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Comment: Roy Eramus argues Covid-19 has not disappeared

You know how so many people act as though Covid-19 has disappeared? Well, it might not be such a good idea. Yellowknife’s sewage was recently found to contain Covid-19 at alarming rates.
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A waitress wears a mask while carrying drinks for guests. Columnist Roy Erasmus ponders whether the territory should take a cue from some southern cities and reinstate mask mandates while covid lingers. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Lars Hagberg

You know how so many people act as though Covid-19 has disappeared? Well, it might not be such a good idea. Yellowknife’s sewage was recently found to contain Covid-19 at alarming rates.

It was more than three times the rate of a previous high in October 2021. Whoa, that is definitely not cool.

The territorial government said we should not get too excited. Give us a chance to do some more sampling to see what caused the sudden increase.

They said they would issue a public notice or make recommendations if the spike means there is an issue, like a huge increase in cases. I haven’t seen anything either way, but I’ve been traveling and could have missed something.

In the meantime, if there really was a huge increase in cases, I can see why. Many people have begun acting as though Covid has disappeared since the restrictions were lifted. That’s far from the truth.

Mandatory masks reinstated

In fact, Philadelphia is a major city that has reinstated mandatory masks. And people demonstrated in Chicago asking for mandatory masking due to rising covid cases. Interesting, isn’t it?

To boot, at least a dozen universities across the US, including Columbia University, Johns Hopkins University, and Georgetown University, reinstated indoor mask mandates this month.

Why are they doing this? Because Covid cases are rising too high on their campuses. Some schools say that they are worried because omicron BA.2 sub-variant is now the dominant strain of the virus in the U.S.

Apparently, it’s the most contagious strain yet! No wonder 60 per cent of Americans want to keep mandatory mask requirements on planes.

That makes me kinda worried. You’re probably wondering why, since most of us know someone who has or had Covid. And most people are saying it was like a bad cold, including me, but I was triple-vaccinated.

I’m worried because Covid is constantly mutating, or changing, and it seems to be getting more contagious. Could a more contagious variant be more deadly? We don’t know.

Perhaps the next variant could be like before when so many people were in intensive care and so many died that some hospitals didn’t have room for all the dead bodies in their morgues.

Alberta’s restrictions are tougher than the NWT’s.

Think about it, people who have Covid don’t have to report it. In fact, they don’t even have to stay home. Meanwhile, Alberta’s Chief Medical Officer says Alberta still legally requires people who have respiratory illness to stay home.

That’s Alberta, folks. Tougher than us. Who woulda thunk!

Cabin Radio reported that a Yellowknife resident tried to report their positive test and were told that information is no longer being collected. Now, I’m pretty sure whomever told them that was wrong, but apparently that is what happened.

The GNWT website says there have only been 69 cases in the NWT in the last seven days. And it’s been three days since the last case was reported. Eschia, take it easy, eh.

What a laugh. If we no longer have to report positive tests, it’s anybody’s guess how many people have Covid…anywhere in the NWT.

And to make matters worse, anybody can come to the NWT now, no matter where they’re from, or if they haven’t been vaccinated at all. Doesn’t that just seem to be inviting Covid here?

Government says that despite the recent spike in Yellowknife’s wastewater, severe hospitalizations have not increased. Yet, news reports said that eight people were hospitalized and one person died from Covid-19 during the period of the spike.

Yes, died. Seems pretty severe to me.

And is it just me, or does it seem as though deaths from Covid is the only reliable information we now have? I mean seriously, the Covid-19 Dashboard tells you how many cases have been reported, but people don’t have to report if they’re sick.

And it tells you Total Hospitalizations, Total ICU Admissions, and Total Deaths. But the Dashboard does not tell you current numbers. You have to guess, unless you keep track of numbers day by day.

Talking about deaths, Alberta’s 7-day average death rate from Covid steadily increased from 1 on March 22, to 7 a day on April 25, and 10 deaths a day on May 11. And Alberta has tougher restrictions than us.

Additionally, the Biden administration is saying that 100 million Americans could get Covid-19 this fall and winter. And American health experts are warning that people should still take precautionary measures like wear masks.

In fact, CNN’s medical expert said, “These new variants are so contagious that a cloth mask isn’t sufficient. You really should be wearing a high-quality respirator mask, like an N95, KN95 or KF94.”

I don’t know about you, but I’m still wearing a mask in public places because Covid-19 has not disappeared.