It looks like the consensus is that we will be facing Covid-19 protocols until a vaccine is ready and widely distributed: masks, 2 metre distancing, pervasive focus on sanitization, temperature testing before admittance, contact tracing, etc.
But it looks like most parts of the economy will be open under these new rules. The Economist has a story this week about the plan to open up movie theatres within a couple of weeks there. The owner of one talked about how they will allow families, etc. to sit beside each other but then leave a couple of seats in between – and enforce social distancing – and implement sanitation procedures.
Sounds good to me. This should apply to churches, schools and any other gatherings – 50, 100 people maybe more. Different, yes. More challenging, etc. but why shut things down indefinitely?
New Brunswick was fairly lucky and smart (read the National Post article about Dominic Cardy and the virus whisperer) but that is not the same as being over cautious in the ‘dance’ phase as described by Alston and LeBrun. Where that line is drawn is not for me to decide but for those that are making the tough decisions, they should look at best practices in other jurisdictions (tatoo parlours are open in Denmark – but the client and jabber both need masks and the jabber wears gloves – I am not suggesting this is a best practice).
It is looking more and more like we could promote heavily the idea of in-province tourism this summer with little risk. As you know I love this idea. Let’s get mayors on board, DMOs, provincial tourism folks – shops, restaurants, hotels and let’s get to know this province and PEI and hopefully Nova Scotia too.
If something happens in an isolated location – the lessons in Asia can be deployed here – local shut down, contact tracing, 14-day quarantines – monitor and then restart.
I’m not saying we are getting back to ‘normal’ anytime soon – but the Economist talks about the 90% economy, I’m suggesting it maybe more like the 80% economy but let’s try and do better than the 50% economy because an extended period of that will have profound longer term implications.