Release without skidding | The Press

The coming weekend marks the arrival of spring break for a large number of Quebecers. It will never have worn its name so well. Because it sounds the beginning of a major wave of relaxation of health measures.

“By March 14, it follows one another quickly,” observed Wednesday at a press conference the D^D Marie-France Raynault, from the General Directorate of Public Health.

In effect. Seeing the constraints on the verge of falling arouses – with good reason! – great enthusiasm. But such accelerated deconfinement also involves its share of risk. Both the authorities and the citizens would have an interest in keeping this in mind.

Let’s see the schedule.

As of next Monday, compulsory telework ends. Workers will no longer have to wear the mask at all times in the office. Bars will reopen and performance halls, cinemas and places of worship will be able to operate at maximum capacity.

Seven days later, hundreds of thousands of primary and secondary school students will drop the mask in the classroom.

The following week, the dance floors and karaoke will open their doors to revelers at the very moment when the vaccine passport is handed over (except for travel).

Added to this are the federal reductions at the borders.

Let’s be clear: this deconfinement is legitimate and desirable. Hospital beds are freeing up fast and the worst of the fifth wave really seems behind us. Added to this is pandemic fatigue, well illustrated by the latest INSPQ survey.^⁠1.

Taken separately, each of the reductions is justified. We ourselves advocated for the gradual suspension of the vaccine passport, which has lost much of its relevance since the arrival of Omicron^⁠2.

But many independent experts say they are worried that so many measures will fall in such a short time. And if we’ve learned something over the past two years, it’s good that we should listen to them.

The rule that we wait to see the effects of one relief before allowing another has obviously jumped in the face of the current impatience. The government has published a gradual deconfinement schedule. But since then, additional relaxations have been added constantly.

Waiting at least ten days after the break to remove the mask at the office and at school, for example, would have been more prudent.

With the end of widespread PCR testing, the effects of deconfinement will be more difficult to detect quickly. It is not with the evolution of cases, but directly in hospitals, with delay, that we risk measuring them. It is still the first time that we have deconfined in such a context.

Elements are certainly reassuring, such as the estimates according to which 40% of children have already been in contact with Omicron and 3 million Quebecers were infected during the fifth wave. This decreases the pool of people to infect.

However, there are still a large number of Quebecers at risk of contracting the virus, and we now know what happens if they all catch it at the same time.

Are those who have not yet been infected mostly older or more cautious people? How will they behave in the face of relief? What will they do during the famous spring break, which we know is conducive to contacts and travel? Modellers juggle with many variables that they struggle to understand.

The crystal ball of the Public Health Agency of Canada suggests in any case that the relaxations could cause a significant rebound in hospitalizations in Quebec^⁠3. And these projections do not take into account either the latest reductions or the BA.2 variant, which is already present with us and which we know is more contagious.

The idea is not to play the prophets of doom. It is very likely that everything will go well. But this virus has already thwarted our optimistic predictions. And in the euphoria of this descent on the other side of the wave, let’s still keep one foot not too far from the brake, just in case.

For the authorities, this means monitoring the situation closely and reacting as needed. For citizens, this means remembering that this epidemic feeds on our contacts and that some of us are still vulnerable and poorly immunized.

Living with the virus also means exercising good judgment.