As the COVID-19 outbreak continues, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau threatens enforcement measures against people who gather in large groups and fail to distance themselves from others

It seems so simple to many of us. A virus we haven’t seen before is threatening human life, so we should stay home and wait it out. As more Canadians test positive for COVID-19, our anxiety grows: why isn’t everyone following government warnings to avoid large social gatherings, and keeping at least two meters apart from one another? And since not everyone is listening, shouldn’t we force them to do so for the collective good through policing and punishment?

We’re learning that getting every individual in Canada to shift their lifestyle on a dime, and to indefinitely follow a new and specific set of evolving rules, is really hard. Living strictly for the collective interest is not something we practice. Using force in the name of the greater good accomplishes something clear: it draws moral line between those who behave and those who don’t. Our problem is that COVID-19 isn’t interested in our moral line, and will not be contained by our scapegoating of certain human beings.

There are basically two things the police can do to individuals who don’t self-isolate or maintain their distance from others: catch them and release them with a punishment, or catch them and detain them somewhere. These definitive punishments may comfort some of us, but they won’t stop the spread of disease. Asking the cops to hand out fines simply increases human contact and helps spread the virus. Locking people up in our jails is an even more efficient way to spread the disease, a fact we have long ignored in our preference for punishment over general health and safety.

In my experience, people justify ineffective penalties by saying that if you break the rules, you get what you deserve. This edict undermines public safety, and shifts our focus from public health to punishment for its own sake. The police officers we expect to confront people with fines or arrest are more likely to spread COVID-19 to their families and to other members of the public they subsequently meet. Incarcerated people who get sick can spread the illness to the health care workers who must then treat them. Punishing some ends up punishing all, and while this is always the case it’s especially relevant right now.

Another danger of focusing on enforcement is the assumption that those who follow the rules are safer from illness. Health care experts across Canada tell us that keeping at least two meters from one another really helps prevent the spread of COVID-19. While some provinces are now enforcing this rule with fines and possible arrest, it doesn’t apply if you’re in a grocery store. We don’t expect police to handcuff a person in the cereal aisle, even though the chance of spreading illness there may be higher than our public spaces, where reckless policing thrives.

A seemingly angry Prime Minister Justin Trudeau put on his daddy voice yesterday and warned Canadians that, “enough is enough—go home and stay home.” Trudeau added that, “we’re going to make sure this happens, whether by educating people more on the risks, or enforcing the rules if that’s needed.” His rehearsed anger obscures a simple truth: people in Canada have very limited experience in addressing a global pandemic through their own behaviour. The individualism that defines our culture isn’t compatible with the sudden need to act in service of everyone.

For this reason, the same governments that now threaten us with punishment were telling us only weeks ago that they were prepared to protect us from COVID-19, that we didn’t need to alter our lives just yet. Many people in our country aren’t media literate, and can’t easily digest the bombardment of press conference updates and contradictory messages we are now supposed to heed.

We’re told to go home and stay there, yet some of us must keep working to provide essential services, and all of us still need to venture out for food, medication, and supplies. People with wealth and savings are able to not only stockpile supplies and hibernate, but to buy out stores and force others to wander dangerously in search of basic goods. Untold thousands of people in this country have no home to safely go and stay. None of this is as simple as we might pretend.

Trudeau’s statement that government should educate the public is accurate, and should have come without the threat he used to punctuate it. We need consistent education and support to get through this pandemic. People could more easily follow direction if their governments, past and present, had done more to prepare for emergencies and build a society based on education rather than fear. In any case we are collectively vulnerable to this virus now, and we should spend our energy on universal protection rather than selective punishment.