I did not intend this to be the first article that I posted on here; but today The New York Times published an article detailing the Cortland Cronk Covid-19 saga in Saint John, New Brunswick. I have known Cortland since we began grade 6 together at Rothesay Park Middle School, and have first hand information of the numerous lies presented as facts in this New York Times article. In spite of my best efforts to contact them to issue corrections on the article I have not received any response. So I’m writing this as it’s a much better forum than Twitter to get into detail.
Firstly, Cortland is not an essential worker. He’s a software salesman - specifically he sells Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software to auto dealerships. The dealership that he was allegedly in Calgary to meet with released a statement that they have never had a business relationship with Mr. Cronk, and had no scheduled meetings with him. He actually lived in Calgary for a time and was there visiting friends. At some point on this leisure trip he contracted Covid-19.
Upon returning to New Brunswick Cortland lied to a public health official, telling them that he had been in Alberta on business. He then went home and started to develop Covid-19 symptoms. He completely lost his sense of taste, he developed a cough, and got a runny nose. He even states as much on a marketing video he posted on Facebook after returning to New Brunswick; musing that he should probably get a Covid test “Just in case”.
He then goes and gets a Covid test, being told at that time that he should begin self-isolating if he has not been already. That night instead of following the public health order - he elected to go out drinking with friends at Saint John’s busiest sports bar. This night of debauchery single-handedly brought community spread of Covid-19 back to southern New Brunswick, in the immediate lead up to Christmas.
His information was not leaked to the media; as a matter of fact he approached the media with the idea that they publish a story about him contracting Covid - including his identity. Public health officials would actually refuse to corroborate this information due to the privacy surrounding personal health information.
As a direct result of Cortland Cronk’s decisions, and the resulting community spread of Covid-19; much stricter lockdown measures were implemented. The provincial government held a press conference telling anyone who had been planning to return home to New Brunswick for Christmas that they were not welcome visitors.
Painting Cortland as an innocent victim who couldn’t have known better simply is not true. I do hope that The New York Times chooses to correct the information in their story.
If what this response says is true, the NYT has some explaining to do....