OPINION | I'm not flying home this Christmas, and neither should you

I just cancelled my trip home for Christmas. 

It sucks but you know what would suck more? Being the reason someone dies. 

But hark, what's that I hear? The pitter-patter of Karen hooves, here they come a-wassailing 2020 style: "But COVID-19 has a low mortality rate," or "think of the children." And, my personal favourite, "Isn't this over yet?"

Repeat after me: the pandemic isn't over just because you're over it. 

I booked my tickets from N.W.T. to Ontario in August, when the world was very different. Cases were on the decline, things seemed under control across Canada. But in recent weeks, we've caught a second wave—and the only way to get off this ride is to stay put. 

I don't care that most people will recover from COVID-19 (and frankly if you are OK with even a few people being expendable, bravo, you're the worst). Know how many ICU beds Yellowknife's Stanton Territorial Hospital has? According to the NWT Pandemic Response Plan, we have six— and in an emergency that can surge to a whopping eight. There are another 36 beds available for COVID patients and 30 beds for everyone else to be admitted to the hospital.

If the worst happens, and we exceed our capacity, we will have no beds for anything other than COVID-19 available. And, as Nunavut proved, COVID-19 can spread fast. It can also reinfect you: you aren't immune if you've had it before. If we're not careful, we very quickly could sink, and there's no lifeguard on duty, as the southern health care that props up our system is also drowning. 

In Alberta, it's a matter of when, not if, that system gets overrun: medical care is finite; there are only so many beds, so many hours doctors and nurses can work, and so much capacity for treatment for everything. People in the N.W.T. could die, from totally preventable causes unrelated to COVID-19. The heart attack, stroke, the operation or car accident — if all the beds are full, those people will not get the treatment they need. 

I for one am not OK with that.

"But we just want the kids to have a normal Christmas," a Yellowknife acquaintance recently wrote on Facebook, annoyed at the idea that students should reconsider travelling for Christmas. Thing is, this isn't a normal year. It's not normal for anyone, and pretending it is is the reason we have a second wave. 

Christmas is not essential though I know it feels that way: it hurts like a phantom limb not to be with family. But for me to travel, I would have to risk infecting my family, myself, and the N.W.T.

Don't be that guy who would hide a zombie bite. We're incredibly lucky we haven't had community spread here. Doom-scrolling the last few weeks, I got a taste of the anxiety that everyone else in this country is living with daily. I don't want that to come here.

If we're all special, no one is. Because there are people who do have to travel: essential workers, sure, but also people who have loved ones who won't see another Christmas. It's not safe for every student to come back, but anyone struggling with, for instance, a mental health crisis absolutely should be able to return. That's a manageable risk, but just like the hospital beds, if everyone partakes, it's no longer manageable. The risk becomes too high.

Everyone is struggling right now: pandemic fatigue is setting in. But I'd rather cry over missing one Christmas than about being the reason someone misses every Christmas.

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