The only way to make sense of Quebec’s now-defunct plan to allow for a Christmas gathering free-for-all is to think that perhaps it was conceived by the coronavirus itself in an effort to secure a plethora of new hosts.
The initial plan, which was pegged as a “moral contract” by Premier François Legault, would have allowed Quebeckers to gather in groups of up to 10 people over four days – groups that could change from one day to the next – just as long as participants agreed to self-isolate for one week before and one week after. The appearance of just one feverish cousin would have meant an exponential number of exposures, which is likely why the provincial government eventually thought better of its preliminary offer and revised its guidelines to cap the number of gatherings to two over the four-day period.
But then on Thursday, with the province facing an alarming rise in hospitalizations and deaths, Mr. Legault scrapped the plan altogether. “I know we would all like to see our family, but it is not a good idea,” he said as he announced that gatherings will not be allowed in red-zone regions of the province. It was bad news for the Quebeckers who will still heed the province’s advice – if such people still exist – and a meaningless pivot for everyone else. Having dangled the prospect of a normal-ish holiday for weeks, Quebec’s leadership surely knows that this last about-face will be ignored by those who have already planned their Christmas menus.
The province’s initial instinct to allow some sort of holiday gathering was not misguided, however, even if it was rather atrociously applied. Preaching abstinence nine months into a pandemic, when many people haven’t seen relatives for months and have nothing on their social calendars to look forward to, is to ignore the reality of COVID-19 fatigue, and to assume public-health officials have the same clout they enjoyed way back in March. They do not.
A recent Angus Reid poll indicated that 35 per cent of Quebec respondents plan to visit friends and relatives for the holidays, and 14 per cent intend to travel to do so. In Ontario, where the recommendation for weeks has been to limit holiday gatherings to one’s own household, 27 per cent of respondents said they still plan to visit friends and relatives. And in Manitoba, where Premier Brian Pallister recently issued an emotional plea for residents to “stay apart at Christmas,” 20 per cent, or one in five, said they plan to gather anyway. Another survey by Abacus Data indicated that 41 per cent of respondents said they might or will get together with family outside their households for the holidays – data that only accounts for people who will admit they intend to shirk public-health instructions; in practice, the numbers are probably much higher.
That is why providing strict and clear guidelines on how to do that in the safest way possible is likely the most prudent way forward, even if it is a tacit admission of the failure of public-health authorities, who have obviously been unsuccessful in adequately conveying the graveness of the situation. Ottawa Public Health tepidly embarked on this road with a Twitter thread and website with tips on how to host events, while at the same time emphasizing that keeping to one’s own household is still the far preferable option. But the instruction from the provinces, which now include British Columbia after Provincial Health Officer Bonnie Henry extended restrictions on gatherings until Jan. 8, is not to host any in-person events at all, which leaves people intent on doing them anyway to figure out how to do them more safely on their own.
Quebec erred in proposing four days of mixed gatherings with the minimum period of self-isolation suggested before and after. A better approach would’ve been to allow for one limited gathering following a longer period of self-isolation, with specific instructions on what self-isolation means in terms of daily activities (i.e. no work, school, grocery store, pharmacy – nothing). It also could have offered tools to cut down risks during meals, such as avoiding shared platters of food and nixing the music so guests wouldn’t have to raise their voices.
As Ottawa Public Health acknowledges in its “Be Social Wise” website, it’s impossible to guarantee that family members will stick to two-week quarantines before attending Christmas dinner. But it’s a lot easier for hosts to ask participants to do so if they can point to specific guidelines from the province. A harm-reduction approach to the holidays is obviously not the ideal way to deal with a worsening pandemic, but it may be the most practical approach when many Canadians have decided to simply ignore prohibitions on gatherings.
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