TORONTO – Governments from across Canada and around the world have been anxiously awaiting predictive modelling that will give an educated guess of when they can resume gutting the public health system.

“We’re predicting political leaders may not be able to utter the phrase ‘efficiencies’ as code for cuts to the public system until 2021 or later,” said Chuck Addington of the Fraser Institute. “Our modelling says that the coronavirus has led people to care more about the value of human life and less about deficits, which is very concerning.”

The pandemic has made it much harder for governments to dismiss experts as ‘alarmists’ while reducing emergency stockpiles to nothing more than a single set of plastic gloves, a bottle of expired hand sanitizer, and a first aid kit that says ‘Use in the Event of Soviet Invasion.’

“Best case scenario, people will forget this ever happened by 2022 after deciding Grandma’s life wasn’t worth the slight increase in taxes,” explained Addington. “Worst case scenario, governments will consistently fund public health instead of allowing it to erode.”

At press time, the very same leaders who planned on axing as many services as they possibly could a month ago were being called ‘heroes.’