Within minutes of the announcement that Alberta will be opening up on Canada Day, hard-working small business owners and managers heard the news as if by osmosis
Article content
Good news travels fast.
Within minutes of Premier Jason Kenney’s announcement that Alberta will be opening up “for good” on Canada Day, hard-working small business owners and managers heard the news as if by osmosis and were delighted.
“I have a lot of catching up to do to recover from the lockdowns,” said Rolanda Anderson, the owner-operator of Salon True on 17th Avenue and 9th Street S.W.
“We all do. Most small business owners have had a really, really hard time so knowing that starting on July 1 we aren’t going to face another shutdown is really a relief but I’m not sure I fully believe it yet,” she said as she coloured the hair of a long-time, loyal customer using a non-toxic, organic product.
Besides working full time as a hairstylist, Anderson, 38, also runs her retail shop Salon True Bespoke, which sells organic haircare and skin products.
Both locations cost her $6,000 a month in rent but luckily, her landlords were very accommodating and kind during lockdowns.
Advertisement
Article content
“With the Calgary Stampede opening, I’m nervous about what happens if there’s a new wave. I understand the importance of the Stampede for the city and the province but if there’s a spike in cases because of all the crowds and the partying, we’re the ones who will pay with another lockdown,” she said.
“I feel like salons, which were not responsible for any major outbreaks, kept getting punished for other people’s mistakes. We were the scapegoats used to make it look like the government was doing something.”
Ivana Miletic, who drove 150 kilometres from Drumheller to get her long locks tended to by Anderson, says as an emergency room nurse, she has seen a lot of increased anxiety caused by the isolation surrounding COVID-19 restrictions. She’s “cautiously optimistic” that Alberta exceeding its threshold of 70 per cent of Albertans aged 12 and older receiving at least one shot of vaccine gives the population enough herd immunity for our health care system to not face being overwhelmed.
Miletic, who just moved back to Alberta from Vernon, B.C., with her paramedic husband, says there were so few infections in the Okanagan and Shuswap region she served and so few people came to the hospital for fear of being exposed to COVID, they were “all really bored most of the time.”
Advertisement
Article content
“I think we all feel a real sense of relief that things are opening up again but I’d be lying if I said there wasn’t a sense of trepidation, too,” she added. “These variants of concern — particularly the Delta variant — seem to be on the uptick so I hope people use a bit of common sense going forward.”
That’s something Kenney said, too.
“On Canada Day, Alberta’s public health measures will be lifted and our lives will get back to normal,” he said at a press conference in Edmonton.
“I never doubted that we would reach this milestone together. That we’d pull together, as a province, as a people, and get ‘er done in the true Alberta spirit.”
After thanking Alberta’s health care workers, Alberta Health Services, which set up such smooth-running vaccination clinics, and the “2.7 million Albertans who have chosen to roll up their sleeves and get the jab,” Kenney also expressed gratitude to science and vaccines for “finally … getting the upper hand on this virus.”
“How awesome it’ll be that we open up fully on Canada Day — the day we celebrate the freedoms we all cherish and we welcome back fully into our lives all the freedoms that have been limited at times over the past 16 tough months to help save lives.”
For all those folks who perpetuated conspiracies that governments were using COVID as a ruse to remove our freedoms permanently, clearly, that false theory has been destroyed.
Nevertheless, Kenney did urge people to still use some common sense by staying home when you’re sick, getting tested when you feel ill and for those who test positive for COVID-19, they’ll still be legally required to isolate.
Advertisement
Article content
Anderson says she’s glad the Alberta government pushed the envelope towards opening things up more than in other provinces.
“If we had the kind of lockdowns Ontario or Quebec has had, I would have lost everything. I wouldn’t have wanted to be in any other province through this, that’s for sure,” she said.
Despite the province lifting restrictions on mask-wearing, she says the City of Calgary will still have a mask mandate so she, her staff and clients will comply with the city bylaw until it’s lifted.
Kenney pointed to a new study by Public Health England showing the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine is 96 per cent effective against hospitalization for the Delta variant after two doses and the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine is 92 per cent effective against hospitalization after two doses.
And there was more good news, too. Second dose vaccinations are open to everyone who wants one, as long as you’ve waited at least one month between jabs with an mRNA vaccine, like Pfizer or Moderna, or two months between the first and second shot for AstraZeneca, which offers more immunity with a longer time spread between doses.
That cheery news caused a huge backlog of more than 50,000 people waiting online to book their second dose within minutes of the announcement. So much for all that endless coverage and worry about vaccine hesitancy.
Lotus Sikina, 24, the marketing and brand manager at Trolley 5 Brewpub on 17th Avenue, was so excited, you could see her smile behind her mask.
“Hearing that we’re open for good is the news we all wanted and needed to hear,” she said as she overlooked a quickly filling outdoor patio on a sunny Friday afternoon. “It was awful having to lay off our staff every time there was a lockdown but they’re all back now, rarin’ to go and eager to have a great summer in the company of our friends and family.”
How did she hear the news?
“From just everywhere. Everyone just instantly knew. It’s a case of good news travelling fast.”
Licia Corbella is a Postmedia columnist in Calgary.
Twitter: @LiciaCorbella
Corbella: Open 'for good' is the kind of news Albertans spread fast - Calgary Herald
Read More
No comments:
Post a Comment