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EDITORIAL: Beaufort Delta should pop travel bubble hopes for now

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It's no exaggeration to say we're all getting a bit stir-crazy up here.

Now close to a full-year since the Covid-19 hammer fell, we're certainly all a lot less panicky than we were when we didn't know exactly how deadly coronavirus was, how quickly it could spread or how it was transmitted.

We still don't know what long-term effects could result from surviving the virus, however. We know other viruses can lead to side-effects later in life, such as shingles resulting from chicken pox infections.

But it's obvious people are feeling confident about the direction we're going. We have multiple vaccines now available and more in development — which I'm pretty sure is the fastest turn-around from a new virus to vaccine in recorded history — and Jamborees and celebrations that were limited to cyberspace or outright cancelled in 2020 are wading back to the physical plane.

All that being said, I think having waited a full year to get back to normalcy, we can afford to wait a little bit longer. The Yukon just wrapped up their Rendezvous and if we're planning to host our jamborees here in the Delta we probably should limit how many people are able to attend them.

You only need to look at the outbreak in Hope Bay that rocked Nunavut back in October to get a sense how easily Covid-19 can capitalize on a mistake. Reports out of the NWT's mines also show that the virus has not stopped hitching rides across the border on people.

So I'm glad the town has opted to not write a letter to pressure Dr. Kami Kandola to accelerate re-opening the border. Not only is it not particularly safe yet, I really doubt it would sway her decision making regardless.

An interesting trend I've noticed over the last year is the same leaders keep giving in to the same demands from the same people and getting the same results. Even after losing Christmas, Halloween and other major gatherings, we're still hearing outrageous claims about how oppressive being required to wear a mask is, and ongoing delusions that re-opening the economy won't lead to another spike a fourth time.

Conversely, there are places in the world where society was able to resume semi-normalcy long before the vaccine was ready for distribution — by limiting how much people can move or interact in-person. While some of these jurisdictions, such as New Zealand, had the benefit of being an island, others like Mongolia were able to keep the virus at a minimum in spite of being landlocked.

Simply put, it should be pretty obvious at this point what does and doesn't work.

Lastly, even if we are able to enter into a travel bubble agreement with the Yukon, it doesn't mean we'll be able to spontaneously decide to drive to Whitehorse. Avoiding the 14-day isolation period when traveling between Nunavut and the NWT requires pre-approval.

Compared to our southern counterparts, Northern Canada is doing very well in containing Covid-19, which as of this writing has infected 117 million people and killed 2.6 million of us since it came on the scene late-2019.

If we pop our safety bubble in hopes of a travel bubble right now, we may very well end up with neither.



About the Author: Eric Bowling

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