This is not over. Stop acting like it is.
A classic line from an episode of the comedy series Arrested Development once said, “No borders. No limits. Touch the Cornballer. You know Best.”
In the scene, the Cornballer is a notoriously dangerous home appliance that severely burns anyone that touches it and the principle character of the show, Michael Bluth, is making a point to his sister, Lindsey Bluth, regarding her cavalier attitude towards parenting and safety.
Collectively, we are all metaphorically touching the Cornballer with our unjustified and presumptive belief that that the COVID-19 crisis is behind us.
Recently, Albertans joined the near worldwide delusion that we can go back to what life was like before March 2020. Restrictions are liberally lifted, businesses can reopen and city streets are teaming with vehicles and people eager to replace two months of anxiety and fear with normalcy.
I get it. People have lost income, businesses and have been forced into a once-in-a-generation lock down that tormented many people regarding the future of our families. Our economy, truthfully, needed to open sooner or later to protect these people from economic destitution and despair.
However, the reopening of the economy is no justification for the Laissez faire, this-is-behind-us attitude that many have chosen to embrace just seconds after it was announced restrictions have been lifted.
The truth is, we have no idea how the virus will progress and Canada is simply not doing enough serological and antibody testing to know the true extent of the virus.
A recent antibody test done in Spain, where the virus infected a much higher per-capita percentage of their population, showed that only 5 per cent of the population was potentially immune to COVID-19 due to the presence of antibodies. This means that 95 per cent of the population in that country is still susceptible to a virus that terrorizes our vulnerable populations.
In Canada, we simply haven’t tested enough to truly know the extent of the virus inside our borders.
Until a vast amount of testing is completed and scientists have a greater understanding of this virus, there is no justification for Canadians to go on with life, pretending this is over.
Businesses need to reopen and life needs to go on, but Canadians need to continue to protect each other and show respect to an unpredictable virus that has the potential to decimate communities.
We all want normalcy, but deluding ourselves that normalcy is already here is a dangerous proposition.
In essence, stop touching the Cornballer and continue to practice cautious optimism rather than pretending it is May 2019, rather than May 2020.
todd.vaughan@lacombeexpress.com
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