74 Living Through the Pandemic: A Personal Reflection on Covid-19 and its Impact

Anonymous

When news of Covid-19 first reached North America, I was a fifteen-year-old Grade 10 student attending high school in Richmond Hill, Ontario. At the time, no one expected that the virus would have such a significant impact on our lives. We heard reports about the outbreaks in China, but it often felt like a distant issue that we would not have to worry about. However, everything changed in a matter of weeks: in March 2020, just days before my sixteenth birthday, Premier Doug Ford declared that Ontario was in a state of emergency, and we were all confined to our houses as lockdowns began. 

When the first Covid-19 lockdowns in Ontario were announced on March 17, 2020, March break had just begun. I remember going to get my G1 driver’s license two days later, only to be told that two driving centers near me had already been shut down due to the social distancing restrictions. I also celebrated my sixteenth birthday in lockdown, so we ordered some takeout from a nearby restaurant and had a small family lunch, with no friends or extended family present. At this point, we had not yet entered a full lockdown: schools, libraries, recreational facilities, and movie theatres were all closed, but takeout from restaurants was still allowed, and essential services such as grocery stores and pharmacies were still open with restrictions in place. Large gatherings were banned, and people were strongly encouraged to stay at home as much as possible, and to practice social distancing and wear personal protective equipment (PPE) such as gloves and masks when contact with others was inevitable. By the end of March, however, we had entered a full lockdown, and everyone was confined to their homes to avoid spreading or contracting the disease. These strict lockdowns occurred in stages for over a year, so we all needed to find different ways to stay active and keep ourselves entertained. My family used the extra time to play board games, solve puzzles, and revisit hobbies that we didn’t typically have time for during the year, such as painting or playing the piano. Like many other families in our neighborhood, we also went on evening walks to stay active and get some fresh air and I began doing YouTube workouts at home during the colder months. We also had to learn how to navigate potential exposure to the virus, as my mother was an essential service worker at the bank who regularly met other people. Along with getting vaccinated, we wore PPE when we went out or when my mother went to work in order to reduce the risk of transmission. Additionally, when my father went shopping for groceries, he thoroughly washed the produce before putting it away to eliminate any coronavirus that might have been lingering on the product. We also kept in touch with family and friends virtually, participated in drive-by birthdays, and occasionally met with a friend or two in parks or car parks while maintaining six feet of separation to minimize the risk of disease transmission. 

Adjusting to virtual schooling was a significant challenge for me. At first, I enjoyed the virtual learning environment because it felt like an extended break from the usual busyness and chaos of my regular school routine. It was nice to wake up for class just before it started and attend lessons in my pyjamas in the comfort of my own home. However, as the days went by, I began to notice all the challenges and negative consequences of a virtual learning environment. Without the structure and routine of an in-person classroom, I found it harder to stay focused on my lessons, and being at home provided me with many opportunities for distraction. Class discussions were not as effective anymore, as people would rarely turn on their cameras or microphones to participate, and it was harder to ask questions in class because I felt like I was drawing unnecessary attention to myself by doing so. I believe the greatest challenge, however, was the feeling of isolation that resulted from an online learning experience. In a matter of days, we had gone from seeing our friends every day at school to only being able to contact them through messages or video chats. Extracurricular clubs such as DECA and Model UN had moved online, which meant that all the work for these clubs had to be done on our own, without others to interact and discuss ideas with. I remember participating in online Model UN conferences that lasted all day, and the hours of exposure to the computer screen always left me with painful headaches. Overall, I think that virtual schooling was a challenging time for many, and it highlighted the importance of in-person education. The experience also had lasting, long-term impacts on myself and others my age, such as a significant decrease in social skills, poor mental health, and a lack of motivation among students due to the long periods of isolation from other students, teachers, and support systems. However, there were also some positive long-term impacts, as some students were able to adapt to this experience and improved their time management skills, while also achieving greater independence, which are important skills and characteristics that are useful in university and work environments. 

In this course, we discussed how fear and misinformation can lead to stigma, as people often judge or discriminate against others based on assumptions rather than facts. One example of stigma that was discussed in the course was the belief that only homosexual people could get HIV/AIDS, as well as the belief that these people deserved to have the disease. This stigma was caused by deeply held moral values in society that frowned upon homosexual relations, as well as the fear of a sexuality that was considered to be forbidden and unrestrained at the time. Similarly, during the Covid-19 pandemic, stigma towards Asian ethnic groups and people who had tested positive for the virus became evident, as people did not understand where the virus had come from and were fearful of contracting the disease. One example of stigma that I personally saw during the pandemic was when some Asian students in our school started wearing a mask as soon as news of the virus reached Canada. Although I never saw severe cases of discrimination towards these students, there were hushed whispers as to why they were being so dramatic and wearing a mask when the virus hadn’t even become an issue in Ontario yet, resulting in some exclusion of these students from their friend groups. Another example of stigma was when the first person in our school tested positive for Covid-19. Despite being something that they couldn’t control, this student’s name was quickly circulated around the school and subtly shamed for contracting the virus, and many students began to speculate about how that student may have gotten sick, resulting in stigma towards them.