Why it's hard talking to loved ones about COVID-19

WHY IT'S SO HARD TO TALK TO FAMILIES ABOUT COVID AND THE VACCINE

The long-awaited COVID-19 vaccine has arrived in Canada and an end to the pandemic is finally in sight. The first person in Canada to receive the first shot of the Pfizer-biontech COVID-19 vaccine on Monday morning was 89-year-old Gisèle Lévesque, a resident of the Saint-antoine long-term care facility in Quebec City. Health officials in Quebec said they would begin vaccinating residents and staff at the Quebec City residence and at the Maimonides Geriatric Centre in Montreal after receiving a shipment of the vaccine Sunday night.

In Ontario, the first person to be administered the vaccine on Monday was a personal-support worker at a long-term care facility, who received the shot at the University Health Network in Toronto. Ontario's first shots on Monday were given to three personal support workers, a registered nurse, and a registered practical nurse who work at the Rekai Centre nursing home.

Ontario received 6,000 doses of Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine on Sunday night and plans to give them to approximately 2,500 healthcare workers.

Other provinces across the country will begin administering their first vaccine shots this week, but the pandemic is not over yet.

The next few months could be the hardest we've had to face as cases and deaths continue to hit record highs and people grow more and more frustrated with restrictions.

But, in our ninth month of the pandemic in Canada, one problem has been pervading our society — we still don't know how to talk to each other about the virus. COVID deniers and anti-maskers notwithstanding, many Canadians have vastly different interpretations of what is safe to do in the midst of the pandemic and confronting those differences can often lead to unsavoury conflict. So, most stay silent and don't say anything at all.

As the holidays quickly approach, experts told the National Post that families and friends still feel a stigma and pressure around discussing COVID-19 restrictions and especially keeping each other accountable to them.

“People can't really talk about how they're feeling and if you can't, we won't resolve a lot of the problems we're having with managing people to keep to the restrictions,” said Dr. Rehman Abdulrehman, a clinical psychologist and the director of Clinic Psychology Manitoba. “There's a great level of shame tied to how hard it is.”

The director of the Silm Centre for Mental Health, Dr. Taslim Alani-verjee, said that this awkwardness stems from the fact that, on some level, many people believe that the virus won't affect them. The coronavirus is a really scary thing for a lot of Canadians, she said, and keeping the belief that they're not at risk helps them cope with that fear. But the tradeoff is those people might start to ignore public health guidelines.

“When you have a conversation with someone, it kind of depends on how they've internalized the way that COVID is affecting them,” Alani-verjee said. “But if you try to push someone to deal with COVID in a way that they are not ready to deal with, they're probably going to be resistant to what you are saying, and they might react in a confrontational or defensive way.”

According to Abdulrehman, part of the blame should be put on the messaging from public health officials, which he says doesn't take mental health into account. By not including more messaging and directives tied to emotion, it's created a dynamic where Canadians can feel vilified for not perfectly following health recommendations.

“It's just been `this is what you're supposed to do and if you don't do it, you're a bad person',” he said. “And truly, I don't know what else we expected.”

He likens the taboo around openly discussing COVID-19 measures to safe sex campaigns in the ' 80s and ' 90s. Safe sex practices were declining in areas where people didn't feel comfortable talking about it, but quickly increased once education and comfort around the topic became more mainstream.

“When we create a taboo around something, we can't really determine the things that are preventing people from engaging in the practices and behaviours that are safe,” Abdulrehman said.

He adds that adding small relatable messages reminding people to work together during COVID-19 announcements could help with the feelings of isolation and anxiety. Even officials just talking about why the pandemic has been hard for many could go a long way.

“If an end weren't in sight, this could be some horrible, deeply dividing thing that's permeating our society,” said epidemiologist Raywat Deonandan. “It's a bit of a wake up call around how we have to approach other kinds of social restrictions that are voluntary and how we communicate around them.”

Alani- Verjee said one of the main things we should do to successfully get through to others is be compassionate. Everyone is struggling with the pandemic in different ways — a lot of people's coping mechanisms and social structures have been all but dismantled thanks to the virus — and they're approaching health guidelines through different means.

“If we can talk to our friends and family members with compassion and with a desire to actually understand why they're making their decisions, instead of from a place of judgment, I think that that would allow for a more productive conversation,” she said.

Abdulrehman suggests delaying any sort of judgment and asking where people are situated in terms of pandemic restrictions. The worst thing you could do, he says, is take their anxieties and defensiveness personally. Instead, allow them to explain their reasoning for their actions and touch base later if you get the sense that they're bothered by something else.

“We have to remember that for most people, this pandemic is stressing them out. It's causing financial stress, it's reducing social contact and it's generally limiting peoples' freedoms,” he said. “It had to be done, but it is limiting something that people rely on.”

Deonandan, however, finds it effective to make someone feel like they're the hero.

“I tell people that your refusal or sloppiness in mask- wearing makes my spouse uncomfortable and it creates tension in my household, therefore please help me rescue my relationship. I make them the hero. You're doing this for me, doing me a huge favour and making my life easier,” he said. “That appears to work.

“What you don't want is opposition,” Deonandan adds. “You want cooperation and you want them to feel as though they are helping and are part of the solution.”