Finally, the covid episode is somehow behind us. It was the World Health Organization (WHO), strongly criticized during the pandemic, which marked its official end by declaring on Friday that it no longer considered COVID-19 an international health emergency. This is good news.
This evening, I will host a Mountain Conference, as part of Acfas, a discussion where three top scientists will reflect on what happened during the pandemic. Caroline Quach-Thanh, Ryoa Chung and Amélie Quesnel-Vallée will meet to discuss Science, media and politics in times of crisis. Preparing for the meeting with them, I realized that this would be their first public assessment in good and due form. Of course they thought among professionals about what COVID-19, confinement, the different aspects of the pandemic meant, but they did not have the opportunity to have, in front of Quebecers who have lived these strange times, which would be like an opportunity to take stock.
And yet, these conversations in the public space are necessary to symbolically turn the page.
In the scientific field: how to communicate with the population in times of crisis? Should we line up behind politics? Is public health too politicized? Is the population scientifically educated? Can we, should we say EVERYTHING?
We should also dare public assessments in several areas, so as not to repeat the same mistakes.
By public and effective reviews, I mean reviews based on evidence, not just impressions and feelings.
Thus, with regard to the elderly, we have obviously neglected to take into account the very critical assessment of coroner Géhane Kamel on the management of the first wave in CHSLDs. We said “never again” and yet, the living – and dying – conditions of seniors continue to be often miserable, and this group, one of the most forgotten in Quebec society.
It will also be necessary to make a political assessment. The CAQ surfed on its “good management” of the pandemic and that brought it back to power. But what folds have been given to the governance of Quebec in doing so? Paternalism, populism, hidden facts: it was all there during those two years, and we are feeling the effects in the post-COVID-19 world. Where will the real assessment of these 24 suspended political months be made? In the next elections? Not sure…
What about the media report… Have we been too behind the government trio’s politics and press conferences? Should we give visibility or not to the antivax, the “challenger”? If yes, how ? If not, at what social cost? Can we talk about it today, come back to these special months for journalism?
Balance sheets in the world of work: the hybrid mode is here for good. It disturbs the habits of several employers, makes the happiness of several employees. Is teleworking a right or a privilege? Does it have a value, if so: what? How to integrate it into collective agreements, calculate it, manage it?
Assessment in our ways of living. Many have left the cities for the suburbs and the regions, coming to enrich – and sometimes disrupt – tightly knit environments, importing desires, ways of doing and living that upset the environments.
This great migration changes our relationship to the city centre, to the territory, to urban sprawl. Shuffle the cards everywhere. What will happen to unloved cities, to reinvested regions?
Perhaps with the official end sounded by the WHO, we will see this type of balance sheet popping up everywhere, in many areas. In fact, I am surprised that for a year that we live our best life, we did not return seriously and collectively to what we have lived and learned. Maybe it’s too early, a year? Will fruitful balance sheets be deployed soon? Probably specialists, politicians, caregivers, artists will give birth to analyzes of what they, what we have experienced. Because it is necessary. We must have learned something from these two years!
Everyone was upset. Life has changed for some. Scientists have been threatened, the presence on social networks has worsened, ditches have widened, ways of living have radically changed. All these effects must be measured, in order to build back better and sustainably.
The WHO therefore declared that it was over. But us, it’s been a year since we left COVID-19. We have ghosted the pandemic and his hampered life. Yet (or perhaps because of that) there remains this impression of the unsaid, the unreflected, the rushed finale, the “paw in the air”.
Strongly public assessments so that the pandemic is, in our heads and in our practices, behind us…