To travel or not to travel, that is the question.
Just when we thought we had a handle on Delta the WHO comes up with another Greek term for yet another variant of concern. The explanation for using Omicron (number 15) is interesting and enlightening. I was worried that I had missed a number of variants (not of concern) between Delta and Omicron but it was a political correctness thing in this time of Covid.
This virus is changing names faster than the Board members at Cassellholme.
Travel agents are stroking off destinations as quickly as the news media announces that another government somewhere on the globe has closed borders, changed restrictions on entry and exits, extended isolation periods, and testing requirements for any and all variants of Covid-19. The 19 was the year it was discovered but if the tracking of Omicron is any indication, the virus was always several steps ahead of the scientists who now admit that South Africa was likely not the source.
Premier Ford must have had a premonition about Omicron when he and his minions came up with the Ontario Staycation tax credit.
I admit that Ontario has a lot to offer but for people wanting a warm beach or green golf course, we have to escape to warmer climes. And we need some assurance that we can get back into the country without having to test, wait and isolate. Dougie and Justin have argued in the past about borders, and exceptions for politicians and big businesses notwithstanding, we need some stability in what the heck we can and can’t do beyond daily newscasts.
Believe it or not, there are millions of Canadians who want to travel across borders, either for vacation, winter homes, family, or business. And millions more who dream of going south in winter, to the Rhine Valley in summer, and Australia in the fall to see the koalas. And they would like to do this as they did in pre-covid days. I think we have to accept that viruses like the Covid variants or mutations are with us for the foreseeable future. The main obstacle to this happening, and it is the same one that has been with us during all the phases of Covid, is the fear of over-stressing the Healthcare systems. And people dying.
Healthcare systems, hospitals, doctor clinics, and governments need to realize that the new reality is with us now.
If Omicron is teaching us anything, it is that we cannot stop the transmission of diseases – globally, nationally, or even within city regions. We need more physicians, more ICU beds, more equipment. We need to divert taxes and profits to our healthcare systems all around the world. We need to focus on fighting pathogens worldwide, by sharing vaccines, anti-viral pills, sprays, and most importantly, research and information.
Unfortunately, this is going to take time, even if we can find financial resources amid distractions like floods, Russian troops on the borders, and hypersonic missiles from China.
We live in a time of global economy and we must keep borders open to goods and people for the economy to survive and perhaps grow. The current supply chain issues are affecting all of us in some diabolical negative trickle-down economic theory that Ronald Reagan would have embraced. At the root of the economic problem is the fight against Covid, in which we seem to have come out second-best.
So let us consider not shutting borders against Omicron but start now preparing how we are going to handle Pi. Pi, the next Greek number should be the last-named variant of SARS-CoV2. Pi or 
is an irrational number, having no ending decimal, and we might just as well call the next Covid variant Pi and be done with it – as we did in calling the various influenza strains ‘the Flu’. If you have had your current Pi shot you can travel anywhere and return home. (Sorry anti-vaxxers, you’ll have to do a Staycation away from public places, but you will still be eligible for Doug’s tax break.)
In the meantime, here we sit, huddled in our ‘global village’, not only connected by communications as Marshall McLuhan thought but connected and isolated by a virus named Pi. We Canadians have had our chance to vaccinate and are as ready as we can be, masked like bandits, to get the show back on the road to the new normal.
Let’s go.
