READY OR NOT?
As provinces start to lift lockdown measures, it will be up to individual Canadians to decide, day by day, how much risk they’re willing to take when they go back out into the world
For months, the COVID-19 lockdown has removed choice from personal equations: We couldn’t go out, couldn’t travel, couldn’t eat at restaurants, couldn’t spend time with friends.
But slowly, provinces have begun to ease COVID-19 restrictions. This week, Alberta began allowing stores, restaurants and hair salons to reopen, while Ontario gave the green light for some stores to reopen on May 19. British Columbia will begin the process after the long weekend.
Simply put, the ball has landed back in our court. Now that you might be able to go out for an evening, will you?
How ready are you to return to the outside world and its trappings?
From opening businesses to spending time in public parks, each of us will make decisions — weighing the consequences for ourselves and our loved ones.
The Star spoke to five people about the factors they’re considering.
Whether they’re eager to get out in the world, or holding back to see how things play out, they are points along a spectrum we all exist on right now.
Where do you fit? ‘Staying hunkered down’
Elizabeth Martin says the last two months have been “completely overwhelming.”
Martin, a freelance graphic designer, and her husband, Chris Laporte, a federal employee, have been trying to work from their home in the Ottawa suburb of Barrhaven, but with a rambunctious three-year-old son, George, to care for, it hasn’t been easy.
Aside from neighbourhood walks and Laporte’s grocery trips, the family has been hunkered down and don’t expect that to change any time soon.
Martin says patronizing businesses such as restaurants is just too risky with a toddler. “I can imagine myself sitting on the edge of somebody’s lawn while they sit on the other edge while having a beer, but in that fantasy I don’t have a three-year-old who’s running around and touching everything.”
Martin also wrestles with the prospect of expanding her social bubble. She has extended family, but wonders how to decide whom to visit. “OK, yeah, ‘You’re the person that’s worthy.’ How do you make that choice?” she asked. “It all feels like impossible choices.”
CHOICES continued on A10
Martin said her biggest concern is that COVID-19 cases will spike again as people’s defences drop, resulting in another round of shutdowns.
Like Martin, a lot of people will probably continue to be careful, said Kyle Murray, vice-dean and a marketing professor at the Alberta School of Business.
“It’s always hard to predict what people will do, but I’ve seen some early survey data and it seems like people will be really pretty cautious,” he said.
“There’ll be some early adopters, people who are willing to take risks or people who really need to get out there, you know, who may be extremely extroverted and really miss social interaction, but I think it’ll be a relatively small group.”
In some ways, people are taking on the risk profiles of those around them, said David Finch, a marketing professor at Calgary’s Mount Royal University, who compares it to research he’s done on reputation.
For instance, he said people may eat at a mediocre restaurant themselves, but won’t recommend a place to friends unless it’s really good. Similarly, he said people sometimes are more careful about other people’s health.
“If my mother is highly risk adverse, it actually starts to influence my perception of my risk, because I then become a conduit of that risk. It’s making people exponentially more cautious,” he said.
One major challenge is that the pandemic touches so many different parts of people’s lives, said Danielle Rice, a therapist and PhD candidate in clinical psychology at McGill University.
This can force people to decide which worries take priority, she said, noting, for example, that concerns about health and finances are often at odds.
“So maybe someone’s anxious in general but, if in this moment, if they’ve lost their job, that fear about finances may overpower the fear about health.” ‘Getting antsy, but being careful’ Gordon Nott says he and other seniors in his Medicine Hat, Alta., neighbourhood have been getting a little “antsy.”
“I know the ladies in particular are champing at the bit. The grey is starting to show through the colour and they’re anxious to get to a hairstylist,” he laughed.
Nott, 77, said he’s keen to get to the nursery so he can spruce up his garden. Just this week, he set up a pond in his yard and got the fountain going.
Even as Alberta begins to lift some stay-at-home measures, Nott said he and his wife, Sherry, are unlikely to stray too far from their pandemic routine.
Nott is concerned the province’s reopening is premature. “I, for one, am fearful of possibly a second go-around if we don’t behave.”
Nott said they’ve managed to keep busy despite restrictions.
Besides gardening, he also helps deliver groceries and church bulletins to seniors who aren’t able to leave the house, and he and his wife enjoy going on long, scenic drives. On Sundays, they follow live church services on their home computer.
Last weekend, Nott said they got a surprise driveway visit from their granddaughters, who live in Calgary.
“You have no idea how hard it was not to go run out and give hugs,” he said, adding he and his family plan to keep their chins up and move forward with whatever regulations are in place.
“We’re going to be careful. It isn’t over.” ‘Excited to get out, but will wait and see’ Karen Mak, a veteran travel and food blogger in Markham, has mostly taken isolation in stride, and is in no rush to eat at the backlog of restaurants she wants to visit.
Now pregnant, she’s keen to go to baby stores to check out car seats and strollers. She’s also eager to visit family, including her sister-in-law who just had a baby, but is content communicating with friends over social media.
While she’s looking forward to getting out, she’ll take it slow. “I wouldn’t go back that quickly,” she said. Just because businesses are reopening, “doesn’t mean the virus is completely gone.”
For those debating when to take their first steps out of isolation, a lot of decisions will be made based on their own priorities — but confidence also flows from what other people and businesses are doing.
Part of the onus is on businesses or restaurants to make people feel comfortable, according to Murray, the business professor.
In a way, it isn’t so different than before the pandemic when comfort and convenience were already big drivers for consumers, he said. But now physical distancing — or, the perception of safety that comes with it — is part of the equation.
“The more space people have, the better it’s organized, the more convenient it is, the more shoppers will be attracted to it,” Murray said.
Mak, who runs stenoodie.com, a site full of eye-popping food pictures and mouth-watering reviews, says she’s been a bit bothered by fellow bloggers who’ve been lamenting the fact they can’t go out and eat and droning on about how they miss their favourite restaurants.
There will likely be clashes as people make different decisions about their safety, said Rice, the therapist.
She argues how people behave as the economy reopens will reflect their own values: “Maybe someone values protecting others in society at large, as opposed to financial gain, or even, you know, temporary fun.
“So, if we see people that are going out all the time, it can perhaps make us more nervous,” she said. “I think these are situations where we may see some values come out in ways that perhaps don’t sit well with us.” ‘Keen to reopen, but unsure about the rules’ Throughout the pandemic, Sean McCarry has been sprucing up his hockey training and recreational facility in Calgary in anticipation of reopening.
But he doesn’t know when that day will come. “It has been frustrating. It’s been scary,” he said. “Scary in terms of we don’t know when we’ll reopen, if we’re going to reopen.”
Businesses that can’t move online face a unique challenge, said Finch, the marketing professor. He’s involved in a project to collect local data on the so-called “experience economy,” which he estimates employs about 400,000 people in Alberta alone, many in small businesses.
The plan is to use data collected on things such as customer attitudes or expectations to help people feel safer.
But people are already beginning to innovate. For example, the city of Calgary has made it easier for businesses to apply for outdoor patios, and non-team sports such as tennis and golf are working to open up quickly.
McCarry has not wavered, though, about the prospect of reopening the Hockey Development Centre. Most people who have become very sick or died from coronavirus are the elderly, he said. Most of the athletes at his facility are 18 and under.
To mitigate risk, McCarry said he’s drawn up a safety plan. Anyone coming into the facility would receive a temperature check and the number of athletes at one time would be limited to five.
Upon arrival, seats would be spaced 10 feet (three metres) apart so they could dress. There would be a 45-minute gap between groups to allow time to sanitize common areas.
McCarry, who has been operating the Hockey Development Centre for three years, says his biggest beef is that the province hasn’t said what criteria they’re using to determine when it’s safe for certain sectors to reopen. Is it when the number of people in ICUs reaches a certain level? Or when the number of people who have recovered from COVID-19 passes a certain threshold?
“Part of the frustration is not knowing what the metrics are,” he said. “It seems to be a moving or hidden target.”
McCarry says he gets dozens of emails or texts each day from parents wondering when their children can skate.
“I’m in the kid business. We deliver services to kids … we’re not in the business of hurting children,” he said.
“I’m in the wrong business if I want to be reckless.” ‘More excited than anxious’ For the past two months, Bruce Peters, a longtime salon owner and third-generation hairdresser, has been bumping around his 2,000-square-foot (185square-metre) salon, with a couple of other managers for company.
But, next week, Peters will open his doors and welcome back at least some of his staff to Zazou Salon in North Vancouver. He had more than 50 employees, pre-COVID.
“I mean, there’s some trepidation,” he said. “I’m not going be going in like, ‘Where’s the champagne?’ But I feel really excited, and there’s more excitement than there is anxiousness.”
Personally, he said he’s feeling confident about going to newly reopened restaurants and businesses.
“I think we’ve done well as a society and I think we’re all responsible.”
Peters is planning to open May 20, one day later than B.C. currently allows, but they’re planning a “hair party” where stylists will update each other’s locks — “so we can look all pretty for opening day,” Peters said.
Peters, who is also vice-chair of the Beauty Council of Western Canada, said part of his confidence comes from what he feels is a strong plan to keep his staff and customers protected — a trip to his salon will mean signing a waiver and wearing a mask. There will be no beverage service, or at least, a scaled-back version, and no talking while getting shampooed. The jury’s still out on blow outs.
Parisa Mahboubi, a senior policy analyst at the C.D. Howe Institute, says people who are confident going back to stores early will have a role to play in terms of keeping stores open and workers employed. Although the pandemic sparked a major surge in online shopping, she said there will likely still be those who want to see what they’re buying in person, and that’s not a bad thing.
“If all stores decide to close their doors and move to online shopping, we would see a large number of individuals in the service sector who are not able to go back to the jobs they had before the crisis,” she said.
Rice, the therapist, underscores that it’s important to remember that in the days ahead, people will make decisions based on all sorts of factors.
“This is a time for us to be compassionate. Even if someone’s practices don’t perhaps match our own.”