Some people, of course, never really left what we called lockdown in B.C.
Seniors in care homes, a lot of seniors living independently, people with health concerns – hundreds of thousands of British Columbians have been going above and beyond the restrictions that were in place. People have given up seeing family and friends in person, dining out, casual browsing in stores, and a hundred other small excursions and interactions, because they were protecting themselves or a loved one from possible infection.
Too many people, on the other hand, have been ignoring what rules were in place. Some have bent the rules, others openly broke them.
“COVID fatigue,” is one way of describing it – but ask the people who have doggedly followed the rules how they feel. They’re just as tired, if not more so.
The real COVID fatigue has been on the B.C. government’s side. The provincial health authorities, for whatever reason, watched numbers rise steadily for weeks and did nothing. There were no new enforcement measures and no new masking measures in schools until the tail end of spring break.
All we heard was the same message that we’ve heard from the beginning – do more.
Well, the people who are willing have been doing all that they’ve been asked, and often more, for a full year now.
And those who have not been willing to do the minimum have been allowed to get away with it, because the B.C. health authorities and government, for whatever reason, didn’t want to crack down.
So instead of smaller restrictions, we’re now practically back where we were in March of 2020. Work from home, no dining in, no yoga classes, no indoor church attendance.
We’ve been told to be calm and kind, but those of us who followed the rules aren’t feeling that kind right now to those who have robbed us all of a second spring.
– M.C.