While the province basked last Thursday in record low COVID numbers and Premier John Horgan announced restrictions would start to ease on May 25, the Sunshine Coast saw the worst weekly COVID count since mid-January – a total of 18 cases from May 9 to 15.
That was about the third week after recreational and other non-essential travel was banned between the Lower Mainland and Vancouver Island – but not the Sunshine Coast. And while cases counts were dropping everywhere, on the Coast they hit a four-month high. With the Victoria Day long weekend looming ahead, it was a worrying sign.
Tuesday’s announcement, while good news for restaurants, faith groups and sports teams, did not reduce the Sunshine Coast’s unique vulnerability – in fact, it made it worse.
Whereas before May 25 non-essential travel to the Coast from Metro Vancouver was not recommended, that advice has now been lifted. Non-essential travel between the three designated regions is still prohibited – that is, the bubble remains around Vancouver Island – but travel within the region is allowed for “vacations, weekend getaways and tourism activities, visiting family or friends for social reasons, and recreation activities.” In other words, the Coast is now wide open to visitors from the Lower Mainland and Fraser Valley.
The current stage is supposed to continue until June 15 or later, after which all travel restrictions within B.C. are expected to end. It’s tempting to say that the whole issue will be moot after that, so why worry about it? Besides, public health officials have more recent data than we do, the Sunshine Coast has a high vaccination rate for the most vulnerable age group, and ferry traffic has not increased dramatically. One bad week is no cause to panic.
All of which sounds perfectly reasonable – unless our numbers keep going in the wrong direction. If that’s the case, it will mean there’s been a serious miscalculation and it’s been made at the expense of this community.
We can’t let that happen. One more “bad week” and we’ll be well within our rights to raise holy hell about it and demand the same layer of safety that the bubble people in Victoria enjoy.
