Columnists
Extending the trust
In last week’s column I explored the perceived impact of summer residents on the ability of Manitoulin Island to cope with the coronavirus threat. In the past week, the medical officer of health for Norfolk County has jumped into the fray by banning cottage owners from the Long Point area for the summer, over the objections of local mayors. And now we have our own made-in-the-County debate.
Last Thursday, County council met in a special virtual session to consider a motion by Mayor Steve Ferguson to request the province to “prevent travel to Prince Edward County from elsewhere while it remains under a state of emergency.” Councillors couldn’t agree on the wording of the resolution, or indeed on whether the resolution was even necessary, so the matter was held over to a second virtual special meeting this Thursday May 7 at 3 p.m., to allow for consultations and public input. You can follow the meeting live streamed, or streamed after the fact, on the County’s website.
The physicians in the County on March 31 wrote an open letter to our seasonal residents asking them not to come to the County this summer because of the fragility of our healthcare service’s ability to cope with COVID-19 cases. The County hospital only has two transport ventilators (the same number as on Manitoulin Island.) However, Mayor Ferguson’s motion would apply to holiday renters, campers and day-trippers as well as seasonal residents. Presumably, if adopted as provincial policy, the motion would require the inspection of drivers’ licences at points of entry to the County, and the turning back of non-residents.
The division among councillors reflects the difficulty in steering between the competing priorities of the need for public health protection and the need to restart economic activity. At last Thursday’s meeting, for example, the Prince Edward County Winegrowers Association expressed some frustration about having co-operated in the shutdown of business during the emergency and now sending would-be visitors a message that they are not welcome here. On the other hand, being a quiet place with no outbreak to speak of may just mean that there are plenty of us just sitting waiting to catch the virus from visitors from the outside world.
The issue of seasonal demand on top of the coronavirus pandemic on rural health services is one that affects a broad swath of Ontario. The province will have to come up with a strategy. It has developed a framework for restarting the economy, promising that action will be based on the paramountcy of the need for protecting the people of Ontario, especially those who are most vulnerable and at high risk; and ensuring there is sufficient health system capacity to respond to any new outbreaks while maintaining the regular healthcare system. The framework also promises that action will be taken after consultation with municipalities, and will be informed by public health data, defined criteria and consistent measures.
If the province sticks to its lofty goals, then it may not be necessary to have any resolution excluding people from the County.
The province has set out a three-stage approach to the reopening of non-essential businesses and public spaces. Moving from one stage to another will require a consistent two-to-four week decrease in the number of new cases, sufficient acute and critical care capacity, and access to ventilators and personal protective equipment. At every stage, the requirement for physical distancing, along with staying home when ill, and washing hands frequently, will be maintained. The province has also published a table of existing regulations applicable to the health and safety practices of every type of business, and it is hiring 58 new enforcement officers. The list of non-essential businesses allowed to open as published on May 4 , including such light duty services as landscaping and garden centres, is consistent with the framework. And Premier Doug Ford has invested a fair amount of personal political capital in adhering to the science-based approach to the crisis, going so far as to label a group of libertarian protesters “a bunch of yahoos.” So the province is talking and playing a pretty good game.
But is excluding all visitors to the County targeting a larger group than necessary? Normally, it is a Good Thing that a lot of people want to come to the County. The danger to County residents lies in the potential for breaches of the physical distancing and congregation rules that greater numbers bring. It may be better to focus on those potential breaches than to put a blanket restriction on visitors.
The most likely places at which distancing rules would be breached would be on the Sandbanks beaches, at unsupervised short-term accommodation facilities, and at stores and restaurants. But the Sandbanks folks know how to close the park when it has too many visitors, and working out more limited capacity based on two-metre distancing won’t be rocket science. Crowded parties at notorious STA sites can be stopped by tips from neighbours to one of those 58 new enforcement officers the province has at its disposal, or by County staff or police. And stores and restaurants know how they have to reconfigure to meet provincial distancing requirements.
Maintaining physical separation and sticking to small gatherings ultimately comes down to a matter of trust —trust that you are doing your part just as I am doing mine. If it comes down to a choice, and the province has done its job, I would prefer to extend that trust to the County’s visitors rather than exclude them from this beautiful place.
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