The End Of Mandatory Covid Restrictions Will Not End Differences Of Opinion

Posted March 18, 2022

On Monday Nova Scotia will conclude a journey that began two years less a day  ago, when the State of Emergency was first announced. It is a journey that we have travelled together with our families, with our friends and neighbours, with other Nova Scotians, with other Canadians, with everyone on the planet.

In the beginning very little was known. A novel virus which could cause serious illness and death was spreading rapidly around the globe. There were no vaccines that could prevent it and no therapies that could reliably provide relief.

Nor was it immediately obvious how the disease was transmitted. Gradually, a set of practices to limit spread was identified: limiting social contact, social distancing, quarantines, hand washing, masks. Non-essential businesses and services were shut down. Online shopping became the norm.

Work on vaccines began almost immediately. There were dozens of candidates, each needing to be rigorously tested for efficacy and safety. Most failed to pass one of the testing stages, but a number succeeded and were approved about a year after the virus was clearly identified. They were effective both in limiting spread and reducing severity of illness for those who became infected. Manufacturing capacity was ramped up.

A second wave began in late 2020 and another in the spring of 2021. In Canada and other wealthy countries vaccinations became widely available in the first half of 2021, requiring two doses spread months apart. When a fourth wave began in August it was less severe than the first three, proof of the value of vaccines.

Just when many thought we were on the way to safety, the Omicron variant appeared and changed the rules. Vaccines are much less effective in limiting its transmission. Fortunately, it is less severe than the Delta variant it displaced, and the vaccines are still effective in limiting Omicron’s severity.

Case numbers are much higher than the early variants but the infections are often mild. Many people have had asymptomatic infections without knowing it. In Nova Scotia the combination of vaccination and acquired immunity has persuaded Dr. Strang and Premier Houston to remove all restrictions starting Monday.

Reactions range from “It’s about time!” to “We’re not ready!!” and everything in between. Some will continue to wear masks whenever they are out of the home. Others plan to party likes it’s 2019.

The division of opinion includes expert epidemiologists such as Dr. Lisa Barrett, who feels that we know too little about where the virus is headed.

Clearly, this is a matter on which people can differ. What matters is to recognize that having different reactions is normal. It is not that one is right and others are wrong. Well-informed and reasonable people can have a broad spectrum of reactions to the choices made by public health and political leaders.

How those leaders conduct themselves is important. It is unfortunate when they fail to acknowledge that they are dealing with the uncertainty of navigating uncharted territory.

It is bad when they politicize the choices. In Canada, Prime Minister Trudeau has implemented needlessly punitive measures affecting travel as part of his search for wedge issues. Premier Jason Kenney of Alberta has often ignored the advice of his medical team in the name of “freedom.”

It is worse south of the border. Some Republican governors use their choices to highlight differences with the Biden administration.

In federally regulated Florida airports, there are signs and announcements that masks are to be worn at all times, with risk of fines and expulsion for non-compliance. In contrast, Florida Governor DeSantis has forbidden mask mandates for businesses and schools. He recently berated high school students for choosing to wear masks.

In Nova Scotia, Strang and Houston have acknowledged the diversity of people’s views.

Going forward, some will still frequently wear masks, avoid being in large groups, shop in person only if the stores are not busy, and choose to dine only at outdoor restaurant tables.

Others will be totally uninhibited. They will especially enjoy, for the first time in two years, the close collective experiences that have been absent at plays, concerts, sporting events, and faith gatherings.

Over those two years differences in how we respond to the pandemic have sometimes led to bruised or broken relationships with friends or family members. The end of restrictions as guideposts will create greater opportunity for argument.

We must be willing to acknowledge the validity of another person’s perspective without having to change our own. We must master the art of disagreeing agreeably.

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  • I rarely read your column, and yours of Saturday March 19th confirms at least one reason.
    While the piece starts with a good premise, “Let’s Call a Truce in COVID Civil War”, you go out of your way to stir your own personal cauldron of political bias and resentment.
    You just can’t let up on your unnecessary political attacks on Prime Minister Trudeau.
    With all the division around COVID, much of it caused by the unknown disease, scientific disarray, intentional disinformation and obstinacy, you had to write that PM Trudeau “implemented needlessly punitive measures affecting travel as part of his search for wedge issues”.
    You ignore the uncertain context of 2020-2021.
    At the time, PM Trudeau’s decisions would have been based upon concerns of public safety and the recommendations of Public Health Canada.
    It was clear most people saw travelling on crowded common carriers as a COVID infection risk. Unless you have access to your own jet, travel in close quarters is uncomfortable at the best of times.
    Last year, development/availability of timely and accurate testing for the virus was another issue of uncertain times.
    Many areas of the country, like the North and the Atlantic Provinces needed protection for vulnerable populations due to limited health care options.
    Polling showed the majority of the public as reluctant to travel, wanting as much protection as possible: quarantines, testing, improved air quality, hygiene, vaccines, etc. The vaccine mandate for travel was very popular in many countries.
    In the Fall of 2021, the initial 2-dose vaccination program was proving effective against the early variants of the disease.
    One way to encourage vaccination was to provide incentives, such as requiring vaccination for public employment and entry to crowd events. Provincial governments employed these methods to varying degrees.
    As you know, most of the restrictions used as a cover for the conspiracy theorists and anti-government protesters in the Freedom 2022 convoy, were implemented by Provincial governments.
    The requirement for vaccination prior to travel provided reassurance to the travelling public until the Omicron variant arrived. Even though vaccination has not been able to prevent all Omicron spread, there is evidence the vaccines reduced spread, as well as symptoms and risk of serious illness/death.
    I, for one, am grateful I didn’t have to travel on one of my long flights West, sitting next to a confrontational unvaccinated person like the controversy-spewing Pat King. Remember that everyone disembarking from a flight interacts with
    others, including family.
    As a consequence of our division of powers and jurisdictional issues, Canada’s response to COVID has been uneven, and a number of our provincial governments wanted to try the US models or herd immunity. “Let’er Rip.”
    Provinces and territories set their own regulations.
    As the US approaches 1 Million COVID deaths, where families were torn apart and many children were orphaned, I am glad our federal government obtained and provided the vaccines, PPE, testing, public education and more to the provinces and the public.
    While every death is tragic, our governments prevented the ravages we saw South of the border.
    COVID isn’t over yet. Much of the World is still under some form of restriction, and where lapsing, epidemiologists raise concern. They don’t know where the virus is headed.
    Your smear them on the Federal government’s policy as “needlessly punitive measures” …“part of a search for a wedge issue” is unnecessary and inflammatory, but not sadly, not unexpected.
    Apologize!
    Reply from Bill Black:
    Thanks Carole.
    You are the second person to make that objection. In my view it has some merit.
    If I had to write it again I would have had the final paragraph clearly focus on relations with friends, family, neighbours.
    Politicians are different. I stand by my criticisms of Trudeau, Kenney, and De Santis. Trudeau’s choices about cross-border travel ( the quarantine hotels fiasco, making people provide PCR tests coming from the US when cases were also raging in Canada , making unvaccinated truckers quarantine I think for 14 days ) were not justified by the epidemiology.
    Requiring air passengers to be vaccinated made sense when the vaccinations were effective in preventing transmission. It is much less so for Omicron as time passes since the most recent shot. I nevertheless agree that it should continue for a while. (And I share your distaste for Pat King).

    Carole Gillies | March 23, 2022

  • Although I ignore your political comments about our PM, since no one else would have done a better job under the circumstances, I’d like to thank you for the general wisdom of this column today.
    I’m triple vaccinated. And followed all the protocols for two years because as the son of a head nurse, an orderly (emergency, geriatric and psychiatric) for three years, a premed student for one year…. I knew the history of the Spanish Flu and did my duty.
    The only thing I wish you had mentioned in your article is that those who refuse to follow any of the required protocols had only one option:
    Stay the hell home.
    Our charter of rights and freedoms does not include the right to knowingly infect others with a potentially lethal virus.

    Philip Thompson | March 20, 2022

  • Hah! You are such a Tory apologist! You say in closing that “ we must be willing to acknowledge the validity of another person’s perspective”. Yet “Trudeau has implemented needlessly punitive measures affecting travel as part of his search for wedge issues”. You talk out of both sides of your mouth:( And what did you think of the Premier saying yesterday that he was “sort of out of the province and couldn’t update with Dr. Strang”? I wonder if the previous day’s open letter from the Pediatric Advisory Pandemic Advisory Group in which Dr. Strang got out the message that he recommended only and that the government determined policy, had anything to do with the Premier’s reversal re school masking?
    Reply from Bill Black:
    You make a good point, although Trudeau was not the only politician that was criticized. My focus was on relations between friends and family but the text did not clearly make that distinction.

    Jeanne | March 19, 2022

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