Political Scenarios for Another Pandemic

It may seem strange to be writing about another pandemic considering the current situation. Most people are under the impression that the worst is behind us and that Covid-19 will become another variant of the common cold. However, there are other possibilities. Covid-19 could mutate into a more deadly and more transmissible variant or we could have a completely new deadly flu pandemic (there were three deadly flu pandemics in the 20th century, why should the 21st have none?).

What complicates the situation is the current political climate. In North America, I’ve watched the 2020 US presidential election, the 2021 Canadian federal election and I’m currently watching the 2022 Quebec provincial election. With each one, Covid has been discussed less and less. Moreover, opposition parties and protests against vaccine, travel and mask mandates has effectively killed all discussion of what a good pandemic response should look like.

That brings us to the scenarios that could play out should we be hit by another significant wave or other pandemic. Ruling parties that (mostly) implemented public health measures have now rolled those measures back and have mostly said the measures would not comeback. Opposition parties have now positioned themselves as the voice of the people who think everyone should decide their own pandemic response. That leads us to four scenarios:

1. Ruling parties do not respond to a pandemic, the opposition agrees.
2. Ruling parties do not respond, the opposition demands new mandates.
3. Ruling parties do invoke mandates, the opposition agrees.
4. Ruling parties do invoke mandates, the opposition opposes them.

Let’s try to imagine how each of these plays out:

1. The ruling parties don’t respond to a pandemic and the opposition agrees. This might start easily enough, but if deaths pile up, there is certain to be pressure for the government to change, even if it doesn’t come from an opposition party. Also, society would likely respond. As we saw in cel phone data, people stayed home during the first year of covid even in places where measures were lax. The economy would likely take a hit as tourism, restaurants and live gatherings shrink.
   Politically, I would bet that within both parties, there would be movement for an anti-establishment group that is for re-invoking measures.
2. The ruling parties don’t respond, but the opposition demands new mandates. It might seem unlikely, but when have opposition parties ever been consistent if they smell an opportunity to get attention and votes?
   Here, I imagine the Ottawa trucker situation in reverse. The people demanding measures and the opposition giving voice to those demands. I can even imagine the opposition being able to strip enough ruling party votes away to get a confidence vote to fail (in Canada) or pass legislation invoking mandates over the ruling party policy (in the US).
   Long term, I think such a bizarro-world scenario would likely drive voters to even deeper apathy as they try to figure out where politicians stand and why.
3. The ruling party does respond, the opposition opposed them. This seems like the most realistic scenario. Basically, it repeats what happened in some communities during the omicron wave.
   I think this is also the scenario that is hardest to predict how it would unfold. One would assume that there would be protests and people refusing to cooperate, egged on by opposition politicians. On the other hand, if enough people were ill and the deaths were numerous, I would think that the opposition parties would fall in line or be ignored.
   The economic and social impacts of mandates is now a known phenomenon. People would likely adapt quickly and governments would probably create support programs for those industries that were effected, although probably not at the scale of 2020.
4. The ruling party does respond and the opposition supports them. I like to think of this as the happy path. As unlikely as it seems now, this is basically what happened in 2020.
   This scenario would play out much like in 2020, but ruling parties would be more ready to pull the plug quickly if people start feeling like the mandates aren’t working. If they did react fast enough, it would likely remove the bite of the opposition arguments that we’ve seen lately.

Of the scenarios, I think scenario three is the hardest to predict. Considering the spread of conspiracy theories, a mild pandemic would likely lead to social chaos as masses of people disobey health measures and opposition parties egg them on. Combine that with the chaos in healthcare systems that have still recovered and it could be a recipe for a disaster on a whole new level.

I hope that somewhere in an office in DC or Ottawa someone with links to those in power have considered the consequences and are ready with a response.