Editor:
A longer version of this letter was sent to B.C. provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry, Premier John Horgan and Education Minister Rob Fleming.
Can you please explain to the families of B.C. how you intend to magically protect us from COVID-19 once all schools are reopened, social distancing is no longer an option and masks are not mandated to be an essential safety protocol of our schools and workplaces?
You are emphasizing learning groups, but these same learning groups will be crossing into other groups when not in class just like the recent parties or gatherings that are happening around the Lower Mainland and Victoria. These gatherings are considered high-risk behaviour and are frowned on, and even possibly fined, but groups of 120 high school young adults are somehow magically safe?
How can contact tracing protect the vulnerable in this type of scenario? Yes, you can notify the rest of the learning group, and self-isolate and hopefully follow the infected, but that’s it – the infection is already spread exponentially, with possibly deadly consequences.
By the time you track down all the contacts of a virus in a learning group there will be active viruses already brought home to their families and siblings to spread at a potentially deadly cost.
You have said over and over, maintain distance, avoid indoor groups, wash hands, and wear masks where six-foot distance is not possible – but now that the school year approaches, you have literally washed your hands from all these steps and are now preaching the importance of contact tracing. Let the gatherings begin!
Rose and Bruce McNevin, Roberts Creek
