He doesn’t miss a chance to laud Nova Scotians for their efforts to slow the spread of the virus and, when required, he gently chides them for behaviour that’s not helpful to that singular goal.
In Nova Scotia, Premier Stephen McNeil is clearly at the helm and determined to steer the province through uncharted waters and get Nova Scotians to safety on the other side.
“Be kind to each other and we will find our way through this,” the premier said during one of this week’s daily briefings on the province-wide effort to fight the infection and respond to the miseries it’s already delivered, with more to follow.
Those were typical words of reassurance from McNeil, laced with the reminder that, even as we keep our distance from one another to contain the contagion, we’re still together in this. He delivers some version of that message every day.
McNeil and Dr. Robert Strang, the province’s chief medical officer of health, are the two constants at the daily updates and announcements.
Strang provides the details about the spread of the infection and the public health effort to find and contain it. He gives voice to the science of disease control in terms we can all understand.
Strang knows what the evidence shows, and he wants you to know it, too.
Social distancing, hand-washing, and two weeks in isolation for anyone who’s likely come in contact with the virus, and everybody returning to Nova Scotia from outside Canada, are powerful weapons against this thing, but everyone has to play their part.
McNeil takes his lead from the public health experts, and he let it be known early on that anyone who doesn’t ought to keep their opinions and advice to themselves.
“Everyone thinking they have the right idea is not helpful. We need to rely on public health,” the premier said a week ago. “The decisions that we are making today are not based on something I dreamt up overnight (they are) based on best practices.
“This should be a time when Nova Scotians stand behind one another and a time when we let the science speak for itself. Listen to public health.”
Nova Scotia is at the front end of the infection, but McNeil and Strang are convinced that its damage can be reduced if Nova Scotians buy in fully to what the premier calls “simple asks.”
“Eighty per cent of this is in the hands of each of us,” he said. “Every one of us can take the appropriate steps to protect the people we love and to protect the people around us, our fellow Nova Scotians, by just doing these simple, unselfish steps of protecting our communities.”
Vigilante-style action to identify those who aren’t following directions and directives have no place in the province’s defences.
“If someone in your community is ill with COVID-19, or any other disease for that matter, they need your support, your caring compassion and understanding,” McNeil said. “I am concerned about stories that I’m hearing about people taking matters into their own hands in terms of trying to identify who might have the virus or who has travelled. None of this is helpful, in fact it may be extremely harmful.”
On hoarding, the premier said Nova Scotians “need to be mindful that (if required) you’d be isolated for a couple of weeks, not six months.”
To university students marooned in dormitories, the premier again urged social distancing. “There is absolutely no partying or large gatherings.”
These are the early days of a crisis that’s expected to continue for weeks and likely months.
While the federal government rolls out the big national response, local efforts to slow the spread of the virus and the medical response that, in Nova Scotia, is mostly yet to come, falls to the province.
American writer James Lane Allen (1849-1925) famously and astutely observed that adversity doesn’t build character, it reveals it.
COVID-19 is adversity writ large. It will test the character of many, if not all, of us before it’s through.
We need to know there’s both strength and calm at the centre of the storm, where critical decisions are being made, and where many more will be required.
So far, from what we’ve seen and heard from our leaders in government and public health in Nova Scotia, we have that assurance.
Jim Vibert consulted or worked for five Nova Scotia governments. He now keeps a close and critical eye on those in power.
