Cab drivers wait for fares outside the Victoria International Airport on March 18, the first day of mandatory closure for BC's bars and pubs (James MacDonald for The Capital)

Cab drivers wait for fares outside the Victoria International Airport on March 18, the first day of mandatory closure for BC's bars and pubs (James MacDonald for The Capital)

A flooring installer tells The Capital that clients with sick people in the house are still trying to bring in crews for scheduled work

Last Tuesday, an Esquimalt man who owns a small flooring installation business had an unexpected day off: His customer cancelled after testing positive for COVID-19.



The installer and his crew went out on a job the following day with a deeper awareness that the work they do—entering people’s homes to tear up floors and lay down new ones—could be risky in a pandemic. When their customer opened the door, the crew hung back to ask some basic but important questions: Is anyone in the house sick, does anyone have a cough, has anyone left the country lately?



“Well, my two year old has had the flu, but that’s no problem—come on in,” the installer, who asked to remain anonymous, recalls the customer saying. “And I’m like, ‘Hold on a second, he’s got the flu?’ And she’s like, ‘Yeah, but it’s not corona, it’s just the flu, so don’t worry about it.’ And she keeps pointing with her foot at where we need to fix the floor. She was super persistent about getting us into the house.”



The installer persuaded the customer to reschedule, but it took some doing. “People still have a sense of urgency when it comes to their floor,” he said. “We’re booked through the end of April, and we’ve had only one client call us and reschedule.”

Aross the world, the novel coronavirus pandemic has forced people out of their routines. Government officials have closed borders and, in certain regions, issued shelter-in-place orders. Schools and universities, movie theaters, hair salons, gyms, bars, nightclubs have shut down. In hard-hit Italy, where 4,800 have died, even funerals have been cancelled. In some U.S. cities and states, non-essential workers have been urged—and, in some places, ordered—to work from home or stop working. Temporary foreign workers entering Canada, and citizens returning home, are required to self-isolate for 14 days.



In BC, with 424 confirmed cases and 10 deaths as of Sunday, provincial health officer Bonnie Henry has declared a public health emergency. She has closed all bars and pubs in the province, required restaurants to switch to take-out and delivery service, prohibited gatherings of more than 50 people for conferences, religious or entertainment purposes, and higher education, and closed “personal service establishments,” such as tattoo and massage parlours, barbershops, and nail salons.

Because asymptomatic people can still spread the virus, social distancing undoubtedly will save lives. Public health officials say it’s currently the best defence we have against the spread of COVID-19. The message from the federal and provincial governments has been consistent and delivered with a sense of urgency: to slow the spread of the coronavirus, people must immediately change their behaviour—and in ways that will greatly inconvenience them. And in case anyone on Vancouver Island is confused about what social distancing actually means or why it’s important, a family physician group in Comox Valley released a statement to the public last week, attempting to make it personal: “It requires YOU and everyone to aggressively limit unnecessary direct contact you have with other people.”

