Today is the day when most of the numbers catch up from the weekend gaps… and one thing is clear; they’re all mostly continuing their trend in the right direction. Cases, hospitalizations, outbreaks. deaths… the numbers tell a good story and the graphs paint a pretty picture. Especially impressive are Ontario and Quebec numbers these days; solidly trending in the right direction.

In the U.S., while possibly some of that can be attributed to vaccines, the numbers (15%) are still too low for it to make such a tangible difference. Among many other potential reasons, it’s… the masks… a policy now in place that would have had a drastic effect on the pandemic. How many lives might have been saved? That’ll be discussed for a long time, but most will agree… it’s a figure with six digits… and closer to seven, not five. Also… we’ll soon be hearing a lot about the current U.S. number of deaths; by tomorrow this time, it’ll have surpassed 500,000.

In Canada, the harsh imposition of what some consider to be overreaching orders are also having that effect. All of the “I just had to go on vacation but shouldn’t be forced to pay $2,000 for returning home” crowd… well, you’ll get little sympathy from me. Trust me, there are times when I’ve felt like saying “to hell with it” and booking us all a nice trip to somewhere sunny. What difference will it make? How bad can it be? I never get too far down the “Quick, before we come to our senses!” line of thinking, but I can see how it gets to people. That being said, that’s an explanation, not an excuse… and when all those 100+ people who flew to Hawaii over the weekend come home and are met with restrictions and derision… well, they’re adults making adult decisions. They can face the adult consequences. All of the restrictions, all of the non-essential travel that’s not going on… it’s making a difference.

On the flipside, some local games-night party with 50 people attending ended up infecting 15 of them, who unknowingly went home and then to work or wherever else, subsequently infecting a host of others. We won’t know how far that little super-spreader event will reach, but when I say all numbers are going down, there’s a caveat… which is that while the overall numbers can go down, the localized numbers can go up… in this case, Fraser Health, where numbers are indeed up – a fact somewhat obfuscated by the rest of the province. And… to be clear… one little super-spreading event, a little tail of an event… can end up wagging the entire big dog of a province.

I really hope the numbers keep going down. And they can. It’s almost like the numbers *want* to go down. We just have to continue giving them the opportunity to do so.

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