The vaccine miracle is here. Let's act like it

It has been interesting to watch Canadians on social media process a milestone that many news outlets noticed and reported on this week: Unless something drastic and unexpected happens, Canada's COVID-19 rate will soon exceed the United States'. There was woe, and performative shame. “I never thought I would see the day,” was a fairly typical reaction, and a telling one I think.

Canada, after all, has previously seen higher case rates than what we're seeing now; only British Columbia is currently at an all-time high, though others are approaching uncharted territory. For 12 months, the measures Canadian governments have implemented, along with Canadians' willingness and ability to avoid risk, have proved unable to prevent steep rises in case numbers (although they have kept us below all of the U.S and Europe, save Norway and Finland). With death rates far lower than previous peaks, the most vulnerable people increasingly being vaccinated and with mass-vaccination on the horizon, it seems very unlikely governments would suddenly implement measures they had not been willing to before.

The U.S. won't be the first country that has seen far more COVID horror than Canada to wind up below us in the new-case rankings. Portugal dipped below Canada on March 9, the United Kingdom a week later, and Spain on April 1.

But those countries “locked down,” whereas Canadians have generally regarded America's and Americans' COVID behaviour as mind-bogglingly blasé. And of course, Canadians don't constantly compare themselves to Brits and Iberians. They constantly compare themselves to Americans, basking in any superiority no matter how unearned, mediocre or irrelevant, taking unproductive solace in being less bad at things, and whinging when they fall short.

America is not out of the woods, by any means: Unlike the U.K., Portugal and Spain, its overall case rates are rising, just more slowly and in a more clustered fashion than in Canada. Rates are rising in every Canadian province outside the Maritimes, whereas they're dropping or stable in quite a few big U.S. states: California, Texas, Georgia. The hotspots — Michigan, Colorado — roughly correlate with high rates of the same variants Canada is struggling to contain, and they could obviously spread.

But if there's any time we shouldn't be surprised to see the Americans outperforming us, surely it's now: 17 per cent of us have received at least one dose of vaccine, while 33 per cent of Americans have. To that you can add vastly more natural immunity: More than one in 10 Americans have had the virus, versus one in 36 Canadians.

If we think these vaccines work, what else would we expect to see?

If Canadians aren't thinking of the vaccines as the golden ticket back to their old lives, they could certainly be forgiven. No one in charge, neither bureaucrat nor politician, is framing them remotely that way. That reflects a healthy instinct not to get ahead of themselves, and a standard political aversion to positivity in the face of mortal peril — but also, I think, an unhealthy and unwarranted suspicion of the unwashed: “If we tell people things are about to get a lot better rather quickly, we will certainly wake up the next morning to anarchy!”

This is obviously not true, for starters. Canadians are generally cautious, rule-abiding people, and our COVID-19 numbers relative to comparable countries, while hardly parade-worthy, reflect that.

That suspicion may well come at a price, too, which is dissuading people from getting vaccinated — quickly, with whichever one they're offered first, or at all.

To many of us, the incentive to get vaccinated is self-evident, personal and intense. But unlike in the U.S., where the Centers for Disease Control have vouched it safe for vaccinated people to attend small gatherings, or Iceland, which allows vaccinated people to skip quarantine on arrival, getting jabbed here comes with no immediate lifestyle improvement. Just a grim admonition to stay the hell home. Our leaders still refuse to discuss what the return to normal will look like — at the border, at the pub, at the nail salon, at work — and what benchmarks will lead us there. They refuse to discuss the end result of the collective miracle in which everyone who gets vaccinated is participating, and that everyone who doesn't is slowing down.

Our various governments' vaccine websites are ludicrously dry, plodding affairs. “COVID-19 vaccines help prevent you from getting infected and protect you from getting severely sick if you do get it,” Alberta's yawns. “Vaccines work with your immune system so your body will be ready to fight the virus if you are exposed,” Ontario's explains, seemingly channelling Ben Stein in Ferris Bueller's Day Off. “This can reduce your risk of developing COVID-19 and make your symptoms milder if you do get it.”

This isn't a vitamin supplement, for heaven's sake. There should be fireworks going off on these websites! They should autoplay the Beer Barrel Polka! This “less effective” AstraZeneca vaccine, the one that “only” shows 80-per-cent effectiveness at preventing symptomatic cases and causes a blood-clot disorder in a minute number of cases, credibly claims 100-per-cent effectiveness in its phasethree trials in preventing severe cases and hospitalizations. Holy crap, you guys — 100 freaking per cent! And have you heard about this “herd immunity”? The more of us who get the shot, or any other, the quicker we can go out to dinner!

Politicians and public health officers can't talk like this, I realize, but official miserablism can only take a country and its people so far. It is, I submit, this far.

Throw the herd a bone, please. Give us a glimmer of hope.