Quote:
Originally Posted by Keith P.
All well and good, but the reality is that the pressure to normalize will not only come from businesses that are teetering on the brink but from the public at large. How long can anyone reasonably expect the public to go without being able to travel, go to cottages, have friends over, shop without standing in long lines to get inside, eat out, go for drinks, play golf, swim at the beach, whatever, in the absence of new cases? You cannot walk on eggshells forever. The public at large simply won't tolerate it. People have become accustomed to the new normal of wearing masks (and in many cases, gloves) in shops and keeping their hands washed or sanitized. How much leeway would those measures alone buy us? If bad things happen, then they happen, but sooner or later you need to get back to some semblance of normal life.
|
I agree with this. I think that there will be a tough decision if this goes on for too long. I don't think that a 24 month shutdown for example would be justified by the current risks (~0.4% fatality). Why give up a good part of 2 years of your live to avoid a 0.4% risk of dying? That would not make sense.
There is also a personal freedom angle. If you wish to move to a cabin in the woods by yourself, you can do this, and your exposure will be minimal. I think we should support folks who wish to continue to isolate (e.g. make sure seniors are set up with good delivery service and, if they are low income, a tablet/phone to use to contact their family), while allowing low-risk people to go about their business.
However, early on in the pandemic there is a lot of uncertainty so authorities might make rational decisions that with the benefit of hindsight look disproportionate to the threat. That's just how it goes.
I hope we can have better public health in the future so this is less likely to happen again. That's the real lesson. It should never even have come here from China, and we should have had better screening and testing. There's some serious soul searching that needs to be done with global supply chains and stockpiles of critical items too. Canada was not prepared.