Agree to Disagree: We deserve transparency

What a month it has been. It’s been an emotional roller coaster to say the least. We’ve adapted to restrictions that seem to be only getting stricter every day. We’ve learned to work at home. Many of us have become teachers.

There is a lot we don’t know about this virus. Information is evolving, changing every day. We don’t yet know exactly how it does and doesn’t spread. We don’t know if immunity is build once you’ve had it and if it does, how long that immunity lasts. We don’t know if people can get reinfected. We don’t know if it leaves lasting effects on the body. We don’t know if and when a vaccine will be coming. We don’t know when the economy will reopen.

This pile of variables leads to a lot of uncertainty, and many are struggling to stay mentally healthy, overwhelmed by a myriad of worries none of us ever faced before.

Adding to these worries is the fact that information that IS readily available is being witheld from the population. Even worse, according to this article in the Standard-Freeholder, there seem to be discrepancies between the local and provincial reporting. That really irks me.

At the beginning of the crisis, the Health Unit was showing demographics of individual cases. They would give the age, sex and location of each. Then, this changed.

The reasoning behind the decision to no longer divulge the location of cases was explained to the media as a fear of the people becoming complacent and not adhering to the guidelines if they saw no cases present in their community.

This makes no sense to me, being that people are already not adhering to the guidelines. We’re getting better, but we still see people in the streets gathering. We still see loads of people shopping for non-essentials. We still see carelessness in church gatherings, even if they are live casting instead of meeting in person.

Wouldn’t it be more effective to tell people where the cases are? They could then see for themselves that it IS everywhere? Maybe it would help compliance if we showed people that the threat is real, and close, or at least getting closer? I hear fear can be quite the motivator.

The point is, this is not China. Our publicly funded organizations should be transparent, in all things.