Waist-deep in individual exemptions and approvals, public health officials aren’t even talking about phase three of the GNWT’s pandemic recovery plan, Emerging Wisely, anymore.
Which is to say nothing of phase four, which was supposed to arrive on the same flight as those vaccines, an impressive number of which have been distributed to our population, arguably the most vulnerable in the nation: nearly 60 per cent of adults have had at least a first dose.
So here comes that broken record again. You know why? Because there’s nothing else to listen to, that’s why.
As sports editor James McCarthy deftly notes in this week’s SportsTalk (see page 16), the 12,000 fans who witnessed the Carolina Hurricanes win the opening game of the team’s playoff series against the Nashville Predators provided themselves and untold millions of NHL fans watching at home a near-religious experience last Monday, May 17.
The sound was otherworldly. The sight was like a memory recovered under hypnosis: both real and unreal. If scoring three goals is a hat trick, the five that the Canes potted for their hometown faithful could be called a Schrodinger’s cat trick (or maybe not).
Northerners deserve no less.
No one is being asked to pull a rabbit out of a hat here. But with each week that passes, and as another May Two-Four, one of Canada’s dearest holiday weekends, goes by with the sword of COVIDamocles overhead, more and more businesses in the Northwest Territories are effectively being told to draw blood from a stone.
The pitch is simple: let us back on the pitch, in the stands, in the barn, in the gym, on the sidelines, along the end boards, in the grandstands, for crying out loud, put someone up the foul pole.
And while we’re at it, let’s get some power going to the PA system and let live music ring out again.
News/North reported last week that 44,000 self-isolation plans have been filed with public health since the onset of the pandemic. If they all were approved, that’s 88,000 person-weeks of isolation. That’s 616,000 person-days.
LINK: 24-hour window to submit isolation plans: Secretariat
All of this quarantining of people crossing our border by land and air if not sea was done in the name of limiting the spread of a deadly virus in the territory. Excellent. Point conceded. But the caveat from on high was always that maintaining a brave face while these restrictions were in effect would eventually put us in a position where said limits could be eased within the NWT.
Why haven’t they? We are at the tail end of an outbreak that at one point had close to 1,000 possible contacts to investigate. Now, there are fewer new cases reported each day than recoveries. The curve, after a brief hiccup in the grand scheme of things, is travelling in the right direction, as it was for months.
Since it was launched in March, a petition calling on chief public health officer Dr. Kami Kandola to once again allow live music in the NWT has collected 271 signatures. Add the News/North editorial board to the list.
Bottom line, if Kandola and Premier Caroline Cochrane are tired of hearing this broken record, it’s time to put our Footloose phase behind us and get back on the dance floor.