GUELPH POLITICAST #462 – Has It Really Been Five Years? (feat. Dr. Nicola Mercer)

Maybe you don’t remember, or want to remember, but it was this time five years ago that the world closed down as COVID-19 became so virulent that it required us to be sequestered for months or else keep six feet apart while wearing a mask or other PPE. Many of us have memory-holed those events, some have re-written it as an overreaction or, even worse than that, a conspiracy, but perhaps the time has come to face our trauma about the pandemic.

Here are some of the headlines from the March 20, 2020 edition of the Guelph Politico Tip Sheet newsletter: “All City of Guelph facilities are now closed to the public including City Hall", “The two remaining city council meetings for March have been cancelled”, and “The Guelph General Hospital, as well as other area hospitals, have initiated more stringent measures on who can visit the hospital and when”. There was a lot going on, and no one knew how it was all going to shake out in the end.

It may not seem like it, but on this fifth anniversary of the pandemic, COVID-19 is still around. Even once diligent maskers don’t mask anymore, even when they’re sick, fewer people are getting their booster shots, and when you talk to people about their pandemic memories it’s about how we took it too seriously and spent too much in response. Is that how you remember it? What should we be thinking about following our COVID experience now half-a-decade later?

The perfect guest to answer these and similar questions is Dr. Nicola Mercer, who is the Medical Officer of Health for Wellington, Dufferin, and Guelph. She's going to talk about the warning signs she saw in advance, what she and Public Health got right about the pandemic response, and what she thinks they might have done better in hindsight. We will also talk about the lessons learned, the current state of COVID-19, and how our experiences might inform the response to the next pandemic.

So let's rewind to 2020 on this week's Guelph Politicast!

You can learn more about Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph Public Health at their website, where you can find links to information about immunizations, health alerts, data dashboards, and agendas for the Board of Health meetings. You can also follow them on social media @WDGPublicHealth on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Instagram.

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