Is there a pilot on the plane ?

This column was published ahead of the 5 p.m. press briefing on Thursday, December 30, where a series of tightening of health measures, including a 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. curfew, was announced.

The scoop of Press on the possibility of a new curfew reads with all the fear of a shovel in the face^⁠1. François Legault could announce, at 5 p.m., a new pan-provincial curfew. Many Quebecers will watch this press briefing with a vodka-antidepressant smoothie.

Me ? I don’t drink on the job. We’ll see after.

I supported the curfew of January, February, March, April and May 2021 because we did not have vaccines. No science on the effectiveness of a curfew? Obviously there was no science. But it is mathematical: reduction of displacements = reduction of contacts.

In the famous words of D^r Michael Ryan of the World Health Organization (WHO) at the start of the pandemic: you can’t wait for perfect solutions to fight a virus ^⁠2.

I supported the early 2021 curfew because the hour was serious, because it was one measure among many, a layer of Swiss cheese in the proverbial barrier-by-multiple-slices-of-cheese -Swiss ^⁠3. And an Ontario study suggests that the curfew has, for a time, helped the Quebec balance sheet ^⁠4 at the start of 2021.

But the curfew is a liberticidal measure. He passed the test of the courts, yes, of course. The question is not legal. Rather, it is a question of moral legitimacy.

Will Quebeckers agree, for a second time, to live under a curfew?

I do not have the answer to this question. I have doubts. I’m in the realm of feeling when I say that. But pandemic fatigue is very real. I have already written about Quebecers in good faith who, since the situation deteriorated before the holidays, are tempted to give up. It’s human, it’s normal. I wonder what a 2.0 curfew is going to do to damage the ranks of the bona fide Quebs.

So I got out of reading this scoop of Press with a slight headache, that of this bad news which could fall on us, at 5 p.m. on Thursday.

And another sensation animated me after the reading, more diffuse, which was the slight fear that one can feel when the plane goes through a period of intense turbulence. I quote an excerpt from the paper: “But the echoes obtained from Public Health quickly make it clear that decisions are now made based on intuition rather than on a formal scientific basis. ”

I then asked myself the following question: is there a pilot on the plane?

I got tomatoes tossed in May 2020 when I raised questions – doubts – about D’s scientific qualities.^r Horacio Arruda ^⁠5. The pandemic then began. The government had, on Friday, April 23, announced the search for collective immunity by community contamination as a key to deconfinement. The D^r Arruda, guardian of science in the government bunker, was then criticized by a large section of the scientific community. On Monday 27, this ill-founded idea was abandoned.

For me, this was the first alarm signal about the quality of the scientific advice given to the Premier of Quebec: so, is Horacio scientifically up to date?

Since then, the head of Quebec public health has publicly launched all kinds of false facts about masks (spring 2020) that would give a false sense of security; on rapid tests, on the number of vaccinators (December 2021) who, according to him, were sufficient for the 3^e dose (it was wrong), on the risks of contamination outside (spring 2021) and, again, on N95 masks (December 2021) which would be less effective than surgical masks, if they are poorly adjusted (i.e. ‘is wrong)…

And I won’t get into aeration and aerosol transmission.

The list of errors that I have just given is not exhaustive. Investigative journalist André Noël, on his Twitter account, made an exhaustive census ^⁠6.

There, on this Thursday morning, I read the paper from Press on the negotiations taking place in the offices of the Legault government. I decipher between the lines that Public Health navigates by sight, by intuition. The head of public health? It’s Horacio Arruda.

Horacio Arruda who was not worried, at the beginning of December, of these gatherings of 20 people, planned for the Holidays, even though the Omicron variant worried all over the world; even though Federal Public Health said that these gatherings at 20, it was not a good idea …

He was also not worried about the slowness in administering the 3^e dose, decried by many Quebec experts who all have this in common: they are not employees of the Ministry of Health or the INSPQ. Strangely, on that side, no one is contradicting the government.

Like PM Legault, at the end of November-beginning of December, DSP Horacio was jovial. It’s going to be fine!

In short, if Horacio Arruda were Minister of Health, I would find him faltering on science, but I would say to myself: he is on the political side, not on the scientific side, he has this excuse …

The problem is that Deputy Minister Arruda is the voice of science, with politicians. He who also wears the hat of National Director of Public Health has given so badly founded advice on science for 22 months that I wonder if, this time, on the curfew, he is wrong or if he is right. He himself seems to ignore it.

Horacio Arruda has said so many unfounded things in public that I wonder what he can possibly say in private. I can’t help but think it’s… worse.

I have already said that pandemic uncertainty is a sort of collective novelty, which is on the nerves of all of us. Go ahead, go back. The good weather, then the storm. We think we are out of the hostel, then, bang, we have to lock ourselves in the hostel.

I am ready, as a Quebecer, to live with that. Not easy, but the nature of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus requires it.

Except that I am no longer ready, as a Quebecer, to live with the idea that such a faltering scientist advises the Prime Minister on the dawn of a third year of a pandemic.

I seem, here, to exonerate François Legault by putting the monkey of reproach on Horacio Arruda’s back. This is not the case. François Legault is the head of government. He’s the boss. He has all the powers, to deal with the viral threat. It is he who chooses who advises him.

If François Legault does not realize that Horacio Arruda is sowing consternation in the ranks of Quebec scientists, it is worrying. If he has not noted the esoteric dumplings repeated in the DSP, it’s scary …

But maybe the PM knows all this but just likes to have a decoration as a scientific backing.

So when I wonder if there is a pilot on the plane, I am not talking about Horacio Arruda.

I am talking about François Legault.