one in three canadians say government response to covid was overblown: poll
five years after covid emerged, many canadians believe unprecedented government-mandated policies went too far. one in six regret getting vaccinated
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police tape closes off a playground in fort mcmurray, alta., on april 19, 2020 due to covid-19.
laura beamish
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what surprises bioethicist kerry bowman isn’t that more than a third of canadians think governments overreacted to covid, according to a new national poll. it’s that the sentiment isn’t higher. “i think a lot of canadians have doubts,” said bowman, who teaches bioethics and global health at the university of toronto. “what we didn’t do as a nation was think about, in a mature democratic society, how far can we go with restrictions, and how far can we go, quickly, in the absence of clear evidence.”
five years after a mysterious pneumonia-like illness of unknown origin emerged in wuhan, china, before spreading around the globe, many canadians believe extreme and unprecedented government-mandated policies to “flatten the curve” went too far.
thirty-six per cent of canadians agree with the notion that government reactions to the pandemic were exaggerated, according to the poll by leger for the association for canadian studies (acs).
men were more likely (41 per cent) than women (32 per cent) to think governments overplayed the threat of covid-19. the view was also highest among those aged 18 to 24 (40 per cent) and 35 to 54 (42 per cent), but dropped to 30 per cent for the 55 plus cohort.
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people protest covid-19 safety measures and lockdowns in downtown toronto on september 26, 2020.
veronica henri/postmedia
people in the prairies and alberta were more likely to have a negative perception of the decisions taken by government. forty-seven per cent of albertans and 45 per cent of manitoba and saskatchewan respondents agreed the covid response was exaggerated.
overall, 50 per cent of respondents didn’t feel the response was excessive; 13 per cent preferred not to answer.
five years after the outbreak, “i think many people may have lost sight of how severe the pandemic was, and that’s probably an important contributing factor,” said acs president jack jedwab.
“some people probably feel like it was yesterday. some people feel like it was a decade ago.”
whether it seems like yesterday or a lifetime ago, the poll results hold implications for future pandemic planning and how compliant citizens might be in the event of another pandemic. while the survey singled out vaccine mandates, jedwab suspects people would also respond “much more grudgingly” to lockdowns, quarantines, school closures, shelter-in-place orders, caps on mass gatherings, limits on socializing outside one’s “bubble” and other restrictions on individual freedoms.
“we’d have to demonstrate the tremendous severity of (a new health crisis), or it would have to demonstrate itself,” he said.
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jedwab didn’t specify which level of government in the “was the response exaggerated” poll question. he kept it generic. “it was more about the principle of the state’s intervention irrespective of what level it was,” he said.
the survey also found that one in six people said they “regret” getting vaccinated. the poll didn’t ask why, but there appears to be a correlation with perceptions of exaggeration. among those who regret getting vaccinated, three-quarters believe the government reaction to the pandemic was overblown.
the 18 to 34 demographic was more likely to express regret over getting immunized than those 55 and older, by a two-to-one ratio (21 per cent compared to 10 per cent). and while a majority (57 per cent) of the over 55 age group said they did or will get vaccinated this year, only 26 per cent of those aged 18 to 34 said they did/will get vaccinated in 2024.
a city of calgary sign encourages calgarians to wear masks to help avoid another lockdown amidst rising cases of covid-19 on oct. 14, 2020.
gavin young/postmedia news
jedwab said the results echo a narrative he hears often among younger people, “that covid was disproportionately affecting older people, in terms of mortality in particular, and so they may not have needed to be the object of some of these restrictions.”
“it doesn’t mean that covid doesn’t affect people across the age spectrum,” jedwab said. “but you’re seeing that group in particular feeling there’s exaggeration,” possibly because they are not feeling as personally affected by it.
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bowman said it’s not so much that people have forgotten the worst days of covid, or that only the young are questioning government responses. “i often hear from people of a variety of ages, ‘did we really get it right? was it not an overreaction?’
“and it’s not just the vaccines, but the lockdowns in combination with the mandatory essence towards the vaccines,” bowman said.
while there’s an instinct to move on — and the federal liberals have brushed off calls for a public and transparent covid-inquiry — bowman said canada is making a “grave mistake” by not holding a thorough analysis of what went on during the pandemic, good and bad.
horrible things happened, he said. “the massive death rate in long-term care was something awful. where we really failed was vulnerable people — the elderly, people in poverty, racialized groups, indigenous groups.”
crosses commemorate 50 people who died of covid-19 at the camilla care community long-term care facility in mississauga, ont.
peter j. thompson/national post/file
but the “much too much, almost zealotry, related to being vaccinated” also came back to haunt public health officials, said bowman, who has spoken out about how the unvaccinated were demonized as right-wing radicals. the vaccine passports and mandates had a politically polarizing impact, creating an “us-vs-them” mentality, he said.
like most western countries, canada responded to covid-19 with government-mandated lockdowns. in emergency and momentous situations where decisions have to be made in a hurry, “policy overreaction is a common phenomenon,” université de sherbrooke researchers wrote in the journal of management inquiry. “emotions run generally high and cognitive processes are often impaired,” taieb hafsi and sofiane baba said. those emotions can derail rational thinking and drive bad decisions.
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there were brief periods where it wasn’t clear whether people should even be outdoors. playgrounds, sports fields, beaches and dog parks were off limits in the early days of covid. bowman, who lives in downtown toronto, remembers a police officer yelling at him when he inadvertently entered toronto’s high park. the massive (400 acres) public park “was sort of ticker-taped off,” he said. “it was just a ridiculous situation, and i think people remember those types of things.
“i don’t think confidence will be high.”
in the u.s. a republican-led, two-year congressional subcommittee investigation into the pandemic that concluded the virus likely originated at a wuhan lab, and not at a nearby animal market, also criticized the “six-feet-apart” social distancing rule as arbitrary and not based on science, and accused public health officials of sacrificing public trust over “flip-flopping” messaging around the efficacy of masks. prolonged lockdowns, the committee said, caused immeasurable harm to the economy and people’s financial and mental wellbeing.
new threats are knocking on the door, bowman said. bird flu isn’t going away. a mystery disease is spreading in the democratic republic of the congo, mainly among malnourished children. “there’s really a lot going on,” bowman said. “what i would worry about is that if we face a pandemic again that people may not be willing to go along with significant lockdowns and maybe not even support mass vaccination.”
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people were told that herd immunity against covid-19 would be achieved if a sufficiently high proportion of the population was vaccinated. “we were told that once vaccination rates reached 75, 78 per cent, the virus will gradually suffocate,” bowman said. “nothing like that ever happened. not even close. not to this day.” neither vaccination nor infection appears to induce prolonged protection from getting infected with sars-cov-2.
a pedestrian wearing a mask walks across yonge street at dundas street with a “stop the spread of covid 19” notice in the background, april 3, 2020.
peter j thompson/national post
canada has some of the highest vaccination rates in the world, and the vaccines absolutely do protect against severe disease and death, bowman said. people “aren’t ending up in the intensive care unit, and that’s a wonderful thing,” he said. “but i don’t think it was ever realistic with this virus that we would ever have herd immunity. there was just so much out there, globally. and it was coming at us from so many directions.”
“i think (public health officials) should have been a bit more humble,” bowman said. “when we don’t know something to simply say, ‘we don’t know. we’re not sure.’ even herd immunity. if they had said let’s hope, which sounds a little soft, it would have been more honest.”
in early december, 2019, a cluster of patients in wuhan began experiencing symptoms of a respiratory virus that wasn’t responding well to usual treatments.
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on dec. 31, 2019, the world health organizations country office in china was informed by chinese authorities of dozens of cases of pneumonia of an unknown origin causing shortness of breath, fever and other symptoms.
on jan. 25, 2020, canada’s first case of sars-cov-2 was confirmed at toronto’s sunnybrook hospital.
five days later, the world health organization declared covid-19 a public health emergency of international concern, officially characterizing the outbreak a pandemic.
by december 2023, 80 to 85 per cent of canadians had infection-acquired antibodies to covid-19, based on estimates derived from an analysis of mainly blood donors.
but 41 per cent of respondents to the leger poll said they never got covid during the pandemic.
“i think there’s a bit of covid denial,” jedwab said.
the online poll sought responses from 1,612 canadians between sept. 20 and sept. 22, 2024. a margin of error can’t be associated with a non-probability sample in a panel survey for comparison purposes. a probability sample of 1,612 respondents would have a margin of error of plus or minus 2.5 per cent, 19 times out of 20.
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