History has shown us that short term crises eventually run up against long term habits and values. A case in point is the increasingly cavalier approach on the part of many to the ever surging Covid 19 pandemic. Social needs are trumping social distancing. People need each other.

 

Just a day or so ago my wife and I passed a huge lineup of a certain make of sports cars parked on the side of a secondary road. Their owners were gathered at a roadside house for a car rally. No masks, no “distancing”, just a lot of happy drivers comparing notes with hamburgers and hotdogs in hand. This was one of a myriad of parties being held over Labour Day throughout North America.

 

You can call it “laissez faire” or fatalism, but the fact is that pandemic fatigue is producing carelessness.

 

We need not become “Henny Penny”( “the sky is falling!”) but we do need to remind ourselves that we have a responsibility to love our neighbours by protecting them with our masks and distance. The pandemic will one day be behind us. Until then we must retain our social discipline.