On Tuesday, TV Ontario’s estimable COVID pundit John Michael McGrath – the one who back in February absolutely eviscerated the Ontario government with its own data on how the February re-opening was going to cause a third wave – wrote another wonderful piece on the subject. But this one was not a pessimistic piece; rather it made a measured and sober case for optimism about this summer and, by implication, the fall. I am going to quote the start of it because it is so great.
What do you call COVID-19 if it doesn’t make you sick at all or if it does make you sick but is massively less likely to put you in the hospital or kill you, and you’re almost guaranteed to make a full recovery? The answer is: call it whatever you want, because it’s not really the government’s business anymore.
If this seems a bit Panglossian to you, consider the following:
Fact: Canada is on track to receive at least 65 million doses of vaccine before the end of July. Almost two-thirds of that is Pfizer. Nearly all the rest, apart from the Astra Zeneca already in people’s arms and in freezers across the country is Moderna. It does not include any potential J & J shipments (dates on those are unknown).
Fact: Inventory is not sitting in freezers. Over the last week or so, inventory has been bouncing around between 4 and 8 days. (see Trevor Tombe’s excellent daily updates for more on this). That means we can have 65 million jabs in arms by August 8th at the latest.
Fact: Canada has 31.5 million individuals 16 and over.
Fact: Canada has enough vaccine supply for two jabs for the entire population 16+ by August 8th. Not everyone will take it, but at the same time we’ll use some of that supply for under 16s. Point being, we will hit herd immunity in August. No ifs ands or buts.
I know, we’ve been conditioned by the last fifteen months to always expect the worst, and particularly here in Ontario where our deeply incompetent government has, since last July, literally never missed an occasion to make the wrong decision. But look, even here, where the process getting a vaccine appointment has often seemed like a wild scavenger hunt, we’ve managed to put over 7 million doses into arms out of approximately a 12 million population of 16+ year old’s. In terms of first doses, as a country we’re set to pass the US today or tomorrow (we lag on second doses, but that won’t last long). In August, new cases will drop not to zero but will get pretty damn close. Pandemia will turn to endemia – a state in which risk is not zero, but, as Michael says, will be so close to zero as to not really be a threat to public health.
The best comparison I can make is that it will start to look a lot like H1N1 did in 2009. In that flu wave, hundreds of Canadians sadly died over a period of months. But life went on largely as normal. We did not social distance. Educational institutions were open. And so you have to ask yourself: once we are back in H1N1 territory – WHICH IS QUITE CLEARLY WHERE WE ARE GOING TO BE BY SEPTEMBER – why in the name of all that is holy would institutions be doing education remotely?
And yet. While institutions in British Columbia seem to be mostly planning for a mostly in-person fall, institutions almost everywhere else are – publicly at least – sending either incoherent or incomprehensibly risk-averse messages. Most in effect are saying “we’re probably not going back fully in-person until January”, which (in case I have not been clear on this point) is contrary to every sensible bit of scenario planning.
So why the reticence? There are several public and not-so-public rationales I’ve seen. I’d like to list them here, ranking them in decreasing order of acceptability.
- We can’t plan without better guidance on future social distancing rules, so we’re being conservative. This rationale makes sense. Provincial governments do need to set some rules – quickly – about the conditions under which social distancing rules will be relaxed, because without that guidance universities and colleges simply can’t plan for full back-to-school. That makes it difficult for institutions to guarantee a return to classes. But still, guys, read the room: herd immunity means we’re back to an H1N1 situation. H1N1 means no social distancing. Maybe – maybe – the rules don’tget relaxed until October, but sweet merciful crap that’s no reason to junk the whole semester.
- We still don’t know the effects of variants, maybe we’ll see another spike and this whole “done in August” thing is wrong. It’s possible. But so far there’s limited evidence that any of the major vaccines are ineffective against any of the new variants, so this seems more hypothetical than anything.
- We can’t leave international students behind, and we don’t know when they will be allowed to travel. This is only sort of true. Theresa Tam’s late April briefing made it clear that the government expects to lift travel restrictions 28 days after we hit the magic 75%/20% first dose/second dose ratio. That will be before the August long weekend. So students will be able to come – the issue (as I noted back here) is more how many of them will have study visas. Certainly, the feds need to work very hard to clear the backlog. And I get that international students are financially crucial to institutions, but dear God can we really be contemplating scratching an entire term of in-person teaching for domestic students because the feds can’t get their visa processing system back up and running? Any institution that wants to offer that rationale publicly is going to be properly excoriated by domestic students and parents.
- Without making vaccinations mandatory (which most unis seem to think is impossible) campuses will still be unsafe. First, by that logic, no one should ever work in any large workplace, ever, because no vaccine is 100% mandatory. Second, that’s not how vaccination and herd immunity works. There will be cases, yes, almost exclusively among the unvaccinated. But vaccines mean precisely that they will not spread. That’s the point.
- We had to do out planning in February/March/whenever and based on the risk profile then, staying shut made sense. I bury my head in my hands at this one. Our universities and colleges, which proudly talked about their flexibility and inventiveness when it came to shifting teaching online last March, are seriously trying to peddle the idea that they need seven months notice to move things back to the way they have been done since forever? Seriously? Why not just stick a sign over the front gates saying WE HAVE LEARNED NOTHING IN THIS CRISIS. Change your processes. You did it once, you can do it again.
- Profs can’t just change their teaching styles, they too need time to plan. Well, yes. So tell them they’re going back and they can plan for that. Again, they have been teaching in-person forever, this is not a big shift.
- Profs feel insecure, so they should have the right to teach from home. I feel a bit bad putting this so far down the list, because obviously you want people to feel safe at work. But at the same time, this feeling of insecurity comes from either a) a misunderstanding of how herd immunity works, b) over-elevated levels of risk aversion or c) both. I say it again: by the fall, COVID will look like H1N1. Nobody suggested profs should have been able to opt-out of in-person during H1N1. If we are genuinely saying that student experiences come second to professors’ idiosyncratic views on risk, then we have a serious problem on our hands. By that logic, it’s not clear we would ever open our institutions again.
- Many profs actually kind of dig working from home. Absolutely no one is saying this out loud, but a lot of people are saying, quietly, (of their colleagues, anyway) that many of the claims about feeling insecure are in fact just a cover for the fact that hey, work from home suits some people. Say, particularly, those with long intercity commutes.
In sum: there are some genuine external factors getting in the way of rational planning for the fall. The feds need to fix the visa process. Provinces need to give clearer guidance about how social distancing rules will change as vaccination rates rise and cases fall. But PSE institutions can be proactive in both areas. They could contribute money to help solve the visa backlog and offer their own plan for how and when to relax the distancing rules. Do anything they can to jump-start these policy processes.
But they must be brave and bold. They have to want to be open. And I have to say looking at a lot of plans for the fall, what I see is a lot of institutions looking timid, frightened, and ready to sacrifice another term of students lives’ because they can’t see risk clearly anymore. There is still time for institutions to change this; I have a feeling things will go very badly for institutions which do not.
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I think 3. on international students should be up there. Visa/travel constraints aside, it may be that many students have preference for remote learning in their first term (e.g. uncertainty in countries like India, family financial situations). Universities need to adapt and be flexible. Making in-person mandatory is a business risk in itself.
I would disagree with this speculation. Many institutions are using the Covid19 crisis as cover, to make changes to the business, that would take a decade or more, without the distraction. They want this drawn out as long as possible despite what they say publically. The tear down & rebuild is not completed yet. You would not believe the level of scurrying happening behind the scenes.
Don’t believe the “we don’t know” act. Oscar worthy acting, I’d argue.
Fantastic article. I understand the fears universities have (presumably mostly liability related ones, nobody wants to be the only institution that did something bold and caused a death or dozen), but I think at this point they need to firmly prepare to be open come September.
Once those vaccines are deployed, as you mentioned, the risks will be miniscule compared to the rewards.
I suspect, as you do at the end, that some people have become very comfortable with the “new normal”. Working from home, reasonably strong social safety nets, not having to socialize with anyone in a meaningful way; all these things appeal to a certain subsection of the populace. Anecdotally, I have heard more people than I would have imagined pre-covid saying they plan to continue wearing masks and distancing indefinitely.
Suffice it to say, society will be feeling the ripples of these months we’ve endured for years to come.
Panglossian Indeed. I greatly appreciate the optimism and forward thinking. However, I am a lot less confident and not for any listed reasons. I lived through a pandemic in the 90s when HIV/AIDS was at its most disastrous. Sitting with people as they die–hundreds of people, gives me pause and so, I take a moment to reflect and share some lessons.
1. Public Trust in public health (including yours) can be dangerous: As I reviewed, for example, the Ontario Science Table’s recent modeling and reports, I still holes in the data; metrics not collected or included. It all sounds safe in terms of numbers. And I know how numbers can be skewed. What’s missing from all of the modeling are social & behavioural frames of reference and research that point to idiosyncratic and situational measures. For example, in colder weather do masks become more or less effective? Walking through hallways, doorway, stairway, where air circulation may change with the weather — the spaces between social life are never considered. These leakages reinforce a healthy distrust of public health. Higher Ed, with access to a larger range of experts, sh/could take on these a leadership role to model safer behaviours and public action. As the centre of learning for young people in Ontario, higher ed is the only place where young people can access our shared social values through campus policies, decision making and role modeling.
2. The government (and lack of trust) cannot bear the responsibility of this pandemic alone. We are all in this together. And there are many ways to frame and assess current situations. I’m super frustrated by the binary logics that tell people it can only be one way or another. There are more options than remote vs f2f. There must be. And we need to work together to find solutions that work. In experimenting with solutions, whether success or failure, we can learn how to move forward in this new world. There is no going back. No return to what once was. Stepping outside everyone must acknowledge that the entire world has changed as a result of the last year. Higher education institutions are one of the most important spaces in public culture where these new changes can unfold in meaningful ways. Consider how the last year has had an impact on individuals, social groupings, human interactions and communication systems; today, there are new ways of doing business, new promising practices, new wise decisions. And all of this requires a slow approach — move too fast (as with the rush for a drug called AZT) and more people will die. When small HIV/AIDS communities organized, there were groups looking into multiple approaches and areas that must be address–social action (sure) and treatment and data numbers (sure) and there were small groups thinking about the needs across communities — the needs of geriatric communities and not the same as the needs of low-income social groups, isolated groups, groups living in high rise buildings. We have not yet explored all of our options.
3. Institutions of higher education are centers of community engagement and planning. Their decisions impact the extent to which smaller groups of people can advocate for social change, for supporting those in need, for a host of community-based organizational systems that can create local resources and centres of support, advocacy, and health. By aiming for higher ed to ‘return to normal’ higher ed risks its people, its social value, its ability to assimilate ideas and values across our diverse communities.
4. Higher Edu has a responsibility to equity, diversity, inclusion and decolonization- the most equitable decisions are what should guide decisions making. Yes, if you live with invisible privilege than equitable decision making will feel frustrating and too slow. Simply put, by following policy numbers and governmental guidelines, those folks traditionally disenfranchised will experience even great oppression and exclusion. With changes like these, there are always winners and losers. And the losers in this situation fear death–for good reason.
5. There is a great deal of discourse circulating about mental health. Student mental health and wellness. Higher Edu communities include communities other than students. As faculty and staff are left out of decision making; as contingencies are forthcoming, as the worlds of these folks change, no one is monitoring the communities and their sense of wellness. And this is necessary. Mental health is very important because burnout is real. And often burnout leaves one vulnerable to secondary trauma exposure which, without daily supports and resources, leads to greater disasters. As campuses plan to address student mental health, prepare for the folks supervising these students to begin to experience real burnout–the institutions risk the lives of its own core people.
These are some of the fear I am distracted by, as I try to complete other work. Burnout is real and sadly, makes those of us in care positions vulnerable to self harm and death. The propositional logics presented in your article are strong and your rhetoric is powerful. However, my fears and past experiences still point me to leakages in your data–reinforcing my own insecurity.
Thank you for this opportunity to reply. Sending all good things, mark