By Pepper Parr
December 9th, 2020
BURLINGTON, ON
In a couple of weeks the kids will be coming home for the holidays.
I know of at least one student who expects to be on the plane on the 21st arriving from the Maritimes where the virus spread has been pretty limited relative to the rest of the country.
Her brother will be coming home from an Ontario university west of Burlington.
Given the rules these students will be required to self-isolate for 14 days. Count them – December 21st + 14 days gets them to January 2nd or third.
What are the chances of that actually happening ? These are decent people in the process of becoming adults.
They come from good families with parents who are going to want them to do the right thing.
Checking in with friends, getting together for coffee because there is nowhere they are able to scoot off to for a drink is what you do when you are home from school.
This kind of getting caught up doesn’t get done on the telephone but it does get done.
Expecting the rules to be rigidly adhered to is a huge stretch; the outcome will be a rises in the number of infections both in every town in the province and in the communities to which these students return.
Something to think about.
How much higher will that blue line go once the students return to the universities and colleges?
Salt with Pepper is the musings, reflections and opinions of the publisher of the Burlington Gazette, an online newspaper that was formed in 2010 and is a member of the National Newsmedia Council.
