Don’t invite tourists to Kelowna now

DEAR EDITOR:

Political and economic insanity prevails. Some believe the definition of insanity is “repeating the same mistakes over and over again and expecting different results.”

If true, then Kelowna’s Mayor Colin Basran and Tourism Kelowna officials have a problem.

Their mantra that the city is open for business and that wildfire smoke in the valley is fine is currently being used to sell Kelowna to Alberta tourists.

But that message is all one-sided. It ignores two important facts: COVID-19 variants are on the rise in B.C., especially in the Interior and in particular in Kelowna; and Calgary has a virus transmission rate of 1.5, which means that each of the 71 people infected at the Calgary Stampede will transmit it to 143 people, who unknowingly will transmit it to others at the same or at a higher exponential rate.

Bringing a fourth spike of the virus to Kelowna is unacceptable. It raises public health concerns, especially among seniors and young adults.

Notable is the fact that the Interior and Kelowna now accounts for over 50% of the new COVID-19 cases in the province since the July 1 long weekend and Stampede weekend.

Both Basran and Tourism Kelowna targeted July 1 as a key reopening date for the city’s economy.

It backfired.

As a result, people came from Alberta and elsewhere to infect locals; virus cases spiked; hospitalizations rose and tourist businesses closed to quarantine.

The key goal of public officials is to protect the public.

That includes public health officials and the mayor. It does not include Tourism Kelowna, whose sole goal is to make a buck from the public and put it in private-sector pockets.

Clearly, Basran is pro-business but he needs to distance himself from these predators and take a stronger stand on protecting public health from wildfire smoke and virus transmission.

He needs to acknowledge Kelowna has enough problems and doesn’t need more.

He should be out in the community aggressively promoting social distancing, mask wearing, a 100% vaccination rate and safe indoor spaces for the homeless to get away from the smoke.

He should take a page from other jurisdictions and publicly discourage tourism and prohibit airport arrivals from known virus hotspot cities and countries.

His message should be “Stay home. Don’t visit Kelowna. It’s too smoky and the virus is spiking. Wait until fire season ends and we have controlled the pandemic. You can feed our economy later. We will call your when it safe to visit. Trust us.”

Somehow, I fear Basran will ignore this message and Kelowna’s political obsession with economic insanity will continue to prevail.

Richard Drinnan Kelowna