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By Daniela Ginta

The Way I See It

GINTA: Collective thoughtfulness ensures our community well-being when most needed

Mar 16, 2021 | 9:11 AM

A CURIOUS THING HAPPENS every time a long weekend or school break comes about: the fleet of neighbourhood cars changes. Some of the usual vehicles are gone, and there are new ones, including a few from other provinces.

The latter is not unlike what’s happening on the city streets too. I get it, people long to travel, and we can all sympathize with that. Is there anyone who doesn’t miss the ‘before’?

However, we ought to remind ourselves that things have yet to quiet down on the COVID-19 front. Some restrictions have been lifted and now we can expand our social bubble to 10 (and stick with those same bubble buddies.)

That’s great news for people who have been lonely during the pandemic because of their age, underlying health conditions or simply because they live alone. Grandparents can see their grandkids, properly distanced, and people who stuck it out alone can get off zoom calls in favour of hanging out old style, safely distanced.

Neither of these innocuous get togethers will push numbers up. But St. Patrick’s Day get togethers and the whole week of spring break might just do that.

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It was almost ironic that as of Friday when the looser restrictions announcement was made, cases were almost at 640. Let’s just hope it was a freak incident of a high before we see a descend into lower daily cases. The thing is, hope alone is not what moves that new cases graph; it’s people and their actions.

Our collective actions. Backyard hanging out or hiking with a couple of friends who are part of your safe group will not bring trouble to the community.

On the other hand, partying with larger groups and traveling might.

It’s no secret that people will travel this week. Many students and their families are packing up as we speak for the week ahead. Other people will come visit Kamloops and much like we did after the holidays ended, we might find ourselves waiting to see what two weeks from now will look like.

Better, some will say, because we have started vaccinating. We have, that’s true. At the same time, and as the virus has proved to us all on countless occasions, it moves faster than we anticipate, and faster than immunization clinics are being set up.

To reiterate: being careful does not equate living with fear. Respecting the rules imposed by the provincial health authority is not a sign of fear but of caring for ourselves, our loved ones, and all the other community members.

The pandemic has isolated us from each other, but it has also taught us that it is not just for our own sake that we need to walk on the safe side, but for everyone’s safety. Spring is near and the balmy days coax us into letting loose. Well, not yet.

My family had close encounters with the virus. Close enough that we had to quarantine not once but twice.

It was a long month, but the reminders that I got were not of woe and sorrow, but of gratefulness: that we have friends who offered to help, that we could order food and anything else we needed and businesses in town would do almost anything to accommodate; that no one in my family has been left struggling with debilitating long-term effects of the infection.

Not everyone can say the same. Some had a tough time after testing positive and had a tough recovery, and they are still struggling. Others lost loved ones or are aching to see their loved ones who cannot be socializing because they are too vulnerable.

It’s for them and many others in their position that we need to keep being good at reinforcing the safety COVID-19 precautions even when restrictions loosen up a bit.

For their sake, and for the sake of our community, let’s not let our guard down during the week ahead and the ones after.

Things will get better, but not by themselves. They will through proactive actions. Our actions.

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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.