COVID starting to make people surly
If the political conversation around the pandemic seems to have acquired a harder edge these days, science may have an explanation - it’s something called the “third-quarter phenomenon.”
Studies of people who have experienced isolation in outer space and the Arctic have apparently found that humans get testy and emotional precisely when the end moves closer in sight — as it seems we may be here in Canada with the COVID-19 crisis.
“We have begun the dreaded third quarter of isolation, when — yes — things get weird,"” read the headline on an Australian TV news website this week.
It summed up the first two quarters this way: “An initial point where there was panic buying and confusion, and then a ‘honeymoon period’ when it felt novel and different to stay at home.”
In the third quarter, though, panic and novelty give way to bleaker spirits. Or, as one space journal describes it, “those undertaking deployments in challenging scenarios are likely to experience a reduction in mood, irritability, tension and decreased morale after the midpoint and into the third phase of a mission —the TQP.”
While many Canadians may recognize TQP slipping into their own cooped-up personal or professional lives, the phenomenon may be creeping into politics, too.
First we had the frenzied round of spending and shock. Then we settled into a routine of daily government briefings, virtual debate and rare, cross-party, intergovernmental co-operation. That was nice — for a while.
But that second-stage bubble was bound to burst, and it’s happening right around what B.C.’s public health officer, Dr. Bonnie Henry, described on Monday as “the end of the beginning” of this pandemic.
In politics, it feels a little like everyone is sick of washing their hands — metaphorically speaking — and decided to get them a bit dirty again.
Politicians are sniping at each other about gun laws, about COVID-19 relief and even about whose fault it is that the virus put us all in a lockdown.
The TQP, as it is starting to play out in Canada, could also be described as the naming, shaming and blaming game.
On the business of naming, some real debates are simmering about contact tracing and how much these efforts to constrain further spread of the virus will also intrude on Canadians’ privacy.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford wants national standards, while Alberta has already rolled out a contact-tracing app for smartphones and several other provinces and municipalities may do the same soon.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has said Canadians may be willing to cede a little more of their privacy in exchange for greater freedom from the grip of pandemic isolation. We’ll see.
Blaming, meanwhile, is the lifeblood of politics in normal times, and perhaps we should be reassured that it is struggling back into the conversation around the pandemic as we hit the third quarter. As usual, there’s plenty to go around.
Trudeau’s government is being blamed for doing too little in some areas -—on Tuesday, it was not enough aid for farmers. It is also being blamed for doing too much: Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer and several premiers are worried that its COVID-19 benefits are so generous that they create disincentives for Canadians to get back to work.
Blame is also starting to circle around China, thanks in part to Donald Trump’s efforts to pin the virus on where it originated, but there are also Conservatives in Canada who argue that Trudeau isn’t aggressively pursuing China and the World Health Organization enough for the spread of the virus. At his Monday briefing with reporters, Trudeau said the blame discussion is a topic for another day.
“It’s extremely important that we understand exactly what happened and ask really tough questions of all countries involved, including China,” Trudeau said. “But my priority right now and the priority for countries around the world needs to be doing everything we can to keep our people safe and make sure that we have the resources necessary to protect our citizens and get through this.”
As for shame, Alberta’s public health officer, Dr. Deena Hinshaw, lamented this week how immigrant workers in the province were being singled out for discrimination because of COVID outbreaks at meat-packing plants. She didn’t say who was doing the regrettable shaming, but we can assume it’s the same kind of people who have been staging tiny, angry protests against the lockdown nationwide — a “bunch of yahoos,” as Ford memorably described them.
“Employees at these plants should not be blamed or shamed for spread of the virus. We are all in this together,” Hinshaw said.
That may be the problem. We’ve all been in this together for nearly two months and while the end is in sight, we’re not there yet. It’s the third quarter, and as that Australian headline said, things could get weird.
Susan Delacourt is a national affairs columnist for the Toronto Star.