Re: Maplebridge Trail, July 23 edition
Two days after I commented on the Mason Homes trail, the township was in and cut both sides of the pathway. A job well done.
Larry Emo, Uxbridge
COVID-19 came, we isolated to lessen the strain on our medical personnel and treatment facilities. We sacrificed jobs, income stopped, social gatherings stopped and we “flattened the curve.”
Now we are trying to recover some semblance of a former way of doing things, but nothing has changed with the virus, it is still out there ready to move through our population again, forcing us to invent new ways of doing things. We’ve already made sacrifices, we don’t want to go back there again.
One single infected individual can introduce the virus into a community, infecting hundreds even before the individual shows any symptoms. The danger is still present. It is that single hypothetical individual with the ability to spread and infect others in a chain of successive contacts, that we are all trying to stop.
All of our required business protocols – physical distancing, wearing masks or face coverings, washing our hands, not touching our faces – are all aimed at stopping airborne droplets containing the virus from landing and surviving on surfaces that we may touch, and more importantly from landing on our eyes, nose and mouth, the primary contact points for the virus.
Publicly available fabric masks only stop the wearer from spewing out those large airborne droplets when they cough, sneeze or even shout, laugh or talk loudly. Protection only comes from everyone wearing a face covering that lessens the expulsion of droplets combined with physical distance that keeps those droplets out of range.
Plexiglass counter shields, spacing markers on the floor all do a great job of reminding us to stay apart and protecting staff and customers. But, many businesses have a weak link in the chain – the individual designated as the SDO the “Sanitizer Deployment Officer,” the one who sprays your hands before you enter the establishment.
This person is the initial contact for everyone who walks into your business. Let’s keep in mind that most of the public are not wearing a N95 virus filtering mask. When you have to walk up to that person within arms reach, you are already violating the distance rule in order to have sanitizer sprayed on your hands.
What if that SDO picked up the virus from someone else in line, or from their own unintentional contact with a virus carrier after business hours? That person could then potentially infect everyone who came close to them to get their hands sanitized. Remember, non-medical fabric masks DO NOT FILTER the air you are breathing. That’s why we distance six feet/two metres. In a worse case scenario, your business could become a hot spot for spreading the virus to all your customers.
All business owners should make sure, that the designated sanitizing officers stay six feet from the sanitizing station and only supervise the customers entering the building. Where possible they should be equipped with medical masks, or at least a plastic face shield covering their own fabric mask, to insure they remain relatively safe during their extended time on the front line meeting the general public and being exposed to literally everything.
Let’s face it, COVID is not currently taking over our community, so our protective measures seem to be enough. But let’s make sure it is not a convenient illusion. We have those measures in place for a reason, to prevent the worse case scenario from happening, which would be a major community outbreak. Let’s not take that risk and do our best to accept and follow all the rules.
Examine your own “Chain of Virus Protection” and ask yourself “What If” someone actually has the virus!
Stuart Blower, Uxbridge
Ever wonder why your Uxbridge property taxes are so high and the high street is still closed off for laying a culvert pipe?
On July 17, we sat on our deck having a mid-morning coffee when along comes an Uxbridge town pick up truck, which parks on the small play park grass opposite. The driver turns on the flashing lights, assumedly in case of a high-speed squirrel encounter, the driver gets out holding a bucket and puts on a high visibility jacket…obviously the worker. Then another truck arrives, pulls up on the grass, on go the flashing lights, more anti-squirrel precautions, out steps the driver who is also wearing a high-vis jacket and carrying a clipboard…obviously the supervisor. Then another truck arrives, pulls up, turns on his flashing lights for the benefit of the local squirrels who are now suffering from arc-eye and epileptic seizures due to the multiple flashing strobe lights, out gets the high-vis jacketed occupant…must be the union “elf n safety manager” checking up!
The crew then replace the COVID closure tape which has been in place for four months with new tape and the old tape was put in the bucket.
On the 23rd, yet another town truck turns up, parks, lights up and spends a couple of hours measuring things and marking stuff on a clipboard…risk assessment to check that a child’s play frame is safe for workers?
Finally, on the 24th, yet another truck arrives with two people in it, who light up the roof, don the yellow vests, grab a bucket and remove the warning tape and COVID closure sign to reopen the park.
In one week we have witnessed a comedy of a whole fleet of town vehicles, three tanks of fuel, six “workers,” three buckets, two clipboards and five sets of flashing lights! Why does it take a budget of several hundred thousand dollars to do a job a 10-year old school child could have done alone as a play activity? Why was it suddenly necessary to replace four-month old tape for six days?
Dave Brewer, Uxbridge