Dear Editor,
I am an 80-year-old with a very compromised immune system and there are only two restaurants in Steveston that have taken table distancing and barrier construction steps that make me feel comfortable enough to enjoy meals there - especially considering the recent spike in Omicron cases.
But as I walk by the coffee shop that used to be our favourite place to relax and chat with people, I see it totally filled with unmasked young people sitting extremely close to one another at tables that are not adequately distanced from each other.
I can only wonder what they don’t understand about the reasons why there are such high rates of Covid infections in their age groups.
I guess they have no interest in accessing on their ubiquitous laptops and smartphones the government websites that have graphs and statistics related to such things - maybe because they think all the Covid-related stuff really has nothing to do with them.
But as my grandfather used to say (he survived the 1918 pandemic that killed millions of people) “You don’t think you’re going to get it until you get it, and then you have to pay attention.”
I look through that coffee shop window and speculate about how many of those young people crowded together at those tightly-packed tables might be forced to have to deal with Covid as part of their lives. Hopefully none, but how confident can we be about that these days?
Ray Arnold
RICHMOND
