Politicians should model safe COVID behaviour, not flout it

How do you explain to your kids that they can't go trick-or-treating because of COVID-19 but that it's OK for some politicians not to bother with masks or physical distancing?

Community spread is what's preventing us from returning to something resembling normality. It's unlikely we'll ever get back to carefree 2019. But between that and lockdown-modified-stage-two misery, we ought to be able to find a reasonably happy middle where students and teachers are safe in schools, most of us can work, and everybody can enjoy some form of social life.

For that, we all need to observe the basics. I'm as tired of saying it as you are of hearing it, but it still holds. Maintain strict physical distancing, wear masks, wash hands and avoid crowds. If some of us refuse to observe those rules, all of us suffer.

That's why it's so important for politicians to model good behaviour. Unfortunately, too many are not. And that makes it really hard for the rest of us to continue making sacrifices. Why should we, if they won't?

Here in Ottawa, House of Commons staff had to install Plexiglas shields to protect pages because several MPs and their aides fail to observe physical distancing rules.

Last week, Conservative leader Erin O'Toole sat next to Alberta Premier Jason Kenney for some kind of video event, without either of them wearing masks. O'Toole, borrowing a page from the Trump playbook, suggested he couldn't be contagious because he already caught and recovered from the disease. Do I need to explain that science doesn't agree with him?

Then this week, MPP Randy Hillier, who has been criticizing what he calls COVID-19 “hysteria” for some time now, showed up at the provincial legislature surrounded by a group of maskless supporters that included populist (not, kindly note, popular) leader Maxime Bernier.

More than seven months into a pandemic that has hurt millions of people around the world — including more than 1,900 who died from it in Ontario long-term care homes — there are people whose self-perceived privilege is so important that they feel they can ignore the most basic of safety measures no matter how much it endangers those around them.

Meanwhile, small-business owners are in danger of losing everything, long-term care residents are once again facing the horrors of isolation and death, health-care workers are burning out, and your favourite Minecraft Pickaxe can't go collect candy. But entitled politicians with big salaries, pensions and job security? That's OK. They get to do whatever they want.

Look. It's fine to question and criticize public health authorities. I'm sure they make mistakes sometimes. Are they going too far by cancelling Halloween? That's a proper thing to discuss. But what is not open to debate is what we're dealing with: a highly contagious, deadly virus.

It's not rocket science, it's microbiology. To avoid catching or spreading the virus, we need everyone to work on basic infection prevention and control. There's nothing authoritarian in that.

Getting rid of four-person rooms in nursing homes would go a long way toward protecting those vulnerable residents. Having more school resources to guarantee small class sizes and cohorts would benefit kids and teachers. Increased testing and tracing capacity would be great for everyone. These are hard and expensive things to do, and they will take time.

Meanwhile, we all have to do our part by respecting strict physical distancing from those who don't live with us. Also wear masks. All of us have to do it, including those who think they're too special for infection control to apply to them.

Politicians who refuse to do their part send the wrong message to the rest of us. They also tell kids looking wistfully at their costumes that their trick-ortreating doesn't matter a whit to them.

What a sorry bunch of gourds.

Maintain strict physical distancing, wear masks, wash hands and avoid crowds.