Last Updated on: 27th March 2021, 11:05 am
I don’t know who needs to see this, but if ever there comes or has come a time during the pandemic when you and I have a conversation and afterwards you think to yourself geesh, Steve sure seemed annoyed with me when I talked about all the places I’ve been to and I can’t figure out why, well, things like this are why.
A Fleming College student who lived at the Severn Court student residence died Monday after being diagnosed with a COVID-19 variant.
CTV News identified him Wednesday as Zachary Root, a 31-year-old accounting student.
It’s the first death associated with the Severn Court student residence outbreak, the largest COVID-19 outbreak to date in the Peterborough area since the pandemic began.
The man had not attended the Feb. 20 party or parties at the residence that health officials have said led to the outbreak.
“This student did not attend the party yet suffered the worst possible consequence,” medical officer of health Dr. Rosana Salvaterra said in a recording provided by the health unit.
“Peterborough has one more loss of life to COVID to grieve.
“One more reason to mourn, one more reason to strengthen our resolve the share the collective responsibility to practice all of the public health measures that can help keep our community safe.”
I don’t know this guy, but I don’t have to know him to be upset about his fate. What happened here should make everybody angry, because it was almost entirely preventable. Might he have gotten COVID and died at some point anyway? He might have. But it sounds an awful lot like a bunch of healthy people with nothing to worry about are responsible for him getting it through no fault of his own. that’s bullshit and we only have selfishness to blame for it.
The thing that the let me sign a waiver and go on with my life crowd still doesn’t understand is that they aren’t just assuming their own risk. Every time you decide to go to a party or a pub or to the mall for some garbage or other you don’t really need, it has an impact on someone else. You’re not just drinking or smoking too much in your own house on your own time. That’s assuming your own risk and by all means, have at it. You and I have no problem until you decide to get behind the wheel afterwards and go cruising. At that point you’re assuming that I want to take your risk too, and you can’t do that. What we all need to remember here is that what we’re dealing with right now can easily make everything into cruising around wasted. One wrong move and bam, you’ve caused something awful that you can’t undo.
Life is never going to be risk-free, but that doesn’t give anyone license to make it unnecessarily risky for others. These are not normal times, and we aren’t at the point yet of settling on what counts as acceptable risk. We’re getting closer now that we have vaccines, but we can’t even talk about that until the majority has gotten them. Until that happens, the least we can do is be unselfish enough to try not to kill people who didn’t put themselves in harm’s way. Not sure why that’s such a big ask.
Meanwhile a few weeks ago at Queens, there was a party with 140 students at it. We are now full of variance of concern as a result of this shit. And it’s affecting younger people now, so all the idiots who thought they could just get away Scott free are going to end up so fucked if they are not careful. Or worse, we are all going to end up so fucked because the other assholes weren’t careful. I’m just going to keep staying home thanks.
Both of the universities here have outbreaks again too, at least partially for the same reason. Not as many cases have resulted from those yet as you’re talking about there, but your point stands. Yes, we’re all tired of this thing. But the more of us who tromp around like a band of fucking morons with no regard for anything, the longer it’s going to take to come out the other end.