In 2020 Canada had two peaks of Covid infection. One hit 231 and the other reached 232. (All infection rates quoted are from ourworldindata.org and reflect 7-day rolling averages of confirmed cases per million individuals)
It dropped to less than 10, and then popped up again. By December 12th it was a hair under 100, and headed sharply upward. The peak hit 1,093 on January 10th.
Thankfully, it has shot downward again just as quickly and reached 458 by January 26th.
The peak seems to have passed, and the trend is rapidly downward. However, it is still higher than at anytime in 2020, and 4 times as high as when we started locking down again before Christmas. Although many are deciding it’s time to loosen up restrictions I totally disagree.
I am waiting for the rate to get back below 100 before even considering loosening up at all.
I also don’t consider loosening up to mean a total dropping of precautions.
For me it will mean still wearing a mask whenever out and about. I will also avoid contact with non-vaccinated folk in particular, and any with anybody in general.
Using my main activity as an example I shall describe what this means. Let’s say the infection rate got low enough for me to rejoin group Jiu-Jitsu training, and that there were three classes I could attend.
The first group is a 20 member mix of vaccinated and unvaccinated people. The second also has 20 participants, but everybody has to be fully vaccinated. I doubt I’d join the first group at all. The second would be significantly more attractive.
But then let’s say that there is a third group that also requires full vaccination, but that only has 10 members. Everything else being equal this is where I’d much rather train. There would be less contact than either the first or second group, and a vaccine mandate.
Currently, I am only doing Jiu-Jitsu training with a single individual. We are both vaccinated, and neither trains with anybody else. My exposure is to one person.
Might I still get infected during Jiu-Jitsu training? Of course, but my current risk is more-or-less one tenth of what it would be from a class of ten, and 5% of what I’d be facing with a group of twenty. It is all a game of percentages.
Some of my behaviours have been forever altered by the existence of Covid. I will never again sit in a movie theatre, and doubt I’ll ever ride crowded transit without an N95 mask.
