Step 3: Better days we’ve worked very hard to see

This has felt like the longest three and a half months since … well, since the last time we were locked down because of COVID-19.

Friday’s move to Step 3, the latest new normal on the road to a permanent normal, has come at a hard price. Schools have been closed, most businesses that did operate did so with restrictions, and many people were forced to work from home (or some didn’t work at all).

Meanwhile, a lot of people were sickened with COVID-19 during the third wave, and since midapril 53 people have died from it in hospital according to Niagara Health.

But we are reopening, and that is something to celebrate. It took a major effort and a lot of sacrifice to get to this point, so enjoy it.

A few words of advice: For starters, be patient. Remember, many stores, restaurants and other venues have had to train a lot of new staff and will be trying to provide service while following public health protocols for keeping everyone safe. Be kind. Be considerate, they’re doing their best. And as some restaurant owners have pointed out, if you make reservations, show up or cancel well in advance.

That applies to all sorts of places where advance booking is allowed. Libraries, museums, bowling alleys and others might all be using reserved times to avoid lineups as only a limited number of people are allowed inside.

If you can’t make it, cancel early so someone else can take your place. And kindly continue to follow the masking, physical distancing and other public health requirements even if you are fully vaccinated.

Other regions have seen cases spike yet again when restrictions were lifted too quickly: Ontario doesn’t have to be among them.

But as the province’s top doctor noted this week, the next step — fully reopening, where most restrictions are lifted completely — will be a “challenge” if it’s to be done by mid-august as hoped. Mostly, Ontario medical officer of health Dr. Kieran Moore is referring to the need to reach a vaccination threshold of 80 per cent of people over the age of 12 with at least one dose and 75 per cent fully vaccinated with both doses.

Currently, the province’s numbers are 78.5 per cent with one dose, 58.1 per cent fully vaccinated. Niagara Region Public Health provides a weekly update on the local vaccination rate, and as of last Sunday it stood at 75.9 and 49.8 per cent, respectively.

But here, like all across Ontario, while people are still flocking to clinics and pharmacies to get second jabs the number signing up for their first dose of vaccine has slowed to a crawl.

That’s a big part of the challenge Moore refers to — convincing those people, mostly under 40, to sign up.

And news Prime Minister Justin Trudeau dropped Thursday — that Canada could start allowing fully vaccinated Americans into the country in mid-august and visitors from other countries in September — is likely contingent on getting more Canadians vaccinated, too.

So Ontario needs to make a bigger push, a renewed, louder effort to reach unvaccinated people in hopes more will sign on.

Not everyone will do so, but as Brock University immunologist Adam Macneil said earlier this week, something closer to 90 per cent vaccine coverage is needed to keep Ontario safe as COVID variants continue to circulate.

So enjoy a more open Niagara and Ontario. Take in all those places you’ve been missing and activities you’ve had to do without since early April.

These are the better days we’ve worked so hard to see.