After spending the winter as a Covid-19 Red Zone, and a brief stint in Orange, as of last Monday Montreal is a Yellow Zone. Sounds good, but what does it mean exactly?
The main change is in the numbers of people who can gather and where. If outdoors, gatherings can be up to 8 people, and they can all be from different households. A higher number is allowed if they only come from 2 households. So a family of 5 can meet another family of 5, but they cannot meet 5 people from 2 other households.
Indoors, you can still only have members of two different households, but with no restriction on the number. Precautions such as distancing are still recommended.
Restaurants are bars are open, even indoors, but restrictions are still in place. You have to arrive with your mask, and the restaurant must keep a register. Only people from two households can sit together.
As for churches, here’s what the government says we can do in a yellow zone:
Places of worship
A maximum of 250 participants are allowed in a place of worship. If the place of worship occupies an entire building, the limit applies to the building.
A distance of at least two metres is maintained between people, even when they stay in their seat and do not move about, unless they are from the same private home or the equivalent.
A procedure mask or face covering must be worn. The procedure mask or face covering can be taken off when the person is in their seat, is silent or speaks only in a low voice.
Weddings and funerals in places of worship are limited to 50 people.
Now, obviously our church can’t accommodate 250 people at the best of times. We have been allowing 25, and might be able to push that to 30 and still maintain comfortable social distancing. Note that there is no mention yet of going back to eating and drinking together in church.
The guidelines mention weddings and funerals but leave out baptism. For now, SouthWest will continue to hold baptisms separate from Sunday worship, in order to keep numbers lower.
All in all, it’s still a Covid-19 world out there. Even if soon we are able to move into a Green zone, very little will change. “Green” sounds like it would indicate everything was back to normal, but it does not. It is just the lowest alert level in a province still under emergency measures. Only when the state of emergency is officially lifted will we know that things are finally back to normal.
No one in the government is saying exactly when that will happen, but the way to get there is through vaccination. As of June 15, 78% of the Quebec population had had a first shot. 15% had had a second. Let’s keep going!
Amy
Here is the latest version of the re-opening chart from our Nakonha:ka Regional Council: