Image Credit: CFJC Today

By James Peters

Two & Out

PETERS: As Interior Health COVID-19 cases rise, we need a pep talk

Jan 15, 2021 | 11:16 AM

ALL RIGHT, RESIDENTS OF INTERIOR HEALTH: it’s time for a pep talk.

It’s time for the coach to come in during the intermission and kick some garbage cans around.

It’s time for us to get our collective head out of our collective posterior and step up our collective game.

For the first ten months of this pandemic, we have stared, mouths agape, at the Lower Mainland, wondering how the spread of COVID-19 could be so bad there.

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Well, now they are looking back up here, wondering the same thing.

While case counts in Vancouver Coastal and Fraser Health have plateaued and even started to decline, ours continue to rise.

As of Thursday, we had a higher case count than Vancouver, which is troubling, given population inequities.

It’s unlikely we’ll ever catch Fraser Health, but that doesn’t make our current situation any less worrying.

Dr. Henry says this spread has not happened as the result of one or two major events that were held in clear defiance of restrictions on gathering.

No, it was many small, separate events that also defied the restrictions, but were much more easy to keep under the radar during the holidays.

We were naughty, Interior Health, and now we’re suffering the consequences.

School exposures surged in our region during the first week back and, of course, COVID-19 is creeping into our long-term care facilities.

So there you have it — to continue the sports metaphor, we’ve been playing… poorly.

We have what it takes, though, to turn it around.

The virus has momentum in Interior Health but, by being smart and unselfish, we can put the brakes on that momentum.

You may believe ‘smart and unselfish’ is too much to ask of other people. Stop and think if it’s too much to ask of yourself.

Because even as the case counts have risen, so have the deaths in Interior Health.

The metaphor may help us understand, but this is not a game.

It’s life and death — for so many of our elders, especially.

The government has imposed restrictions to stop the spread. It’s just as important we impose our own restrictions on our own behaviour.

Lock it down, for the sake of everyone in your life you want to see happy and healthy.

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Editor’s Note: This opinion piece reflects the views of its author, and does not necessarily represent the views of CFJC Today or the Jim Pattison Broadcast Group.