So, I Finally Got COVID-19

The Saturday Huddle is a weekly column that features opinion, analysis and reflections on Huddle stories, podcasts and business news in the region. Mark Leger is the editor of Huddle and the Director of News Content for Acadia Broadcasting.

Last week I wrote about making it this far into the pandemic and not getting COVID-19. Well, on Tuesday night my son Jack and I took rapid tests after finding out a family member of close friends tested positive. I had mild cold symptoms that day but was still shocked that our tests came back positive.

We’ve been in isolation in the house for several days now; Janet and my daughter have tested negative so far and have been delivering food and water (and coffee for me!) to the second floor “sick ward.” My niece is living with us and going to a nearby high school. She tested positive too.

Honestly, though, it’s been okay so far. Jack and my niece have been mostly fine and I’ve suffered from relatively mild cold symptoms and fatigue. I’ve been working remotely for much of the past two years anyway, so this has just meant moving my home office to my bedroom for a few days.

This experience hasn’t changed the way I see tackling this pandemic. If anything, it makes me realize we’ve been on the right course all along. Protect yourself as best you can: wear masks, live in small bubbles and, most importantly, get vaccinated.

I’ve known all along that I could get COVID-19 but the effects have been mild so far because I’m double-vaccinated with a booster.

Even if we disagree at times on when, and how much, to open things up, most Canadians see themselves as part of a collective effort to stop a pandemic that has led to too many hospitalizations and deaths.

It’s why the “Freedom Convoy” hasn’t resonated with most of us; rather than empathize with their sense that their rights are being violated, most people wonder why they don’t understand the greater good is keeping people healthy and safe.

In the latest “Insights” podcast, Don Mills and David Campbell chat with Michael Adams, the chairman and co-founder of Environics, the national polling and market research firm.

Podcast: Michael Adams On The Trucker Convoy, Immigration And The Evolution Of Canadian Values

Adams says their extensive research shows that 90 percent of Canadians are generally supportive of vaccines and other protective measures to slow the spread of COVID-19.

He says most Canadians value “peace, order and good government” and take a dim view of the border blockades and protests that have greatly disrupted the lives of people living in Ottawa.

“They’ve done their cause a disservice,” says Adams. “They probably united the other 90 percent in saying, ‘what is going on with these people?’”

“We’re all sick of COVID and we do want those restrictions gone, but we want a data-driven, scientific, medically sensible way of gradually getting rid of these restrictions so that we don’t have [more outbreaks] like we’ve had a couple of times so far.”

Adams, who has been in the social values and market research business for more than 50 years, has done a lot of work about the differences between Americans and Canadians. In his conversation with Mills and Campbell, he says people often wrongly assume that studies in the U.S. have relevance here.

“I find, time after time, people are assuming that the research that’s coming out of the U.S. applies equally to Canada,” says Adams. “Of course, I shake my head and say, darn it, Pew has just done a study and now we’ve got to go and do a study so that I can inform the opinion leaders in this country and journalists [so they] don’t take those numbers and assume they apply here.”

During the pandemic, a higher percentage of Americans have opposed vaccinations and placed a higher premium on individual rights that affected the implementation of protective measures like mask-wearing.

Canadians have placed more emphasis on the common good and it’s served us well.

“Nine-hundred-thousand COVID-related deaths in the U.S., compared to 35,000 here. We would have 100,000 more people dead in Canada had we taken the route that the Americans did,” says Adams. “Those 100,000 people could be in our family. Our relatives. People in our community.”

So many people are now getting COVID-19 and I’ve heard some say we’re all probably going to get it at some point. I bristle at this suggestion because I worry it’s going to make us less vigilant.

In the last week, CBC and The New York Times both published stories about immunocompromised people being worried that looser restrictions are going to make them more vulnerable.

COVID-19 hasn’t hit me very hard yet, but that shouldn’t make me less cautious, less concerned about the continued spread of the virus. It’s not me I should be worried about; I should now be concerned about giving it to vulnerable people in my family and community.

Feedback? E-mail Mark Leger: [email protected]