So far, there's strong public support up here in Canada for the measures. According to polls, the great majority believe breaking the public health orders should be a crime, at least in serious cases. There may be period of time where the government still has a strong, popular mandate to enforce distancing, but there is increasing non-compliance and resistance.
Just the folks who start to snap mentally over the next weeks and months will be a serious and growing problem, even if everyone who stays mostly-rational wants to continue to maintain distancing.
I agree - up here folks are being quite cooperative, someone even recently painted a mural of Bonnie Henry & Dr. Tam[1]. That all said, some parts of America are quite different from Canada with some churches openly protesting the orders[2] (and putting the most vulnerable at risk).
My big concern down there in America is, if folks get crazy and LEOs need to step in and enforce quarantine it will make that quarantine ineffective and LEOs will become the new disease vector. Additionally if any significant portion of the population decides to violate the order than the LEOs, National Guard and even standing army won't be sufficient to enforce the peace - because the peace can't be enforced, peaceable society can only be accomplished through voluntary social contracts.
I feel like that's a strong differentiator of Canada and the United States - America seems like it's always holding its breath and waiting for the next revolution which will change everything, while we here in Canada just want things to get back to normal.
I’m sure for now people are willing to go along (also who would tell a pollster they want people to die, but that’s a separate point). If this goes on for months expect public opinion to change.
That's kind of my point. The public opinion may change, but until it mounts to a point that government policy changes, they'll probably keep enforcing the distancing measures with increasing heavy-handedness.
It may also become increasingly polarized with strong "I don't want to die!" and "I just want to talk to someone!" factions becoming increasingly set in their beliefs.
So, unfortunately, I think as soon as actual force is necessary we lose - but while increasing heavy-handedness involves fines and parking a patrol car outside someone's house to make them adhere to self-isolation I think we'll be alright.
What majority? If the majority of people are stupid enough to rise against the tyranny of social distancing, they deserve what they get. At least, I hope that doesn't happen.
