Action reaction. A planetary health crisis unmatched in a century began just three years ago, and it had to be managed here as elsewhere. The real danger of death has quickly, and for a long time, and painfully, tested the sovereign functions.
From vaccines to confinements, from the vaccine passport to the bans on international travel, the Canadian and Quebec states have imposed measures that are still and always criticized – and not only by “cuckoos” and conspiracy theorists of all kinds. Even the effectiveness of the mask, rejected then imposed, is seriously called into question.
“It is very complicated to measure the effectiveness of a non-pharmaceutical measure, of health regulations requiring, for example, to limit contact,” explains Éric Montpetit, professor of political science at the University of Montreal (UdeM), specialist in government regulatory issues. He is less interested in the management of vaccination or testing than in measures that restrict the freedoms of citizens.
“There is no shortage of observations on several waves in I don’t know how many countries. However, it is not clear that the countries which have been the most severe have done the best. That doesn’t mean doing nothing. It does mean, however, that when a government decides to close restaurants claiming that science requires it, I would like to see the study that proves it. Such a decision is a political choice. »
Quebec-Sweden
Science proposes, politics disposes. An ongoing comparative study by Professor Montpetit, carried out with Swedish, Belgian and Swiss colleagues, maps the systems of expertise to see if the differences in decision-making structures explain the divergences in governance.
“We realize that there have been a lot of changes,” said Mr. Montpetit. What was planned before the pandemic was modified in most places in favor of parallel structures put in place quickly, with the exception of Sweden. There, the public health agency retained its fundamental role and decided on a much more permissive approach. »
Swedish doctor Anders Tegnell, chief epidemiologist, has maintained a control strategy based on trust in the population to respect certain health measures (hand hygiene, social distancing, teleworking, etc.). Here, by contrast, a crisis cell took the decisions around the Dr Horacio Arruda, then of his successor, the Dr Luc Boileau, supported by a committee of experts from the public health department and the Ministry of Health. The National Institute of Public Health of Quebec (INSPQ) would not ultimately have played the central role planned.
Still, here in Sweden and indeed everywhere, policy makers were listening to experts. Another study by the UdeM professor, this time focusing only on Quebec, tries to understand to what extent the recommendations of scholars have been followed by leaders.
“At the start of the crisis, the scientific alarm had a powerful impact on governments and societies,” says the researcher. Everyone thought it reasonable to shut down the economy and limit human contact. We realized that these alarms, by dint of being repeated, lost their influence. From the moment that interest groups and individuals no longer adhere to the recommendations and drop out, even if the experts remain just as alarmist, the government no longer follows the experts. »
The detailed analysis makes it possible to understand that the popular, then political, dropout in the face of scholarly recommendations dates in Quebec from the fifth wave (that of the Omicron variant) which began at the end of 2021. The experts sounded the alarm bells, the government Legault first bet on normal holidays, then announced a curfew in extremis. Public opinion did not follow, and the government then reduced the severity of the measures.
The scenario repeated itself in the sixth wave.
science and consciousness
Hence the importance for the public to understand how science works in order to decide whether or not to submit to its recommendations. François Claveau, holder of the Canada Research Chair in Practical Epistemology at the University of Sherbrooke (US), is interested in the way in which scientific knowledge is produced and transformed in our societies. The pandemic has provided a very rich field of study on this subject.
Professor Claveau and his colleagues Jean-Hugues Roy (UQAM) and Olivier Santerre (US) have completed an analysis of how COVID-19 has changed the media representation of science. The article entitled “Viral Science” will appear in the next issue of the Canadian Journal of Communication. The survey compares mainstream French-language media coverage in Quebec (including on their Facebook pages) during the first pandemic wave with the years 2017 to 2019 inclusive.
According to surveys conducted since the 1980s, science occupies a low place in the mass media compared to its real importance in society, supposedly because it does not interest the public. This weakness also hides a treatment that minimizes or ignores the uncertainty essential to the scientific approach and its close links with politics.
Research in Quebec has shown that the pandemic has changed the reports on these four dimensions by making science more present than ever in the media to a public demanding no less, but also by exposing its heuristic trial and error and its link with decision makers. “All that moves by about 20% [pendant la pandémie], says the researcher. It is significant, but it depends on the starting point. Additionally, at the peak of the first wave, at least 70% of media coverage had at least one mention of COVID. »
The most recent data suggest a return to “pre-pandemic inertia”, as the specialist puts it. There are positive movements, however. The professor cites the recent formation of the International Francophone Network in Scientific Advice, which will study the training and role of experts advising governments, as the International Network for Government Science Advice (INGSA) already does.
The pandemic has also shown the need to better inform the population about the functioning of science, which is indeed groping and in uncertainty to lead to truths awaiting contradiction.
“The fabric of science is full of uncertainties and confrontations,” says Professor Claveau. It’s called organized skepticism. In the public, we often only see certainties. Hence the tensions observed during the pandemic. Hence the impression that scientists have been wrong or have changed their minds, which would be highly problematic, whereas within the scientific field, this is obviously not a problem. »
That said, international surveys since the 1970s show that opinion of science remains stable and high in all democracies. “Trust in science has even increased during the pandemic, at least until 2022. So much so that for the first time in the United States, trust in scientists has exceeded that in the military, the group normally in the lead. Of course, we have heard very vocal critical groups during the pandemic. But in fact, a large part of the population has taken refuge behind the hope and the certainty provided by science. »