Juno News - The coronavirus is tearing us apart

00:00:00.000 There's something going on in our communities right now related to the pandemic restrictions

00:00:09.800 that I think is really sad. I think it's really tragic. I heard through the playground gossip

00:00:15.880 that there was one mom who was saying, she was talking about, are you taking your kids

00:00:19.660 trick-or-treating or not? In Ontario, where in many districts, Doug Ford is saying, it's

00:00:24.180 not safe. Don't do the trick-or-treating. I don't buy that at all. But it's been interesting

00:00:28.440 to hear people talk about how they're planning to navigate it. And this mom was saying that

00:00:32.420 she thought, yeah, I'm taking my kids out. It's no big deal. And then the houses that

00:00:35.980 are handing the candy out, well, we'll get the candy there. The ones that the lights are

00:00:39.400 off, we won't do it. We won't knock on the door, just like usual. But some people on her

00:00:44.120 street were saying, well, we're going to be looking out for people going trick-or-treating

00:00:47.580 and then we're going to be whatever, pointing at them, naming and shaming, telling them go

00:00:51.500 away, go back inside and so forth. And you think, how sad, how awful that that is

00:00:58.340 happening in our communities right now? Sort of the erosion of civility and a strong sense

00:01:04.960 of civic togetherness. And that's what the pandemic has brought now that we're at the

00:01:09.640 point where we're dealing with restrictions that don't make sense. You know, back in the

00:01:13.200 spring, it was hashtag, we're all in this together. And you remember, people went out

00:01:16.480 to bang the pots and pans at a set time to acknowledge the greater challenges that nurses

00:01:21.840 and healthcare workers were facing. Now, they're not doing that anymore. Instead, people are really

00:01:27.340 at each other over this. You hear about all these encounters where in a grocery store,

00:01:32.240 someone's not wearing a mask, so you got to chase them down and video record them and yell at them

00:01:36.640 and so forth. Look, I follow the rules. They're not that onerous. I wear the mask. But if I see

00:01:41.120 someone not wearing it, it's, oh, who is this criminal? We got to call the cops and hold them

00:01:46.000 down until they get there. Actually, some troubling stories in Australia about that pretty much happening,

00:01:51.640 you know, forcibly placing masks on people, law enforcement doing it, wild stuff. And this also,

00:01:57.700 so much distrust with our neighbors, you know, these rules, he's not following those rules. Okay,

00:02:04.140 we got to, we got to call in the law on him. And this, this also sense that if you had a neighbor

00:02:08.480 returning from being abroad, and there's the 14 day quarantine, well, maybe you want to keep an eye on

00:02:13.860 them. And if you see them leaving the house, you could call the cops on them, and they could get fined and

00:02:17.740 so forth. What sort of world are we living in? And a person remarked to me a few weeks ago, they grew

00:02:22.960 up in a Soviet state, and they are very glad to be living in North America living in Canada right now.

00:02:28.040 And they said, they're kind of feeling a little stressed out, because the things that are happening

00:02:32.340 right now remind them of what it was like to live in that Soviet satellite country. They do not like it

00:02:38.180 one bit. And this whole looking at your neighbor askance, judging them being, you know, unsure what to

00:02:44.240 make of their movements. Can you trust them? Do they trust you? Are they going to call a

00:02:47.700 cops on you? Should you call the cops on them for these very minor transgressions? Look, the thing

00:02:52.920 we're learning about the virus right now is more facts and evidence. And finally, the government is

00:02:56.900 showing their data, it suggests that it's spreading by indoor gatherings for prolonged periods of time

00:03:02.760 when you're not wearing the masks, you're coming close together, and so forth. So let's certainly

00:03:06.460 avoid all of those. And we have the protocols, the restrictions for all of that. But this stuff about

00:03:11.700 kind of policing each other's movements during Halloween, or whether or not you're walking down the

00:03:17.120 right way in the grocery aisle, and it leads to fisticuffs. It's just so sad that we're seeing

00:03:23.040 that we're actually having to do this to each other, to our communities right now. And I think

00:03:27.220 it's all the more reason why we need to pause and reassess all these different rules as frequently as

00:03:32.520 possible to say, do we really need to be doing all of this? Did we really need to say, Halloween's not

00:03:38.900 safe, bad trick-or-treating? I don't know. Because a lot of the tensions out there that we're seeing in

00:03:44.280 society, we gotta ask ourselves, is it worth it?

Juno News - October 30, 2020

The coronavirus is tearing us apart

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