Juno News - Provinces begin to rollback reopening

00:00:00.000 It might be dismaying for a lot of people to see the news that in British Columbia they are now

00:00:10.640 beginning to roll back some of the reopenings that they have done in recent months. Dr. Bonnie

00:00:16.900 Henry, their chief medical officer, you're probably familiar with her, she's been idolized all out of

00:00:21.600 proportion. They paint murals about her and there's glowing memes about her online. I don't think it's

00:00:26.700 healthy to idolize a public servant quite like that but I get the point they think that BC has

00:00:31.680 done pretty well and they'd like to acknowledge Dr. Bonnie Henry. Well oops not so fast there. BC had

00:00:38.140 been doing well now the cases are surging and Bonnie Henry says some of these reopenings we've done

00:00:43.140 well we have to walk them back. Banquet halls shut down. Nightclubs shut down and this is really the

00:00:51.320 first big issue from a public health officer. The first big announcement that yes we're going to

00:00:56.660 start rolling back the reopenings we're heading back into lockdown and it makes you wonder uh-oh

00:01:02.460 what's next what are we going to see lockdown again got to shut down the schools this that and the other

00:01:07.100 I say pause. Hold on a second. Putting this into context Bonnie Henry's decision not that big of a

00:01:14.820 deal. Why? Because we were already pushing the envelope in the first place with these reopenings. Banquet

00:01:20.060 halls, nightclubs, large group gatherings, people in close quarters talking close to each other

00:01:24.820 yelling at each other and so on. I mean we always knew that that was going to be the place where

00:01:29.360 if there were going to be super spreader events it would happen. In Ontario one banquet hall wedding

00:01:35.020 related to 23 cases of coronavirus. That's quite a lot when you talk about the daily count just being

00:01:41.060 120, 140 cases. 23 cases from one event and I don't blame the provinces for pushing the envelope on all

00:01:48.820 this because we had to do this. We can't just find ourselves at this level of safety and go okay well

00:01:53.880 society we're gonna we're gonna shut down our social and economic activities to this degree and

00:01:59.120 there we go not not step out into society any further. No you had to keep trying you had to

00:02:04.700 keep pushing and we have we've pushed and then we found okay the banquet halls they're not quite

00:02:10.300 working out. So that's all right and it doesn't mean we have to start coming up with a laundry list

00:02:15.020 of things that we have to shut down again. I think it was totally reasonable push as much as you can.

00:02:20.700 Uh-oh okay we've hit this breaking point where it's clearly causing spread we've got to bring

00:02:26.360 it back. So I think the main message is this is not a cause for alarm. We're gonna move into the fall

00:02:32.660 we're gonna see there's a few cases at schools a few cases here and there of course. It's to be

00:02:37.420 expected. Humans are gathering more than they were back in March and April and the thing's gonna

00:02:42.440 spread a bit. It's gonna keep doing that until there's a vaccine that's widely used or or whatever

00:02:46.900 brings this thing to its end. We always have to remember the original goal flatten the curve

00:02:51.440 so we don't overwhelm our hospitals with people in ICU beds. We never got close to that happening

00:02:57.420 and we're nowhere near it now.

Juno News - September 09, 2020