(Editor’s note: This letter was addressed to B.C. Health Minister Adrian Dix and B.C’s public health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry and shared with Pique.)
This is how I started my last note to [B.C. Minister of Health Adrian Dix and B.C.’s Provincial Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry] back in July 2020: “British Columbia’s response to COVID-19 has been exemplary. I am referring to Dr. Bonnie Henry, Minister Adrian Dix, yourselves, your departments’ hardworking staff and frontline healthcare workers too numerous to mention.”
Although I still feel, overall, despite some bumps in the road, that you have all done exemplary work, I am terrified that a significant mistake is being made regarding the lack of a provincial vaccination mandate to ride gondolas, since Vail Resorts is abrogating their responsibility.
What is puzzling to me is the deafening silence from Dr. Henry on this topic. Where is the empirical evidence that 10 wet, perspiring, heavily breathing skiers sitting crammed into maybe 40 square, poorly ventilated feet for 20 minutes will not easily spread COVID-19?
To all of us concerned skiers, this is inviting sickness on a large scale, which is both needless and inevitable. Please keep in mind that if we want to ski we must ride the gondolas. Bottom to top on Whistler is approximately 22 minutes. Bottom to top on Blackcomb is 15 minutes.
This Pique article (Pique, Nov. 18, “Sea to Sky health officer tries to quell concerns over WB’s gondola policy”) states that there were low on-mountain transmission rates in Whistler last year, but this was due to the fact that there were restrictions on the number of people per gondola, i.e., one household/bubble or a maximum of two people per 10-person gondola.
This year, Vail Resorts has lifted all restrictions and the gondolas will be running at full occupancy.
Let’s follow the leadership of all the other concerned ski communities in B.C. and Alberta by mandating proof of full vaccination for all skiers and boarders, since Vail Resorts will not. What do all these other ski areas know that we don’t?
Can we afford to succumb to some kind of pressure to not mandate vaccinations and reel from those results later in the winter with closures, not to mention devastating sickness outcomes? It seems so shortsighted.
Please, please show leadership and do what has to be done to protect us. Or show us the data that says vaccinations won’t save lives in this scenario.
