“Perceptions,” by Gerry Warner

Op-Ed Commentary

It was four years ago to the day and we were boarding a jet to Costa Rica for seven days of R&R on the west coast of the most beautiful island in the steamy Caribbean. What could possibly go wrong? As it turned out plenty! The whole damn world was changing as we were soon to find out.

We landed in Los Angeles and headed to the south terminal to catch another crowded jet to Costa Rica’s capital, San Jose, and I noticed a strange thing. Some people – not many – were wearing masks. Not costume masks, but white surgical masks. What’s this all about, I wondered to myself? And then I heard a word I’d never heard before, “Covid.” To tell the truth, I didn’t pay much attention to it because I’d never heard the strange word until we got into South LA where it can get kind of strange at times and you never know what you might hear.

But once the good wife and I got settled into our palatial “all inclusive” suite near the iridescent beach and the margaritas and daiquiris started to flow, I soon forgot about Covid and a lot of other things too. But almost two weeks later, another jet dumped us in Calgary on the way to Cranbrook and the world had indeed rudely changed.

And not for the better.

Prior to a seemingly effective vaccine being discovered, some segments of the population panicked believing almost anything could cause Covid including a pathogen leak from a research lab in Wuhan, China. (Some still believe this.)  Exotic animals like Asian pangolins, bats and civets were blamed. Others claimed Bill Gates was causing it to make more money from a vaccine he was producing.

A doctor in Houston claimed Covid was caused by demons who had sex with victims in their dreams. Probable Covid cures were just as crazy with some saying a saline nose lush could stop the deadly pathogen. Ivermectin, a horse medicine, was advocated by veterinarians in the US and so were common cleaning disinfectants like bleach, a favourite of former US President Donald Trump.

Fortunately, craziness like this was avoided for the most part in Canada. Arguing the efficacy of masks was probably the sharpest point of disagreement in our country, including Cranbrook and is still a bone of contention. But we don’t hear pots being banged anymore and many of us became Zoom experts instead of attending face-to-face public meetings, which became a thing of the past for almost two years.

In fact, as offices, bars, restaurants and other public venues became public again, COVID-19 faded into the background to a large degree. You still see some mask-covered faces around town and most people are “vaxed to the max” even though there are still some resolute Cranbrookians who adamantly refuse mask protection and at times express outright scorn for the entire mask program.

Indeed, if there’s one person who exemplifies the majority COVID-19 view locally it has to be BC Chief Medical Officer Bonnie Henry whose famous mantra: “Be kind. Be calm. Be safe” and mask-up seems to speak for the vast majority.

Despite this, Henry has her detractors mainly from the more extreme anti-mask crowd that regards masking as a Marxist conspiracy to overthrow democracy and motherhood.

I have this to say to them. You really should be thanking the millions of mask-wearing people around the world who found the diaper-like, protective cloths just as inconvenient and annoying as you but chose to wear them for safety – yours as well as theirs.

And in case you’re one of those in la la land who think the COVID-19 pandemic was overblown by the media, the latest UN estimates show 59,000 deaths in Canada, 1.2 million in the US and 6.7 million worldwide.

Effective vaccines have slowed the monster down. But the beast is still with us.

e-KNOW file photo

– Gerry Warner is a retired journalist who still takes COVID-19 seriously.

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