Letter addressed to Prime Minister François Legault.
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Let’s say it once and for all: in Quebec, the pandemic is a fiasco because our public institutions are suffocating. No, it is not the fault of the people, who, as a whole, are neither reckless nor disobedient. The already glaring shortage of personnel in the health network has been exacerbated by 22 months of overwork, 22 months to catch up with decades of austerity, neoliberalism and savage capitalism. Today, we are paying heavily for the consequences of this neglect, of this violence. Of course, no one has a monopoly on suffering. But here is the one of the young students, the one I know.
For a year and a half, or three quarters of a DEC or half of a baccalaureate, we were told to study on our own. In front of our screens. But not too much. Well, just for school. For 22 months, we were told to motivate ourselves. To discover our intrinsic passions, glued to bed in front of a laptop. Better yet, to identify our interests and needs for our career, for the next 40 years of our life, all in pajamas, hair not brushed, by texting each other the answers to a virtual exam. We were locked up at home from morning to night, then from night to morning. No, it was not even allowed to take the air at midnight, to avoid imploding. Or to cry in secret. For 22 months, the weaknesses of our mental health turned into faults of San Andréas: explosion of symptoms of depression, anorexia, suicide … For 22 months, we were prevented from seeing friends – and from making each other friends. At 18, friendship and love are just a Kilimanjaro on the horizon.
But 22 months of pandemic experience later, there is no justification for imposing a new curfew, without demonstrated effectiveness. Indeed, we had plenty of time to design other solutions: social distancing, disinfection, vaccines, drugs, school ventilation, surgical and N95 masks, self-tests, etc. Without being an expert epidemiologist, I know that other solutions exist and will exist as long as human ingenuity is, as long as humanity is.
To use a curfew as the last instrument in your sanitary “toolbox” is grossly simplistic, indecently paternalistic. In addition to insulting our intelligence, your curfew is ridiculously missing its mark. A sword in the water. Again and again he castigates the average Quebecer who, for 22 months, has been washing his hands frequently, wearing his mask, receiving his vaccines, teleworking and isolating himself as much as possible. The one who, apart from a few intermissions, no longer goes to the cinema, the theater, the restaurant, the bar, or the gym, but who works, in the mechanical arm of the holy economy. (No metro), work, sleep. No place for art, reverie, socialization, the existential quest: poetry. The one who, for 22 months, sacrifices his dignity. If such measures were necessary at a certain time, there is no reason why your government has not implemented all the other solutions developed to avoid having to resort to them again.
The unvaccinated, 10% of the adult population, represent no less than 50% of hospitalizations. You said it yourself. Shedding is our sword of Damocles. So why not make vaccination compulsory, as Austria and Germany are preparing to do? Instead of forcing the nucleus of the unvaccinated to fulfill their duty to society, you are placing severe restrictions on the entire population. The cure is there, but you obviously don’t have the courage to go nuts. Like good King Dagobert, your government wears its breeches inside out.
While waiting for the end of the rhyme, we will pretend to listen to our lessons, sprawled in bed, in pajamas, camera closed. Alone. And we’ll go to bed early.