July 30,2021

I read it on facebook and couldn’t believe what I was seeing. It’s facebook, so it couldn’t be real… could it?

Cases have climbed in the Okanagan and the BC CDC announced new restrictions for the Central Okanagan. More cases of Covid 19 have infected our piece of paradise and in a seemingly knee-jerk reaction, health officials brought back restrictions on our lives. Restrictions I thought we were done with. Masks are now mandatory again indoors and there are limits on how many people can gather outside and in. 

Case counts up but no one is in the hospital… It feels like our poor health authorities are flailing around in the dark again. I have been a big supporter of our health officials, I have defended their actions to many friends and strangers alike.

This time I am confused.

Vaccinations are over 70 percent with over 50 percent of the people having two jabs. It’s no wonder there is an increasing pushback… I like to trust they know what they are doing but they gave us less than twelve hours’ notice… again.

The worst restriction for our beleaguered tourist industry was the recommendation of no non-essential travel to the Okanagan.

It may help with the traffic at least.

 It is a small step backwards in an inevitable path forward to a new normal of living. We can never be free of the dreaded covid but we should be able to manage it. The new restrictions are part of the health authorities’ dilemma for the past year and a half. If they do nothing and it gets out of control then they will be blamed. Since they are trained to over-react then there will be push back from the other side.

I would like to see them manage it better. But I sure would not want their job.

We will never know if this was the right path, it is the one we are on and we must do the best we can. I may get more time for other things than the boat and there should be less traffic if the people from the lower mainland stop coming.

Yet is anyone listening anymore?

LIfe will continue onward and the pandemic of the unvaccinated will continue until it runs its course. Should those of us that have been fully vaccinated pay the same price as those that don’t? I hear the battle cry against vaccine passports… but why shouldn’t those that chose to rid themselves of the risk of infection be rewarded…

Others say the vaccine could be worse. 

I trust that all the greatest medical minds in the world are truly looking out for our best interests. I long for the day that covid does become another flu or viral infection like all the others we have battled for millennia. 

Soon, it will be gone… All we can do is wait, hope and live our lives. Be kind and be careful.