aren’t great, but making everybody act as though things are normal when they’re not is going to cause its own share of real, but hard to measure, psychic damage.
Joey 16:04 on 2022-03-31 Permalink
It’s nuts that while all this loosening of restrictions and devil-may-care attitude is proliferating among the CAQ leadership, no fewer than eight CAQ MNAs, including the premier and deputy premier (!), have COVID.
nau 00:58 on 2022-04-01 Permalink
How long have I been waiting to see Chris and Kevin with their mirror-image views finally have a go at each other over science? Kevin’s science over self-indulgence for COVID but not the climate has always been a bit grating. Before COVID, I would’ve said Chris was motivated by climate science, now it’s harder to tell how much he actually cares about that vs. it being a convenient rhetorical move against science-based COVID restrictions (but in any case other posters’ reactions suggest I’m not the only one who finds his posts grate as well). Yes, science isn’t the only consideration that is used to organize society, but in both these areas as well as many others, it would be better if it was the most influential one.
Kevin 15:49 on 2022-04-01 Permalink
@nau
Ha! 🙂
I’m not anti-climate, I’m just broken and using public transit every day takes a lot out of me.