Legault has strayed too far into optimism
We Quebecers are the Canadian “champions” of social distancing in the COVID-19 crisis, our province’s media proclaimed last week, citing a Google “community mobility” report based on mobile devices’ location histories.
The technology company found that of all Canadian provinces and territories, Quebec was the one where presences in public places, businesses, grocery stores, pharmacies, public transit, parks and workplaces had declined the most since the start of the coronavirus crisis.
So if you’ve been doing your part to keep yourself and others safe, give yourself a well-deserved (and well-washed) hand.
Trouble is, even here in Quebec, too many of us haven’t.
How many? It’s hard to tell from anecdotal evidence of, say, joggers exhaling on strollers in public spaces. Maybe a better indication is an alarming finding in a poll conducted this week by the Léger firm for the Association for Canadian Studies.
Léger found that we Quebecers were the “most disciplined” Canadians, after only British Columbians, in respecting COVID -19 safety measures. That’s because only 24 per cent of us admitted to disobeying at least one of the rules (21 per cent did in B.C.).
Wait a minute. Only 24 per cent?
In the first place, that might be an underestimate; poll respondents don’t always tell the truth, and some might give socially acceptable “right” answers instead.
And in the second, even if we assume it isn’t an underestimate, that’s still 24 per cent of the Quebec respondents, aged 18 and over, who admitted to disobeying at least one of the rules.
To put that in perspective, that’s one out of every four Quebec adults, or more than 1.6 million, any of whom can be a carrier of the virus, even if they don’t show symptoms.
So this is no time for the authorities to be sending us mixed messages leaving room for overly optimistic interpretation, allowing us to ignore some of the inconvenient restrictions. Yet in the past week, Premier François Legault occasionally wavered too far in that direction.
Only a few weeks into a crisis expected to last several months, Legault began the week by saying he could already see “light at the end of the tunnel.”
By then, the premier had split publicly with his top expert adviser, Dr. Horacio Arruda, over the publication of a reassuring projection of the evolution of the crisis in Quebec.
Arruda, the province’s director of public health, was afraid that such a projection might lead to public overconfidence and undermine social distancing efforts. But Legault chose instead to bow to media demands and have some good news produced.
The result was cautiously imprecise, presenting a wide range of possible deaths from the virus by the end of this month, with the maximum six times the minimum (health officials expected the actual toll to be closer to the lower number).
The projection also contained a possibly misleading date, and headline: April 18, the so-called “peak” of the virus, only 11 days later.
In fact, as health officials stressed, the need for continued social distancing not only to “flatten the curve” of the pandemic, but also to keep it flattened, would last for months after the peak.
And the projection failed to distract attention for long from the horrific conditions in the CHSLDS, the long-term care facilities, such as those reported in today’s Gazette. It’s a growing scandal that cries out for an independent public inquiry after the crisis.
On Friday, La Presse reported that under the Coalition Avenir Québec government, after the outbreak of the pandemic, elderly hospital patients had been transferred to already Covid-19-infested facilities to make room for victims of the virus.
Still, on Wednesday, Legault had sounded optimistic. “As we say in English, April showers bring May flowers,” he said. And sunny ways, you might say.
This year, however, it may be another season or two before those flowers bloom. In the meantime, let’s take care of ourselves, and each other.
And, as always, thanks for reading. dmacpgaz@gmail.com Twitter.com/dmacpgaz