Tech won’t help fast track safe border reopening: Hirji
Despite the urgency Niagara’s tourism industry faces, there is no quick way to reopen the border, area officials say.
Niagara’s acting medical officer of health, Dr. Mustafa Hirji, warned against fast-tracking plans to reopen border crossings when there have been just under two million cases and 111,000 deaths in the U.S. since the pandemic began, and 376,000 cases in New York state alone.
Communities directly across the border from Niagara are “basically in a different league” compared to the 713 confirmed cases in the Region, Hirji said. For instance, Niagara County has less than half Niagara region’s 450,000 population, but has more than 1,100 cases of the virus, while Erie County — with twice the region’s population — has more than 6,000 cases.
“If you can control your borders, you can control bringing the virus in and you’re able to control your internal environment better,” Hirji said.
Friday, South Niagara Chambers of Commerce brought political leaders from both sides of Niagara River together for an online discussion on reopening the border – considering the decimating impact the border closure has had on Niagara businesses.
Niagara Falls Mayor Jim Diodati told his online audience of chamber members many area businesses are “just barely hanging on.”
“We need to plan for opening. We can’t wait until the time and then plan. You have to have everything in place for when we do, and the technology already exists,” he said, referring to testing procedures that could be used to help identify travellers who are infected.
“There are a lot of new kits that give you almost instantaneous results,” Diodati said.
“Let’s focus on how we’re going to open up our businesses and our patios and how we’re going to open up the border.”
Fort Erie Mayor Wayne Redekop said, “The prime consideration when we talk about the border really has to be health and safety.
“When we look at going forward, we will need to rely on technology that we have and the technology that can be invented.”
In an interview, however, Hirji doubted that technology would help reopen border crossings.
“I’m not sure what technology there would be that’s available. Most border crossings already have technology to detect the temperature of people. They can detect if someone has a fever,” he said.
“But fevers have turned out to be not that common a symptom of COVID-19.”
Hirji said he is not sure of any other technology that could be deployed at borders as an effective means of identifying people who may have the virus.
Hirji said there are several reasons the U.S. has far more cases of COVID-19 than any other country, including a late response to the emerging virus, challenges getting effective testing done, private healthcare services, less effective local public health systems, and political beliefs hampering physical distancing measures.
“In the U.S. you have people denying there’s a COVID-19 outbreak, thinking it’s a big conspiracy theory — all kinds of things like that,” he said.
Meanwhile, he said, the U.S. has started to lift measures to contain the spread of the virus more aggressively than Canada, leading to a resurgence of cases.
Niagara County Legislature chairwoman Rebecca Wydysh discussed efforts underway on the U.S. side of the border to reduce the spread of the virus.
“Niagara county has been behind the curve of the New York state area this whole time and we never really saw the drastic spikes and peaks that they saw down state which is a good thing,” she said.
Niagara Region Chair Jim Bradley said both local municipalities and provinces across Canada have urged the federal government not to reopen border crossings quickly. ultimately, Redekop said the success of reopening businesses and the border will be decided by people.
“They will decide themselves whether they feel safe, whether they think they can go forward.”