About a hundred kids in the Saint John area who were eagerly awaiting a trip to overnight camp are disappointed this week, with COVID-19 shutting down Camp Glenburn before it could open for the summer.
Fifteen of the camp’s 45 staff members tested positive for the virus before wrapping a week of training last week, leaving the YMCA-run camp no choice but to delay its seasonal start.
Mark Cruz, director of Camp Glenburn, says it’s the first time there’s been even one case at the camp despite remaining open the past two summers.
That, he says, prepared him for the day this call had to be made.
“Two years ago, if this had happened, I would have been rather terrified or scared,” says Cruz.
“But we’re in a very different place generally than we were then.”
In the summer of 2020, Camp Glenburn was one of — if not the — only overnight camp in New Brunswick to open with some of the strictest pandemic protection guidelines coming from Public Health.
2021 saw guidance fluctuate before the province entirely lifted restrictions in August.
This year, there are no rules coming from public health.
Cruz says he figured a case or two would pop up eventually considering.
He says the rule of thumb has been anyone sick, whether it’s COVID or not, goes home.
“It’s difficult to get better here,” says Cruz.
“So we send them home with rapid tests and ask them to test before they return.”
Camp Glenburn, which Cruz says is New Brunswick’s oldest sleepaway camp, will now open for its summer 2022 season on July 10.
Cruz says they see upwards of 700 kids a summer staying either one or two weeks.
With pent-up demand to partake in activities, nearly every slot this season has been filled.
Unfortunately, that means it’s going to be near impossible to rebook all the campers displaced by the delayed start to the summer.
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Cruz says most parents have been very understanding.
It seems moms and dads all over New Brunswick are coming to terms with the fact that the more “normal” summer they thought might be ahead was a mirage.
Jenna Morton, a Moncton-based parenting blogger, says many still aren’t ready to send their kids to camp.
“I think it was as much that uncertainty around whether things would go as planned as it was the actual fear of health risks,” Morton says.
“And I think that’s what we’re seeing play out now.”
She says many families, hers included, seem to be carrying on the COVID-era tradition of taking day trips and sticking close to home.
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