'We're at a pivotal point here': A dominance of divided opinion during the COVID-19 pandemic

A society split in opinion is a trend that's all too familiar for Mount Saint Vincent University associate professor, Jonathan Roberts, who has studied pandemics and plagues throughout history.

“Typical, actually, historically unfortunately,” he says. “And it usually happens much more quickly than it has in Canada.”

However, if you scroll online or read news articles it seems everyone has varying opinions on almost every aspect of the pandemic, from restrictions and boosters, to masking and mandates.

Roberts says polarizing debates have happened in pandemics and health crises throughout human history.

“Classic examples that many people would be familiar with would be the black death,” says Roberts. “It comes to Europe, and what happens in Europe, who gets blamed? Well, people who are suspected of exploiting other people. That’s not necessarily what’s true, but it happens.”

Roberts says existing tensions between economic classes, cultures or genders are then exacerbated by a pandemic, and discord follows.

He points to the truckers and supporters heading to Ottawa for a protest ostensibly sparked by vaccine mandates.

“Trucking is a good professional job that pays a lot, but it’s in jeopardy,” says Roberts. “Self-driving cars, drone delivery…so people who work there already feel insecure.”

“When you tell them they're a hero for working for so many months without a vaccine and then all of the sudden tell them, a small proportion of them, that they can't work... that's obviously jarring for them. So... I think that spurs this freedom rally.”

The convoy and its supporters speak of a freedom to choose – a stark contrast from the “we’re all in this together” sentiment expressed widely in the early days of the pandemic.

“For some people, they're just emotionally over,” says Robert Huish, a Dalhousie University associate professor who specializes in global health policy and practice.

“I think when the pandemic first got going, there was a lot of enthusiasm to try to beat the virus, to keep it out, to try to flatten those curves,” says Huish.

But the persistence of the virus over several years, and even through public health measures, plays a part in polarizing opinions.

Huish calls it a “phase of mentality between preparing for a disaster and being in a disaster.”

“In the preparation state, which we were for 2020 and 2021, it was that we could keep COVID out,” adds Huish. “But now that the waves keep crashing over our bow, we are in a state now where we have to figure out a way out of it, and that's where it really gets difficult.”

Social media, which is unique to this pandemic, can be a hurdle to that, says digital anthropologist Giles Crouch.

“Social media is the public commons. It's where anybody can go, and anybody can say anything,” says Crouch.

Crouch adds that is a double-edged sword, which can be good for public discourse and create positive change, such as in the Black Lives Matter movement.

However, he says social media can also have the opposite effect, and can be wielded by agencies with less than perfect intentions.

“And that's where we have activist groups and those who have been on the fringes of society, that couldn't really communicate before what those ideas and views were, but now they can,” Crouch says.

For Roberts, what’s needed is strong leadership to galvanize public opinion towards a common goal once again.

“We’re at a pivotal point here,” says Roberts. “We have to harness that political and medical messaging effectively.”