Green Status

Ted Doleman | Feb 17, 2021

As we all have had about a week of green covid status, I fear that it will be short lived as many from outside of these areas will flock in and numbers will again jump and we will join the rest of the province in lockdown. Or, alternatively, we can do what is in our control and tell those from outside the green areas to stay away, stay home, and not welcome them by not selling or serving them anything. To quote my friends from the east, “Stay the blazes home!”

Kingston’s medical officer of health, Dr. Kieran Moore, has said they may impose restrictions “The travel limitations that we could impose could be for personal service settings, for bars and restaurants to only serve those from KFLA, for example, or those from a green zoned area,” and according to Global News “He said as of right now, it’s within local businesses’ rights to ID people and refuse them service if they are from out of town, although he is not suggesting business-owners do that”. If politicians don’t have the guts to do the right thing, then it is up to the business owners in our regions. They have a choice that will decide if they survive in the long run or make money in the short run. No movie, no bar, no restaurant, no hotel, no service, no goods or to quote Iggy Pop “No Fun”. Will this be hard, yes. Will it be stressful, yes. Will it work, yes, they will stay home.

I’m sure many of us, while travelling in the area, see (for example) Quebec license plates zipping by, or cars with stickers indicating they clearly have children attending schools far away, or worse we know them and they are here ”visiting”. We have, nearly all of us, done the work to get green status. Most of us have stayed home, done things alone, and are sick, and angry, of these restrictions. Others, in other areas, have not and that is why they are not green. They need to do their own work, and earn what we have earned and deserve. To be blunt, if the government won’t do this, if business owners and associations don’t do this, then we are headed for lockdown, again, and we will have “No Fun”.

Ted Doleman