Somehow, I doubt her message will resonate with the unhinged who have emerged from their lairs during the pandemic. This recent delegation at a Palm Beach County hearing into masks should provide more than ample incentive to avoid the Sunshine State for the foreseeable future:
Lest we be complacent as Canadians, however, Emma Teitel writes:
Yes, Americans can be wacky. But so can we. In fact, we’ve got our own version of the God’s-wonderful-breathing-system brigade right here in Ontario. Last week, anti-mask protesters broke mandatory mask regulations when they rode the TTC barefaced, and this week reports emerged about anti-lockdown activists printing phoney official looking cards claiming to give people medical exemptions from wearing masks in public.She ends with this simple but powerful advice:
According to a survey by Policy Options, Canadians are not immune from believing conspiracy theories about the virus. From the think tank’s survey, “Almost one in 10 Canadians believes that the COVID-19 pandemic is a way for billionaire Bill Gates to microchip people.”
Stage 3 is days away. Now is not the time to be cocky, or bored. Now is the time to be vigilant. And though not much fun, a big part of being vigilant in a pandemic is listening to public health experts. Wear a mask where distancing isn’t possible.Or to put it even more succinctly: Time for everyone to grow up a bit. Maybe this report from the CDC will help in the maturation process.
And then there's the death of that guy in Haliburton, shot by police after he went on an anti-mask rampage.
ReplyDeleteThe public will need to hear the full details around this shooting, Marie. One wonders what kind of threat a 73-year-old posed to police, especially absent any reference to a lethal weapon. Nonetheless, it reinforces how some people have an almost insane reaction to mask-wearing, something I really don't understand.
DeleteI wrote to an American friend several days ago about why Canada must not open our common border. In the States, Covid-19 has been subsumed in their greater and intractable "culture war." It's a place where everything becomes inescapably mired in partisan argument. The pandemic, a medical/public health emergency, is degraded into a supposed violation of constitutional rights and freedom. The climate crisis, a scientific emergency, has been transformed into a partisan political contest. Even plainly existential threats are readily subsumed into the culture war.
ReplyDeleteIn Canada, we have, to date largely kept at bay those who would turn the pandemic into partisan fodder. Bonnie Henry identified the restraint shown by our political leadership a key to our success in curbing Covid-19.
When the pandemic succumbs to the culture war it is akin to a disease on a disease.
I then told my friend that, re-opening the border before Covid-19 has worked its way through the American population would create the same results for Canada as we're seeing in the States. They should be free to argue their constitutional rights and liberties to their last breath. Just leave us out of it.
I have no doubt that the vast majority of Canadians would agree with the sentiments you express here, Mound. We have no interest in reopening our borders to the deeply diseased nation that I prefer to call the Benighted States of America.
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