An age-old question is, do the means justify the ends? Or do the ends justify the means?
Generally speaking, depending on the situation of course, it’s considered unethical, even immoral, to say that it doesn’t matter how you do it, as long as you get the desired results.
In the case of the COVID-19 pandemic, there are some very questionable means being used in the name of public health to try and reach the ends.
Weyburn was the victim of a very questionable decision not to allow an SJHL bubble to locate here, and it’s not just the Red Wings that suffered the consequences, it’s the many businesses and services in the city that were robbed of this opportunity. Meantime, in the centre of variants of COVID (namely Regina), the WHL is allowed to continue on with their games unabated.
This was patently unfair to Weyburn and to the SJHL teams and their players, but it’s all justified in the name of fighting COVID.
Now, schools in the southeast, in both Southeast Cornerstone and Holy Family, are in remote learning mode for at least two weeks after the Easter week break, maybe longer.
Did no one learn anything from the travesty of the lockdowns of a year ago?
Keeping children out of the classroom is bad, any way you look at it. It’s bad for their mental health, it’s bad for their social development, and it’s bad academically.
One of the big discussions around school board tables this year has been about how to help students who have been negatively affected from trying to do remote learning last year, because now they are all very far behind where they should be at this time of year.
Locking down the classes again, and having them go to remote learning, again, is only going to harm them further and exacerbate the situation, to say nothing of the position this puts parents in.
When word came out that the schools were going to remote learning again, a parent asked plaintively, “What are working parents supposed to do?”
Indeed, what are they supposed to do? There has been no provision for how a working mom or dad can handle this situation, having their child get their learning online in the middle of the school year, with very little help or instruction.
The lesson should have been learned from a year ago, that this is not good or helpful to our children in any way. The fears over COVID are overtaking everything, and the harm being done to the community, to businesses and to individuals is going to linger long, long after COVID has been “handled” and the vaccines are given out to as many as want them.
We need to learn how to live with this virus, and the vaccines will help us to do that.
