If there’s one topic I didn’t want to dive into here, it was Covid. I was trying to avoid it, much like the American election, for many reasons.
For one thing, I’m pretty sick of talking about Covid, and I’m guessing you’re pretty sick of hearing about it. What’s left to say? We’ve been dealing with this virus around the world for nearly a year, and in Canada we’ve been in various stages of lockdown since March. We’ve learned about masks and aerosol droplets and speaking moistly. We’ve made folk heroes out of our provincial Chief Medical Officers, and meme’d our politicians as we stay the blazes home.
As the pandemic wore on, we’ve discussed the deeply gendered career drain, and the harm done to teachers and students from remote learning, and how working from home is wrecking our spines.
I’ve personally written about diminished social skills and allostatic load and students asking for refunds from their universities.
We. Have. All. Talked. About. Covid. Enough.
And, partly because of a deeply misguided yet ingrained culture of both-sides-ism in our news, we’ve also learned about anti-maskers, and given air time to Covid conspiracy peddlers, and had to listen to people shout about losing perceived freedoms as others lay dying in massive numbers.
What’s left to say?
Something that was unexpectedly difficult for me was Passover. My family celebrated over Zoom, 30 little boxes on my computer screen, segmenting us all into chunks. Each separate box containing a face, lit up slightly blue from the computer light, staring into the camera a little bewildered and a little sad, but doing the best that we could. We quickly realized that singing didn’t work with the audio delays, but powered through anyway for the sake of tradition. And because our seder was virtual, we were able to include family in other countries and timezones, which was a nice addition.
It was fun and bittersweet and it kind of sucked. Just like a lot of 2020.
Yet cases are rising all over the country, as the long haul of this pandemic has taken its toll. People are tired of following the rules, and they miss their families, and they want things to get back to normal.
Paradoxically, the more people try to fight to get things back to normal, the longer they are prolonging the need for strict measures, but whatever. I get it! This all sucks. But the Atlantic bubble is likely going to stay locked down until the new year, and Manitoba is now seeing a record rise in cases, which means I don’t know when I’ll get to see my family in person again.
Here’s what I do think: I think we, as a country, need an actionable plan. Provincial regulations have resulted in some lopsided figures. The Atlantic bubble is proving strong, but we also have lower population density and fewer entry points. We’re also starting to see a few cases of community spread, which is worrying. Cases in British Columbia are climbing, with the province setting and breaking its own records seemingly weekly.
We are going to be dealing with Covid for a long time to come. Even if we have a vaccine available soon, things are not going to go back to normal. How can they, with so many lives lost, and so many others irreparably damaged? What is normal now, anyway? So instead of plucking away at this virus with a ruthless individualism, I think we need to appeal to our collective empathy. I know our resolve is failing, but we either come at this with a united front, or we all fall.
Really, what’s left to say?
Recommendations From the Slush Pile:
I. Love. Gift Guides.
This feature on a residential school is moving and wonderfully written, which is no shock, because it was penned by my pal Jen Zoratti. She’s the best newspaper columnist in the country, in my completely objective and binding opinion.
The rise of the roommate.
Novel of the Week - What it Means When a Man Falls From the Sky by Lesley Nneka Arimah. Lately my attention span has been shot, and I have had trouble following longer novels. Instead, I turned to this collection of slightly-dystopian but ultimately hopefully short stories.
One Last Thing:
Oh, to be a sleepy rice bear lovingly covered by an omelette blanket.
Great article! And here is the latest pandemic news https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/us/covid-cases.html