A National Emergency

By Dr. Klaus L.E. Kaiser —— Bio and Archives July 1, 2021

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COVID restrictions are rapidly falling by the way-side, except for, can you imagine, the operations of STRIP-JOINTS. I know it’s hard to believe—but true nonetheless. Many folks have been waiting patiently, 15 months or so for such novel freedoms. You can soon get a (legal) haircut (by appointment only), or get your toe nails clipped before they approach some new Guinness Book-of-Records size -- all welcome manifestations of “post-pandemic” normalcy of life.

Really, what’s wrong with those STRIP-JOINTS?

What has this country vexed (not “vaxxed”) is the continued restriction of Strip-Joints operations. My boss, in one of my former lives, thought it was the perfect kind of place to do some deep thinking about all the instructions coming down from the higher echelons to us hapless foot soldiers in the trenches. In my perception, he was a good manager. Don’t know if “Dilbert” of the cartoon series (or his boss), ever had such deep insights—ought to inquire forthwith.

But let’s get serious

It’s not getting any easier to find out what is and what is not allowed in this local area. By the time some well-meaning journalist makes up the list of DO’s and Do-NOT’s for next day’s newspaper, it may already be outdated. There are federal, provincial, and community/area based restrictions, any one of which can change overnight. For example, every few weeks, we like to go shopping in a local deli shop for some items that aren’t available in major food outlets. That also helps elderly neighbors who are no longer sufficiently mobile to get there themselves. On several such occasions, we had to wait outside until the number of actual customers (allowed inside per the regs of the day, e.g. 15% of normal customer occupancy) was low enough to let us enter. But when I looked around the place, there were more staff than actually allowed customers. While food stores may have been thought of as places especially vulnerable to coronavirus transmission, hardware stores and similar strange places were just simply forbidden to be entered at all. The packaged batteries or nails and screws they are selling presumably are hotbeds of contagious viruses. I could go with many other examples of such wise government decisions.

But now things are opening up – Really !?

In Ontario, Phase-1 of the opening up began on June 11. Phase-2 will start on Jul 2, with certain regional exceptions and many other restrictions. One can finally get a haircut again (after a 5 month absolute No-No. As of July 2, “Personal care services where face coverings can be worn at all times, and at 25 per cent capacity and other restrictions” are going to be allowed. WOW! Better get a haircut soon, before the goal posts of the “anti-COVID-warfare” change again. The third phase will be several more weeks later. Exact dates and details will come later, weeks from now. But there is yet another wrinkle, namely School Boards. They are operational units that have their own rules.

Schools and Universities

Of course, there are youngsters and young adults attending schools of various levels and sizes. Many have been closed for months, or only were functioning via internet, remote learning and tests (if any), and mostly not to the old standards. Most teachers tried to conform to the new “virtual” standards especially for young students. It didn’t always work out as devised, as demonstrated by the following example: One of our granddaughters, about 8 years old then, had submitted her daily/weekly task as per schedule for 2-3 months. Her marks were exemplary, with regular kudos by the teacher, etc. Only by happenstance was it discovered that she had submitted nothing else but blank pages for all that time. -- We never figured out if that was due to a programming or technical failure or by her design. I certainly feel for all parents who, currently, have no clear guidance by the authorities as when (or if) normalcy will return to the entire educational system. It’s a crap shoot, at best.