There are 478 new infections in Ontario, the most on a single day since May 2nd. This includes 153 new cases in Toronto.There is something about this I find dispiriting. The number itself is not dispiriting so much as what the number tells me about human nature. Since the outset of the pandemic, epidemiologists have been saying that a) in previous pandemics there has typically been a 2nd wave of infections and b) a 2nd wave is avoidable if we rally together and commit to a few simple measures—regular hand-washing, masks, and social distancing.
For a variety of reasons, all of which appear to be related, we are unable to rally together in this way. Instead, our actions are fragmented and often at cross purposes. Citizens and policy-makers who espouse an ideology that puts individual rights before collective responsibility are apt to ridicule masks. Those same people are apt to frown upon public health initiatives. The health of the economy is paramount. Their idea of supporting at-risk people is to ensure they have jobs (even if it means they put themselves at risk going to and from those jobs). The idea of using public funds to prop up such people is anathema.
In the face of a second wave, we display an egregious lack of collective self-control. If we cannot summon the collective will to do what is necessary to answer the second most pressing crisis of our time, then it is unlikely we will be able to answer the foremost crisis of our time, namely the destruction of Earth’s ecosystems and the life they sustain. For years now, Earth’s epidemiologists (i.e. climate scientists) have warned that profligate resource extraction has only one end game: extinction. The solutions aren’t as simple as hand-washing and mask-wearing, but they aren’t unintelligible either. The solutions boil down to collective self-control. But given our behaviour in response to Covid-19, I don’t have much confidence such solutions are within our grasp.
Given the integrated nature of ecosystems, and given the cascade effect that unfolds when one collapse precipitates another and another like dominoes, we may already have set in motion the events that result in the death of our planet. In fact, it may well be that the only outcome still within our control is the decision whether or not to die with dignity.