Covid and Personal Responsibility

In the face of a forth wave of Covid-19, Saskatchewan health minister Paul Merriman is counting on 'personal responsibility' as the answer. In the absence of any provincial restrictions such as a mask mandate or vaccination passports, or incentives such as a lottery, it appears we are where we are today because of a lack of personal responsibility. As a vaccine-hesitant person might say:

It's my body and my choice so I will not get the vaccine if I don't want to.

This might sound reasonable to some people at a glance. Ignoring the fact that fighting a pandemic is a social responsibility because of how one's actions, or lack thereof, affects everyone else around them, let's look at some other cases where personal responsibility could come into play in the absence of 'big government' getting involved in our personal lives:

It's my body and my choice so I will drive drunk if I want to.

It's my body and my choice so I will not wear a seat belt if I don't want to.

It's my body and my choice so I will smoke cigarettes wherever I want to.

It's my house and my choice so I will play music as loud as I want to.

It's my gun and my choice so I will shoot as many bucks as I want to without a hunter's license or tags.

It's my husband and my choice so I will smack him around if I want to.

All the above would obviously be insane to most people and one would look at the person like they are an idiot, an asshole, or both. Now I don't think the Sask Party is advocating for personal responsibility across the board but they aren't exactly being clear about why they are pushing this libertarian mantra so hard now during a global pandemic.

Remember, this is also the party that almost legalized strip clubs before their socially-conservative base forced them to re-neg on the plan, and they are obviously not going to be for legalizing sex work or hard drugs any time soon, so they obviously have some desire to push a social agenda on us. So why are they stopping short of bringing in measures to avoid this forth wave that is going to put a tremendous stress on our healthcare system, teachers, retail and restaurant workers, and the rest of the economy? The people of this province should take a step back and wonder why the Sask Party are even in government when they don't want to do the job they are supposed to do.