At 11:59 p.m. ADT on Thursday, July 2, a long row of cars lined up, waiting to cross the Confederation Bridge linking Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick. In the next 90 minutes, roughly 300 to 400 vehicles crossed the 12.9-kilometre span linking the Island to the mainland.
By 8 a.m. Friday morning, lines at the bridge had eased, but traffic remained brisk — at least, brisker than it had been for the previous three months.
But 50 kilometres to the west, at the Nova Scotia/New Brunswick border, traffic was just beginning to back up for many kilometres in each direction.
Inside these vehicles were people anxious to be with friends and loved ones they hadn’t seen since the global COVID-19 pandemic was declared back in March. Those snarled in traffic included everyone from grandparents eager to see newborn grandchildren for the first time to cottage owners keen to return to their summer paradises. To deal with the long lineups at border checkpoints, at times vehicles were just waived through.
It’s clear that as the so-called Atlantic bubble formed over Canada’s four most eastern provinces at midnight Thursday, folks across the region proved anxious to explore with their newly found freedom.
Well, most people.
Some remain wary of anything that could bring more of the dreaded COVID-19 to our region. There have been cases of verbal abuse of drivers and even vandalism to vehicles with out-of-province licence plates in some areas.
In Newfoundland, many openly opposed the travel bubble. They questioned the benefits of looser restrictions at borders versus potential risks to health and wanted to know why, when they are being told not to do certain things, their province is welcoming visitors? These concerns are valid, but they ought not to deter our attempt to bring normalcy to our lives and, perhaps, more importantly, to our economies.
COVID-19 has devastated our regional economy and, at some point, we needed to begin to rebuild it. That means putting trust in the four provincial health officers and, hard as it may be, politicians. These officials have as much to lose as anyone if this experiment goes south. If things do get bad and the virus begins to spread, there is nothing to stop us from doubling back down on tougher restrictions again.
In fact, some predict our recovery will look like a one step forward, two steps back exercise. To those who still have reservations, consider this as a first step.
We had to take a calculated risk at some point. If we wait for a vaccine, there may be nothing, economically at least, left to save.
