Tempting fate by dropping masks too soon
I don’t want to drop the proverbial stink bomb into the Phase 5 demasking party, but my Spidey senses are tingling.
The day is nigh, folks. It’s happening on Wednesday.
On this day, it is believed we will have hit the magic number: 75 per cent of the population fully vaccinated.
All along, they said it would be “masks off” when we hit that number. Most other restrictions would also be lifted.
So if that’s what they said back in June, then that’s what they’re going to do.
OK. Somewhere in my head, there echoes the shouting voice of Yosemite Sam from the Warner Bros. Bugs Bunny cartoon: “I came here to see a high-diving act, and I’m going to see a high-diving act. So walk, rabbit.” Yeah.
In the rush to the endgame, I have to wonder: Have we looked around us? Has it occurred to us that we might be — I don’t know? — a little out of step with the rest of the country and the world?
A lot of Canada is sliding into the fourth wave as the highly contagious Delta variant tramples through provinces.
Indoor masking mandates removed a couple of months ago are being reimposed and gathering limits reduced in some places.
In some provinces, elective surgeries are being cancelled so hospitals and ICUS don’t get clogged up with COVID patients. Medical personnel in Alberta are begging politicians to tighten up restrictions.
In countries like Israel with its legendary high vaccination rates, Delta infections are surging. In the U.S., with just more than half its population vaccinated, COVID infections are higher than last year.
Frighteningly, a quarter of those infections are occurring in children who are not vaccinated.
And here in Nova Scotia, we have an entire segment of our population unvaccinated. Children under the age of 12 are crowding into classrooms. And on Sept. 20, their mask mandate will be removed.
Meanwhile, Nova Scotia had its first international flight arrive this week — from Germany, where the COVID graph is curving upwards and only 61 per cent of the population is fully vaccinated. Of course, there are vaccination requirements and testing protocols at the airport and the borders.
Messages were mixed during this week’s public health update. Mask mandates are being lifted, yet we are being “strongly” encouraged to keep wearing masks indoors because the Delta variant is so transmissible. Public health officials continue to beseech us to get vaccinated to protect the herd, although it is now known the wily Delta strain can and will evade the vaccine.
We are still being encouraged to get tested, yet there is still no widespread availability of do-it-yourself testing kits. I cannot understand this. DIY tests are easy to use and accurate.
Most of us still have to go out to a pop-up clinic or book in advance to receive a PCR test. Both measures require a person who may have COVID — with or without symptoms — to venture into the community to be tested.
It is true that 75 per cent vaccination rates will protect the “herd” and will reduce the number of people who contract the virus and become very sick.
But fully vaccinated people can still carry the virus in their noses and transmit it even if they don’t express the disease.
Protection against COVID is three-pronged: masks, distancing and vaccination. So why drop two of these? And why now? Just because it was in the plan? Does Nova Scotia really believe it is an exception?
Meanwhile, cases are inching up here.
I hope expectations are well-managed for Phase 5. We need to know that things could change, and change fast, with Delta or any number of new variants. Masks and restrictions could be back.
We may think we’re done with COVID, but COVID isn’t necessarily done with us — not by a longshot.