Juno News - Even as Canada reopens, we're more divided than ever about COVID-19

00:00:00.000 it was very unfortunate that we've had a lot of division in canada and i guess there's been

00:00:09.040 division all around the world when it comes to views on the coronavirus families communities

00:00:14.540 neighbors people out and about in society really disagreeing on some fundamentals and you saw those

00:00:20.500 videos that went viral of don't stand so close to me or why are you wearing or not wearing the mask

00:00:25.660 and this and that situation so forth people really at each other really frustrated at each other and

00:00:29.820 that's well that's obviously unfortunate because we don't want to see our communities divided but i

00:00:34.280 think a lot of people now feel okay things are kind of over coronavirus cases are crashing so many of

00:00:39.980 the restrictions are gone in three provinces in canada pretty much all the restrictions are gone

00:00:44.840 mask mandates as well we're seeing similar things happen in the united states so all is good right

00:00:50.000 people are coming together now we've put all of that behind us people are no longer calling the

00:00:53.960 police on their neighbors for just you know having aunts and uncles over for dinner that kind of stuff

00:00:58.840 it's over right the division we can put it behind us hold on a second i'm really worried that in

00:01:05.460 some sense we're getting more divided than ever before because i think back during the big waves

00:01:12.860 and the waves during uh the winter and so forth people could not deny the fact that yes there's a lot

00:01:17.620 of people in icus there's disagreement about what protocols and what measures needed to be in place to

00:01:22.900 deal with that situation but they're still in an acute situation going on with a lot of people

00:01:27.300 suffering severely from coronavirus right now the numbers are all pointing in a good direction

00:01:32.440 vaccination rates they're very high in canada over 80 percent and yet there are people who are almost

00:01:38.960 digging in their heels more about the need for very aggressive things being introduced the need to

00:01:46.320 stay masked to keep masks to keep the kids masked in school come the fall the need for vaccine

00:01:52.740 passports the vaccine passport conversation in some sense is much more much more aggressive than even

00:01:59.800 previous conversations and debates we've had when the covid19 pandemic was in its most acute phase i mean

00:02:06.460 to watch the way some people talk about vaccine passports oh boy i mean it is it is a very sort of

00:02:13.020 manic urgent energy to it even though well what's the urgency right now why do you need this thing to be put

00:02:19.200 in place today even if you're putting forward a reasonable argument for it why is it such a heated

00:02:24.860 angry argument that is the attitude that's being brought to some of these current conversations

00:02:30.620 right now when whatever your previous views on coronavirus your pro lockdown your anti-lockdown

00:02:35.720 whatever it was we're just not in the situation we were in in the winter so we should just not be as

00:02:41.560 divided as a society and as communities and it really does seem like people are living in like two

00:02:47.020 different realities right now they're the people who are just acknowledging the stats acknowledging

00:02:52.060 the good news saying oh look we've got this high vaccination rate vast majority of people getting

00:02:57.080 it looks like it's doing its job okay fantastic it's fine that alberta bc saskatchewan they've said

00:03:02.660 no more masks and so forth and then we've got the other people who i don't think it's the majority of

00:03:08.040 canadians polls suggest no it's it's definitely not the majority but boy are they a vocal minority

00:03:12.760 and they are so passionately clinging on to these things at a time when i think more and more people

00:03:18.340 are going well come on let's just enjoy the summer and that's really worrisome it doesn't bode well

00:03:23.680 for the future i hope we can get a little bit of unity here but oh boy these passions are really

00:03:29.420 flaring up like i said in some sense more than they were a number of months ago very problematic

00:03:35.380 you

Juno News - July 22, 2021