Chairs are stored at a pizza restaurant in Montreal, on Sept. 30, 2020.Paul Chiasson/The Canadian Press
The little guitar shop that Michel Pellerin runs out of his basement in Thetford Mines, Que., can stay open – for now. But his girlfriend will not be able to visit him for a while.
These are the strange new burdens that about five million Quebeckers are starting to settle under, as the province returns to a partial, nearly month-long lockdown in an attempt to control a surge in coronavirus cases. The province exceeded 1,000 new cases on Friday, the largest daily increase since early May.
Now, bars and restaurants like his favourite sushi place, Le Rouge Poisson, must close their dining rooms and limit themselves to delivery and takeout.
Gathering places such as movie theatres and music venues must close, leaving the professional musicians who make up most of his clientele unable to perform on the elaborate, mother-of-pearl-inlaid instruments Mr. Pellerin has made for them.
Although these restrictions are less severe than those in the spring, many people are bracing for a grim October. After a summer of relative freedom, the emotional whiplash of returning to a state of confinement risks worsening a mental-health crisis already plaguing Quebec.
“It hurts even worse to fall back into it,” Mr. Pellerin said.
Perhaps most difficult of all, private gatherings between households are forbidden – with a few exceptions for essential workers like plumbers – enforceable by $1,000 fines on the spot. Those who live alone, such as Mr. Pellerin, may have a visitor from one other address – but since he has joint custody of children from a previous relationship, his girlfriend will not be able to visit as often.
Along with many Quebeckers, the guitar-maker feels anxiety about what the future will hold for a province that once again finds itself the epicentre of Canada’s pandemic. No other jurisdiction in the country has imposed such strict limits on daily life since the spring’s first wave.
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Premier François Legault has also made it clear that these “red zone” rules – applied from Oct. 1 to 28 in the Greater Montreal area, Quebec City and the Chaudière-Appalaches region where Thetford Mines is located – could be extended if the public-health situation warrants it.
More than six months into an unprecedented global crisis, in which Quebec has one of the world’s highest death rates, the province’s suffering is to some extent quantifiable. One in five Quebec adults reported symptoms in line with depression or anxiety in early September, a University of Sherbrooke study found. The situation is most severe among anglophones, health care workers and young adults, said Dr. Melissa Généreux, who led the research.
Although no comparable, population-wide survey of mental health has been done before in the province, previous studies of the Canadian population suggest how severe the pandemic’s mental-health toll has been. A 2015-16 survey across Canada found that 10 per cent of young adults suffered from symptoms compatible with depression. Today, in Quebec, the figure is 31 per cent.
Among the 6,261 Quebeckers surveyed by the polling firm Leger for the study, it was city-dwellers who were most depressed and anxious. But Dr. Généreux also worries about residents of another, more figurative region: the internet. People who receive their information about the pandemic from social media or other digital sources, rather than directly from the government or traditional media, tend to have a harder time processing it in a psychologically healthy way.
Information overload is one of the ways this crisis is unusual in the literature of mental health, said Dr. Généreux. Previous disasters like the train derailment in Lac-Mégantic, Que., or the devastating forest fires in Fort McMurray, Alta., didn’t produce the same waves of facts and opinions that can feel overwhelming during the pandemic. “Now we’re drowning in messages, from government, from the media, from social media and from our social circles.”
The Sherbrooke research team is calling for an urgent increase in mental-health resources from the government as the second wave extends into fall, including teams specializing in psychiatry deployed in communities and more support to medical workers.
Some Quebeckers feel it’s not the renewed confinement that is causing their angst but government decisions that seem arbitrary and high-handed. Martine St-Victor, a Montreal public-relations professional, decried the Legault government’s “Crayola-box type of communication tactics” that she believes are patronizing and opaque.
She wonders, for example, why museums are being closed (she sits on the board of trustees for the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal), but not big-box stores like Costco, which tend to be more crowded. The Premier has faced similar criticism for shuttering libraries while leaving most shops open, though he clarified this week that members of the public can still take out books, just not gather inside.
“Why are you shutting this down? Show me numbers,” said Ms. St-Victor. “Stop talking to us like we’re two-year-olds.”
Mr. Legault has explained that he is trying to find a balance between clamping down on the social activities known to spread the virus while preserving schools and the economy. He has also offered up to $100-million in financial aid to businesses that are being forced to close in the red zones.
But there is no eliminating collateral damage in a partial lockdown of society. Even those who have managed relatively well during the pandemic have their pangs of regret and longing as the second wave drags on.
Emcie Turineck, a Montreal illustrator, says she doesn’t mind staying at home – her work allows it, and she’s a bit of a homebody anyway. She and her boyfriend are both good cooks, so eating in is fine. The past six months have actually been a good time for introspection and self-discovery, she said.
But Ms. Turineck does worry about not being able to visit friends who are having a harder time, and her mother, who lives about an hour north in Saint-Sauveur, Que.
There are also some little things, seemingly insignificant, which she can’t help but pine for as the province enters an early hibernation.
“Even if I don’t go out that much,” Ms. Turineck said, “it would be nice to go bowling.”
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