For some, looser restrictions too close for comfort
There was a time early in the pandemic when we yearned for those forbidden hugs, handshakes and two-cheek kisses. Heck, we longed for any kind of proximity to other humans, social animals that we are.
The arrival of COVID -19 cut us off from one another and forced us to stay away from even close family members. Our circle of contacts was reduced to family, class and household bubbles for so long we resigned ourselves to the deprivation. We grew so inured to social distancing we'd skirt others on the sidewalk and stick rigorously to the helpfully placed markers in the supermarket aisles. Somehow we adapted.
No longer. As the number of new cases in Quebec plummets (52 were reported Monday) and the vaccination rate climbs, the last vestiges of the restrictions imposed to keep us safe are fading away. Capacity limits for stores were lifted. (Yay! No more lineups!) And the two-metre distance between people who don't share our address has been eased to a mere one metre.
We've dreamed of this day. It's been a long time coming. Yet the latest transition feels just as strange as the introduction of isolating public health measures way back in March 2020. New habits die just as hard.
The shrinking of the two-metre radius by half isn't that big a deal epidemiologically; it's more of a psychological hurdle to surmount.
Some of us have grown so accustomed to a wide buffer of personal space after 18 months of living through a pandemic that we find solace in solitude. We're now wary of anyone coming too close for comfort — strangers especially. There are surely many ready to shrug off the lockdown with gleeful abandon. But for introverts at least, awkwardness has become an unexpected side effect of curfews and curtailed social lives. It's going to take time for normal to feel, well, normal again.
The etiquette that evolved initially to protect us from a lethal virus came to feel reassuring in many respects. It was a relief not to have anyone breathing down our necks in the checkout line or brushing up against us on the métro, accidentally or otherwise. But day by day, week by week, our private spheres are shrivelling and our horizons are expanding. We're now allowed to gather in larger groups of up to 10 indoors, 20 outdoors, or clusters comprised of three different households either inside or out. That's a party by post-pandemic standards!
If any of us grew risk-averse to large crowds during the long confinement to fend off COVID -19, perhaps the frenzy over the Montreal Canadiens' thrilling Stanley Cup playoff run helped us overcome it. Only a fraction of the usual throngs were permitted into the Bell Centre, so the masses congregated outside, in public plazas and parks. The fandemonium was no less exuberant. Same for the Euro and the Copa América, the high-stakes football, sorry, soccer tournaments that pit Montreal's vibrant ethnic neighbourhoods against each other to cheer for international teams. Perhaps a passion for sports helped lower inhibitions.
Sometimes it's the thought of engaging in once nonchalant activities — attending a concert, flying on a plane — that inspires dread more than actually doing them. But practice makes perfect as we resume our familiar ways. If we've learned one skill over the past year it's the ability to adapt, over and over again.
As we wake from this long hibernation and fall into summer's warm embrace, we remember our euphoric emergence from the first wave of COVID-19 a year ago. We revelled in reunions and reconnected ruptured relationships not knowing the worst was yet to come. It's hard, this time, not to feel a sense of foreboding about what may be around the corner.
While we are regaining precious freedoms, countries like South Korea and parts of Australia are heading into lockdown. The leader of the Netherlands acknowledged he loosened restrictions too quickly. It just goes to show COVID -19 is an ever-evolving enemy and there is no single roadmap for escaping its devastation.
Vaccination is the only reliable way forward and we're getting there. In Quebec, 82 per cent of the population 12 and up has now received at least one dose and 45 per cent has received two. But young adults still lag and younger children still aren't eligible. So we're not there yet.
Still, we have achieved enough immunity to take these tentative steps toward each other again — one metre closer, mask at the ready, outside for the most part.
Ready or not, we should enjoy this reprieve while it lasts.