-
One Very Big Isolation Ward
-
Point Roberts, Washington has always been a fascinating place to me, because it's completely isolated from the rest of Washington, and America, by Canada. It's a peninsula south of Vancouver; if you want to go to the rest of the continental U.S., you have to cross the border into B.C., then back at Blaine, WA 25 miles east. This is all especially interesting right now, because the border's closed due to the pandemic for all but essential trips, meaning that you're trapped there: You can't go to shop, to the dentist, to a restaurant, to anything across the border. And conversely, B.C. residents, some of whom have summer homes in Point Roberts, dock their boats there, and take advantage of cheaper gas and food prices and the ability to use a shipping place to get Amazon deliveries cheaper, are not coming down, killing the local economy. It's good in that the isolation has kept COVID-19 at bay, but it's bad for everyday life. The locals want the governments to do something based on the special and unusual nature of the town, but no go, which raises the question: Why not? Why CAN'T they figure something out? How weird is it that an entire town's essentially trapped? (New York Times)
Have an opinion? Add your comment below.