There will likely be growing public pressure everywhere to remove restrictions, whether the science supports that or not.
Canadians have done as they were told during the pandemic. They lined up for shots until the country had one of the developed world’s best vaccination rates, they endured some of North America’s longest lockdowns, and they’ve complied with a wide assortment of curfews and quarantines. But even in a society known for its civility and deference to authority, many are reaching their limit. Pent-up frustration and rage have burst into the downtown core of the nation’s capital, with hundreds of truckers and other protesters occupying Ottawa’s streets for nearly a week to oppose vaccine mandates. Protests are expanding across Canada this weekend and are threatening to spill over into the U.S. with demonstrators planning a convoy to Washington, D.C. The group in Canada has been championed on Fox News and by podcaster Joe Rogan, Tesla billionaire Elon Musk and former President Donald Trump. Demonstrators have started to build makeshift shelters and collect propane tanks, vowing to stay until vaccine mandates are lifted. The populace may disapprove of their un-Canadian-like antics, but there is a growing sense of support for a message they’re delivering – that strict COVID-19 restrictions no longer make sense. The protests have been the talk of the nation, around dinner tables, on talk shows and social media. And they serve as a warning shot not just to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau but to leaders everywhere: If even Canada is starting to resist pandemic measures, what does that mean for the rest of the world? “People are starting to ask, what is the point or what is the efficacy of these restrictions?’” said Shachi Kurl, president of the Angus Reid Institute, a research firm in Vancouver. A late January poll by the institute found 54 percent of Canadians want to end restrictions and let people self-isolate if they’re at risk. That was up 14 percentage points from just a few weeks earlier. Omicron, a variant that’s highly infectious but appears less likely to cause serious illness, has changed the perception of risk, Kurl said. The reaction is “not knee-jerk. It’s just been building,” she said. As COVID-19 fatigue turns into angst, weary government leaders must decide whether it’s time to start treating the virus as an endemic disease, like seasonal flu. Experts have warned that might be premature.
