What are you looking forward to doing this summer when restrictions around COVID-19 ease up, and life further resembles some semblance pre-COVID-19 normality?
For me, as of Monday, May 11, it’s going into a coffee shop and ordering a matcha frap to go. Yeah, I know, it’s a fairly uninspired consumerist want. But it is one of the little things I enjoy that I might actually be able to do this summer.
The list of things I won’t be doing began as upsetting and grew to be fairly depressing thanks to restrictions and cancellations in response to the virus.
Last Saturday, for example, I would have been roaming Hudson Avenue in Salmon Arm, taking photos of the annual Salty Dog Street Fest for the paper. (A perk of my job) The mix of colourful activities, smiling faces and, of course, the pie eating contest are a joy to capture. Unfortunately, the street fest and Salty Dog Enduro were cancelled.
Read more: British Columbians can double their ‘pandemic bubble’ mid-May, but no large gatherings
Read more: COVID-19: Selected B.C. parks set to open for day use May 14
The list of cancelled upcoming events has grown to capture most of what I enjoy attending/photographing during a Shuswap summer. Among them: Roots & Blues, Wednesday on the Wharf, Sicamous Family Fun Day, the Canada Day Children’s Festival – and all other Shuswap Canada Day events.
On Friday, May 8, we learned the Salmon Arm Fair had been cancelled.
Of course these cancellations are understandable, but also concerning given the further negative impact on the local economy.
That said, there’s still plenty we can do, be it on our own, or with family and/or small groups of people as per the latest information from our provincial health officer.
In addition to municipal spaces being open for use, BC Parks recently announced it would be reopening some provincial parks for day use over the May long weekend.
And if a shopping outing is your idea of fun, well, “essential service” businesses in town appear to only be getting busier (or at least more people seem less concerned about virus-related restrictions when visiting them), while more of the retail sector is expected to begin re-opening later this month.
So that frap is looking like a definite maybe.