Quelle est l'expression française pour "chin diaper" ?

Le nez, c'est toujours le nez.....

Right now governments everywhere are planning to abandon any sort of COVID-19 precautions. Having lost my mother to COVID when we finally allowed her to be moved into a nursing home with about a third of staff unvaccinated, and having another family member who is a heart-transplant recipient and consequently really, really, really immuno-compromised, I can’t really understand this.

Especially given the kind of long-term COVID health impacts that are being reported.

I guess that ultimately the almighty dollar rules everything.

Watching the crazies who invaded Ottawa last month, allegedly to protest COVID rules, I can’t help but compare things to France.

Yes Macron is about to remove most restrictions, but overall what strikes me here is that no-one considers masks or the Passe Sanitaire to be a big deal. I have yet to see anyone marching into an InterMarché or Carrefour Express while loudly declaring that they will not be encumbered by a mask. You can see people masked and unmasked on any street, and it’s not worth noting. And everyone just happily pulls up the Passe Sanitaire of their phone and lets the waiter scan it in the restaurant.

It’s all just a day to day thing and not worthy of much attention.

The difference, I think, is one of national attitude. Canada still feels like it’s a country of “I’m all right Jack, and you take care of yourself.” For some reason a lot of people, including supposed leaders, feel that any imposition is too much, and that protecting other people during a global pandemic is not something that they should be forced to do.

That’s not surprising. Since the glory days of the seventies Canada has seen social programs and supports cut significantly. It is not a good country to be a poor, single mother unless you can also “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” and become a real estate mogul. This is the country that changed the name of “welfare” to “Workfare.” The overarching feeling in Canada is that if you are poor, or disabled, or sick, it’s probably your own fault, and the government has no obligation to help you.

Consumer protections in Canada are minimal compared to Europe. Whether it’s house buying, or on-line shopping, or renting an apartment, or even accepting cookies from a web site, you’re much, much better protected here than in Canada.

That’s not because it’s impossible for Canada to have similar laws, it’s because the people who have been elected to run the country choose not to do anything about it. They could, if they wanted, mimic all of the French regulations to protect you, but they don’t. Instead they point to the even more dismal American scene and say “Hey, look how good things are in Canada!”

Anyhow, despite the French acceptance of basic sanitary measures that will protect their neighbours, there are a couple of issues.

Even though everyone accepts that mask-wearing is something you need to do, it is no exaggeration that one in four people in any supermarket have the mask under their nose. I cannot explain it.

And every now and then you’ll run into a restaurant where they just ignore the whole COVID regime. Again, I don’t know why, but it happens.

What’s strange about all of this is that the overall feeling is still that the entire population accepts the need to respect the rules, even while they don’t do it. They don’t march in the streets, they don’t block the center of Paris, they don’t whine about masks. They just get on with their lives, and it’s accepted that the degree to which they do that will vary from one person to the next.

I don’t fully understand this dynamic, but somewhere in all of this people seem to be saying “I may leave my nose hanging out all of the time, but I acknowledge that we are part of a community, and must do everything possible to support each other.”

Even if the implementation is imperfect, that belief in shared responsibility is comforting.