It was last week in Fundy Park when I first realized the great Canadian Covid-19 “strategy” was an obtuse farce. There by the roadside, in the mask I wore without protest, I took a photo of this sign and beheld the official closure of an outdoor scenic park overlook. A hilltop windswept asphalt lot blasting with disease-free fresh air that greets five to ten tourists an hour, several feet apart, in the busiest of tourism seasons. A cold out of season spot to view the grey ocean views of the broke and underpopulated province of New Brunswick. To say it was bleak was putting it mildly.
Closing borders made sense when everyone in Canada was still learning how to cope with this pandemic. Closing nearly everything in this province in order to safeguard people from a mathematically insignificant number of infected citizens thereafter made no sense. Watching it unfold was like watching someone shoot themselves in the face to avoid pinkeye. This early, the financial disaster of it had yet to fully present itself. (When the CERB and other financial safety nets come to an end months from now the “second wave” of Covid-19 infections will likely pale in comparison to the rash of pre-Christmas business closures and bankruptcies. Dickensian.)
What would have made sense?
1.) N95 masks in public indoor spaces, no exemptions and no flimsy face shields. Inexpensive, easy and it works. That should have been the very first order. To think the WHO actually spent significant funds on glossy ad campaigns telling uninfected people to forego masks (they thought we were too stupid to wear them properly or avoid touching our faces) boggles the mind.
2.) Drop the temperature testing. At least 40% of carriers are asymptomatic and have no elevated temperatures. It produces a false impression of safety, stop using it and stop looking for people who are “feeling sick”. The figure of 40% is too high a percentage to ignore, stop ignoring it.
3.) Require a negative Covid-19 test result from everyone entering the country by air. Don’t want to test at the airport? Just make the departing countries do the testing. Simple. No one would have declined this extra cost (or extra days of delay) in order to travel by air safely. Had this been done, countless infections could have been avoided, many air industry jobs (and lives) could have been saved.
What else would have made sense? Not giving quarantine exemptions to hundreds of “favoured” business executives, politicians, military consultants and sports figures. (Wait and see how that story unravels in the coming months.) Politicians who are eager to receive acclaim now, for doing little that actually resembles leadership, will be begging to be released of responsibility for their “strategy” once the financial damage is truly calculated. One guy at the scenic overlook roadside put it well -“It makes sense in Toronto but here in Alma these assholes are just swatting flies in the house with a hammer!”
