BUBBLING OUR WAY TO MORE CONTACT
Two households can interact under system
When it released its pandemic recovery plan, New Brunswick became one of the first provinces to explicitly say it will permit “two-household bubbles,” a concept governments around the world have been experimenting with as they loosen rules on social distancing.
It is a hint of optimism, as public health authorities signal a willingness to let people expand their domestic isolation to include a single other person or household nearby.
“In an effort to reduce social isolation, especially for those living alone, your household can join up with one other household, if both households mutually agree,” New Brunswick’s new guidelines state. “This would allow you to visit, have a meal and enjoy the company of another household bubble. You must not have close contact with anyone else. You cannot join up with more than one household or bubble.”
Canadians have been living in bubbles. Everyone knows that. Until recently, however, governments have not gone out of their way to call them that.
That politicians are starting to say “bubble” out loud is an indication that the word itself, which sounds non-scientific, vaguely frivolous and a bit silly, is actually a powerful tool of pandemic response enforcement. People instinctively get it.
The key evidence for this is in New Zealand, which pioneered bubble messaging. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern recently declared a victory of sorts by stating the virus is not spreading locally and easing lockdown measures.
Her government’s advice was centred on the bubble concept. “You can slightly extend your household bubble, but keep it local, small and exclusive,” a government statement said, suggesting a single friend, or a caregiver, or someone who needs care. One or two people is OK, but you cannot combine more than two bubbles. Furthermore, siblings cannot both extend bubbles to their parents, and anyone can add two people to their bubble, but not if those others live in separate bubbles themselves.
Complex as it is, it’s a catchier concept than the one mooted in Belgium, which was reported to be proposing an unwieldy bubble of 10 people. The plan was leaked to the media and didn’t appear in a subsequent official report of advice.
However, bubbles are catching on. Nicola Sturgeon, First Minister of Scotland, said her government might encourage a slight expansion of the definition of household “to have almost kind of bubbles of people.”
But the logic of the multi-household pandemic “bubble” is still a novelty in Canada, sparsely used as an explicit concept in public health. New Brunswick is proposing something Canadians have yet to consider — an extended period of pairing off to socialize exclusively, almost like a pandemic marriage, or marriage of families, as the case may be.
Little political attention was given to the potential fallout in anxiety and hurt feelings, among those who are nobody’s first choice, or those who decline a bubble request.
The strategies also raise a novel question, whether bubbles can maintain what’s been achieved, or whether they might let the communal guard down for the sake of company.