As I write this, the city where I am staying has just announced that we are going back in to lockdown. While this affects us all, I can’t help but feel that the actions of a few have led us to this point. Ironically, it is those few who will most likely complain the loudest about lockdown.
Cases are skyrocketing across Canada once again, mostly because our leaders listened to public opinion instead of science. Anyone who looked at the research knew that we were opening up again too soon. We knew there was going to be a second wave, and that it was likely to be worse than the first. We knew that we were cutting social supports too soon. We knew that opening the schools again was going to spread the virus faster. We knew all of these things, yet we still opened, mostly because people didn’t like staying home. We caved in, and the resulting surge is the result.
One of the biggest factors affecting the resurgence has been with young people, mostly 20-30 year olds. As soon as the first lockdown was eased up, they were out in force as if nothing was happening. This is because the message that was given out was that they weren’t at risk. It was old people who were dying, so why should the young people have to suffer. What they failed to realize is that young people are at risk as well, just in a different way. They are more likely to suffer the long-term affects of covid. Rather than dying, they end up with life altering complications such as lung scarring, brain damage, etc. By the time we knew what was actually happening with the virus, the message was already out and no one wanted to hear it.
We also knew that, while children often don’t get sick with covid, the do carry it. Anyone who has younger children also knows that they are not the most hygienic. Getting them to follow social distancing rules was unrealistic from the start. Every year , when school started in September, we would see a resurgence of flu cases. Why? Because school children spread it to all of their classmates, who then take it home to parents and siblings. Why then did we not anticipate the same result with covid?