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Springing from captivity: who’s first?
The focus of the coronavirus epidemic is now shifting towards springing people from the captivity they’ve been held in for the past eight weeks or so. That’s a good thing, but the devil lies in the details. We’ve been told all along that coming out of the pandemic lockdown will be a series of gradual moves, so it’s quite possible that this will apply to freeing people from their home jail cells. But what rules will govern the transition? Who will be allowed out first?
Letting people out from a low-risk area like the County before letting people out from hot spots like Ottawa and Toronto makes some sense. But it’s fraught with political downsides. County people would be wise not march up and down Picton Main Street—two metres apart, of course—celebrating and shouting “we’re out first (and you’re not).”
The logical place to start a release program is with a well-defined group, such as children. They have the shortest attention span, combined with the most energy. But kids can’t make mature choices about their actions, so it would be short-sighted not to release their parents at the same time— much as their parents would probably love to have another eight weeks alone recovering from the constant presence of their offspring. And kids need to go to school, so you would have to release their teachers too. So releasing kids first doesn’t seem like the perfect first step.
Well, maybe we should start at the other end, and begin begin by freeing those over ninety, followed by those over eighty and so on. This would prefer those who presumably have the shortest time left on this mortal coil. If it turned out to that the virus bites back when restrictions are lifted, the people who have already had a good at-bat would be the hardest hit. That seems fair, although a little ethically dubious.
Perhaps people should only be released from captivity as a reward for good behaviour during the confinement period. Of course, they would have to produce affidavits from their neighbours certifying that the no-more-than-five-people rule and the two-metre rule have been strictly adhered to. But that involves a lot of paperwork. Maybe release should be a reward for the people who can correctly count the number of times Justin Trudeau has peered earnestly into the camera and stated “We want Canadians to know that the government has your back.” But that might prompt Andrew Scheer to stomp his feet and demand that a full House of Commons debate the issue.
Maybe it would be less controversial if pet owners were the first out of the gate, on the grounds that the animals are more desperate than their owners and need to find and fertilize new territory. But who would qualify as a pet? Just dogs? What about cats? Or goldfish?
Perhaps there are more creative approaches to deciding who gets freed first that could also be employed to right some historic wrongs. For instance, maybe we should first release all those long suffering people whose names begin with the last letter of the alphabet, How much grief have those Zylstras, Zubers and Zuckermans suffered while the Adams, Atkinsons and Appelbaums always get the first shot at whatever’s on offer? Or what about preferring those left-handed people who were forced in grade school to learn to write right-handedly? Maybe now is time to make them a gesture of reconciliation.
But perhaps it’s best to try and neutralize the process for deciding who gets out of captivity first. Maybe there should instead be a lottery, with everyone having an equal chance of success, They could use the Ontario Lottery Corporation’s computer to randomly choose from 365 birthdates.
Or maybe the government could combine the lottery approach with a set of criteria, picked by a computer using artificial intelligence. For example, it might pick all persons aged between 38 and 45 on January 1, 2020 who have since that date eaten pirogies, listened to a Willie Nelson song and been to a Toronto Argonauts game. Mind you, nobody, will admit to having attended an Argonauts game in that period. Maybe the artificial intelligence might need a little refine. There could be a major government grant in there somewhere.
I had better leave the job of determining criteria for the reals from captivity to the experts. Nevertheless, I invite them to consider all of the good ideas in this column.
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