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| Photos of vintage New Year post cards by Suzanne Currie |
A BRIGHT NEW YEAR AND A NEW YEAR OF CHALLENGES, OBSTACLES, CONFLUENCES AND POSSIBLY SOME BREAKTHROUGHS FOR US ALL
BY TED CURRIE
The Covid numbers released today, for testing on New Year’s Eve was in the vicinity of 18,000 positive cases. I had predicted 20,000. And because of the backlog of tests and the lack of testing available, my estimate was even at 20,000, much lower than what is actually the hardcore fact of the fourth wave. So how has your New Year started off? Hopefully not with a Covid positive.
From the beginning of this pandemic, our family has been faithful to facts. Faithful to the science and the medical community that has valiantly tried to save our good health and ultimately our lives. They have done such a fantastic job against odds that at times, have been for lack of a better description, unimaginable even for a creative fellow like me. All our science and medical personnel, who have dedicated themselves for our safety, are the heroes of the century, and we will, in years to come, realize what these courageous souls have had to endure from those who believe in conspiracy theories and have a distorted view of facts, despite the plain truth, that many thousands of these pandemic deniers, have perished themselves while defending their right to refuse masking policies, and avoiding vaccines because of what may be in the medicine; that, well, might make them crazy. Fortunately, they are the minority, and thankfully those in charge of our well being, at least most of them, have pushed us calmly and with determined commitment, toward all proven safety measures, including upgraded vaccines, to keep us prepared for those worse case scenarios that are yet to materialize. That’s the jolly good thing about preparedness isn’t it? I don’t try to raise a picnic canopy when I’ve heard the warning alarm on the radio, that a tornado is imminent or occurring in our general vicinity. It’s the same warning we’ve been hearing now for two years, and believe me, our family is one week from being fully vaccinated, meaning we will all have been “boosted” at that time, and counting down until the second booster available after three months. It allows us to sleep better at night, and raise up in the morning with the optimism that we can open our busy main street shop, with all the safety protocols in place, and expect to make it through yet another day, week, or month, in the shadow of ominous conditions looming.
We are going to be closed this week and if need be, the week after that, if the numbers and local protocol demands we close to the public for public health reasons. When we think back, two years, by golly, we can get the family shivers thinking about not only Covid potentials, but the fact that we were operating a big business, needing significant monthly sales, to pay the really big rent and associated business costs; and then there was the need for take home pay for the four partners (we operate without staff), to cover general living expenses and rental payments. We started off petrified, and listened nervously to every news report that offered us the latest numbers and projections, and honestly, even though, in comparison, the stats were moderate, meaning low, we wondered how much damage Covid was going to do to us, the unvaccinated, if we were unlucky enough to contract its contaminates, and how again, we would be able to make the kind of business transition necessary, to meet our obligations. Well, we took it day by day, and we were able to secure emergency funding from the federal government, thankfully, which allowed us to keep our shop operational through the most damning part of the first and second year of the pandemic, for short period of time after being forced by provincial authority, to close our doors to the public. We are still operational because of the federal contribution to our particular situation of disadvantage, as a result of the spreading pandemic. Critics can hammer away at the Liberal minority government all they want, but they came through for us, and thousands of others in peril, when options for survival were thin to virtually non existent.
You can’t extend thanks broadly enough, to cover all the brave folks who kept our grocery stores open, and served on the front line even when vaccines were not available. It makes me so mad to hear stories about the ridiculous antics of anti-maskers who did everything possible to cause problems for these front line workers, risking their own health and welfare to make sure we were supplied with our food and medical needs. God bless them all. Especially for weathering the storm of protest which did little more than show how disunity on a life and death issue, can turn otherwise gentle folk, into inadvertent activists out of their element; protesting because they can, not because they can accomplish anything more than disturbing the peace, and threatening peaceful people into believing their take on the latest conspiracy theory making the rounds.
We had several customers arrive in our shop with masks on, who later removed them in protest of our restrictions for in-store masking, (in keeping with provincial guidelines), who when asked to leave, and escorted to the door, informed us in a heightened sense of message-extending, that we were all “a flock of sheep,” because we were following government regulations set down at the time. We let them know that “these sheep” were law abiding, and were quite capable, being sheep, to escort them physically to the door if necessary, or in calling the local constabulary, to have them forcibly removed if nothing else seemed to do the trick. In two years, and nine months or so being closed, we only had what can be considered a minor number of inconveniences with science deniers and conscientious objectors, and in the past few months, we have only had to ask that masks be raised from a lowered position, (while inside the store) on ten occasions; still annoying but not too bad when you’re talking about thousands of visitors each month to our busy little main street shop. One fellow, just before Christmas, was denied entry to the shop because he did not have a mask, and would not wear one that we offered him for free, and before the door closed behind him, he advised us just how much money we had lost, as he would take his business elsewhere; obviously to a shop he believed would be willing to violate the mandate to make a few bucks. But we can’t say that we have been seriously beat-up by anti-maskers. They have read our signs, and in some cases experienced our resolve to enforce the law, and have simply decided to move on to more fertile ground, I suppose, where there are more kindred spirits, who also disbelieve good advice, and that good advice saves lives. But then again, this is reality, and this resistance is growing in many other areas of our society, and the obstacles are manifesting in many social circles, education, politics, and for gosh sakes, inspiring in some other countries, book banning and I suppose old fashion burnings. Normalcy is, for this sheep, what I prefer to seek day to day.
As we have done our due diligence in information seeking, right from the onset of the pandemic, basing it on the past history of similar outbreaks, such as SARS, much earlier, we have made sure to bracket our understanding of all the details and consequences of Covid, and never refused to listen to counter opinions, because we thought them ridiculous. There are stories now about truths that were denied as far back as two years ago, that have gained the attention they didn’t receive at first, and it’s what we all need to know about moving forward. The critical approach to find the correct information is never a wasted effort, and in so many cases, in the past two years, it has helped us create a modified plan of operation that has allowed us to weather one hell of a storm. And it has helped us navigate in the right direction, to avoid those proverbial half sunken icebergs, like the one that took out the Titanic. We didn’t function well under fear. We did remarkably well dealing with the realities and urgencies of the day, the week, and the month. We never went over-the-top, as they say, looking for happenstance remedies to our immediate problems. We, like you, played the waiting game, and found patience we didn’t know we possessed. And now, having had a brilliantly successful re-opening last spring, after a six month closure, and being now only one week away from our booster shot, as Covid insurance, and never once having had a single serious reaction to the initial vaccine shots, we’re hear to tell all who will listen, please, please get vaccinated and be safe. Trust the medical community in this country who have done so much to keep us informed and protected in this most precarious period of world history. Skeptics have a place in this society, and it’s because of them that we can force enquiries, and demand due diligence, and feel free to demand truths when our rights appear to be infringed upon. But when due diligence is followed, and the truths, as they are known are presented and dissected, it is also important for skeptics to adjust their terms of reference, based on hard facts and not on hearsay or doctored, purposely misleading information that is attached to known anterior motives and profiteering. A lot of money has do doubt been made by conspiracy originators, flogging product and their brand. And it has cost us all dearly in lives lost, and serious, life altering illness that didn’t need to either occur, or be as debilitating it was, due to lack of full vaccinations.
We may be closed beyond this coming week if the numbers of infected locally rise to what we believe is a danger to us being open; and being able to safely accommodate our customers. I believe in the word of medical experts, stated recently, here and in other countries, that there is a crest coming, and we may just being seeing an end to the Covid domination of our lives. There is hope for the New Year in this regard, and hope for all of us, who want so badly to return to a normal bill of fare. There is a light at the end of the tunnel. Get vaccinated. Wear a mask.
Happy New Year.
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