It is as if Quebec was already on hiatus. At 6 p.m., the Prime Minister will make an announcement to Quebeckers, an announcement that was not planned. What will he announce? God only knows for sure and no doubt that the PM himself, at the time of this writing – at 2 p.m. – is not yet sure himself.
We thought we were back to “normal”. There was something like normalcy lately with immunization coverage. After the era of the winter and spring curfew, it felt good to go to a restaurant, to frequent the arenas, to see each other without all the usual constraints.
Masked, of course. But there was something like a form of normalcy. Life was resuming.
Even before a new Greek letter entered our vocabulary barely more than two weeks ago (hi, Omicron), cases were rising in Quebec. Voices were raised to surround the decision to open bars, to drop masks in high schools, to let karaoke fans sing …
It was mid-November.
Was it very careful?
The PM seemed resolutely optimistic: I would like us to make parties Christmas at 20, 25 guests, he said on November 29, barely 17 days ago. Omicron was barely embedded in the vocabulary, a diffuse threat born in distant countries, and François Legault radiated his usual optimism.
Seventeen days?
The optimism of parties at – maybe – 20, 25 diners now looks like science fiction, a magical thought from 17 months ago, not 17 days ago. The PM’s chronic optimism, his tendency to fall into magical thinking, it will be for another column.
On this December 16, 2021, four hours before the Prime Minister’s unexpected press conference, we fall back into this uncertainty that recalls those frantic days of March 2020, when everything stopped.
The parallel may be lame, because we know evil better, we now know what we are facing. Unlike March 2020, we have vaccines, a miracle of science, too: they are not 100% effective, but between these vaccines and nothing, we are still lucky.
On this December 16, 2021, four hours before François Legault’s unexpected press conference, it is as if Quebec was preparing for an impact, as in the seconds before a collision on the road, when we know that despite the blows horn, despite the brakes and despite the wheel blows, it will spank.
I look at my social media and it is, as always, this sample that is both biased and representative: everyone is preparing for the worst. Perhaps the worst will be less worse than expected. We are all in expectation, helpless spectators ofWhile waiting for Legault.
I read the comments of the people that I am: nobody has the head to work. Everyone is speculating. Everyone expresses their disgust, their fed up. It is not a resignation, it is a form of resignation. The need to say its overflow. Same thing yesterday when I opened the lines on the radio: this bad news, after the improvement of the last few months, this bad news at the dawn of the Holidays, it is something like the blow of too much in the schnolles of our collective resilience …
The other part of my social media is depressing news, a sign of the times. The number of cases, which strikes the imagination: we are approaching 3,000 daily cases, the United Kingdom is also hard hit, Quebec screening and vaccination centers are lacking in support, Ontario is tightening the bolts of life in society …
I’m just checking the front page of LaPresse.ca, and that’s another depressing news: if the trend continues, the network’s hospital capacity to treat COVID-19 patients – 700 beds, whatever we talk about sometimes 800 – will be reached on January 8. What is not said in the paper on the forecasts of the National Institute of Excellence in Health and Social Services, what screams in the subtext, is this reality: past the 700, 800 mark hospitalizations, it will be bush medicine. Good luck to everyone.
Everywhere, for 24 hours, stories of outbreaks following parties of Christmas ; Minister Roberge who is on the sidelines, infected; I am told that operating theaters at Notre-Dame hospital are canceling operations because caregivers are sick; professional sports teams are also hit; an NHL club even recalled minor league coaches to replace coaches infected …
In this December 16, 2021, at four hours of the press conference of the PM, we feel that the world we have tasted since spring is about to escape us.