I think anyone who pays attention knew this was coming, but in the last couple days it was made official that when the rest of Ontario goes into the next step of the Ford government’s we’re getting back to normal really for real this time swear to god plan next week, Waterloo Region isn’t coming along. Being worst in the province for new daily cases most days, hospital trends going the wrong way and concerns about more dangerous variants should and will do that.
Naturally, this brings up concerns about people traveling elsewhere to do things they can’t do here, which in turn begs the question, how do you stop people from doing that? The short answer is, you don’t. The slightly longer answer is that you tell them to “please don’t do that.”
At the Region of Waterloo’s weekly COVID-19 briefing, officials said people visiting other areas to use their services that will be open is a concern.
“Please don’t. Please don’t do that,” said Lee Fairclough, the president of St. Mary’s Hospital. “If you care about your family don’t go see them in the neighbouring areas. We have Delta here and we want to make sure they don’t go to those areas to the same extent.”Both police and the region did not mention what specific enforcement measures could look like.
“I don’t want to speculate. I wouldn’t want to speculate on specifics. There are so many different scenarios that could unfold again the key is let’s get vaccines in arms if you haven’t been vaccinated let’s get vaccinated,” said Bruce Lauckner, the region’s chief executive.
“so many different scenarios”? I can think of two. Either you use the honour system which is what’s going to happen but which has also shown itself to have holes in it so big you could drive a truck through them all the way to any neighbouring region you choose, or you set up checkpoints at every regional boundary and stop everyone coming in or going out to ask them what they think they’re up to, which is never going to fly.
This should not be news to anyone. Nobody will go into specifics because there are none for them to go into. What I’ve written is literally all we have, and the best we can hope for is that all of us who have been doing our part can hang on a little longer, and that the ones who seem bent on ruining all of the progress with their church services and freedom rallies will figure out that this time could be different. The vaccines are working. What’s happening all around us is proof. There are reasons to be optimistic that this time, we really are getting somewhere really for real, swear to god. Please, let’s not screw it up.