In hopes of flattening the third wave of COVID-19, the province has announced new sanctions are coming for people who needlessly travel outside their health authority area.
Theoretically, it might mean a little more elbow room on the North Shore trails but we could be fined for going to Burnaby.
We can still hop a plane and jet off to Alberta, no questions asked, and flights continue to arrive at YVR every day, bringing travellers from countries with outbreaks that make our own look mild.
Travel bans raise legitimate civil liberties concerns. Members of marginalized communities have stated this will place them under an even larger degree of unwarranted scrutiny.
And even with dubious abilities to enforce the new rules, this is all a case of closing the barn door after the horse has bolted. You will go nuts looking for the logic in some of our government’s decisions. It’s as much a political response as it is a public health one.
The restrictions on gatherings were brought in to quell the second wave of infections but they only seemed to work for a couple months before plateauing.
The fatigue and malaise that comes from a year of living in a pandemic is tempered somewhat by vaccines getting into arms, but it’s anyone’s guess whether the latest rules will be enough to get cases down to a point where we can plan that summer road trip we all desperately need.
It’s discretionary, close-quarters contact that’s driving much of the community spread at the moment, and that’s in our power to stop now – regardless of where we are on the map.
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