Balancing safety and human interaction during a pandemic — and beyond

National Post, 13 March 2020

Safety and risk, openness and protection — that balance defines a culture. We have been knocked off balance for the foreseeable future. But how will things look when we get back up?

Our prime minister is in isolation at home with his wife, who is afflicted with the coronavirus. That makes this pandemic personally relatable for all Canadians, if it was not already.

During times of public health concerns, we expect our leaders to make a brave show of it, visiting Toronto’s Chinatown during the SARS outbreak, or drinking the water after a contamination scare. Not this time.

Discretion is now the better part of valour. We have been saying that for nearly five centuries, even before Shakespeare employed the expression in “Henry IV, Part I.”

Over the course of Thursday, I received a half dozen emails from various entities about the coronavirus pandemic. All of them, in one way or another, assured me that health and safety was their number 1 priority.

We are discovering now, in the face of a global pandemic that’s moving at a frightening speed, what a culture of safety looks like when taken to a necessary extreme. After this pandemic recedes, it remains to be seen what the long-term results will be.

Continue reading at the National Post:
https://nationalpost.com/opinion/raymond-j-de-souza-balancing-safety-and-human-interaction-during-a-pandemic-and-beyond