7 Becoming Ice-olated in Hamilton

Anonymous

When COVID lockdowns started, I was 15 years old and beginning March break. I was in Hamilton, about 2 kilometers away from the McMaster campus.   

My COVID experience had a unique beginning. I was playing a playoff hockey game, and my team left the ice for intermission after the second period, and we were told that Hockey Canada was delaying the season. It was reasonably assumed that the season would end there because it would have only had about 3 weeks left anyway. I played the third period of one of the most intense games of the season with a broken focus and early onset of offseason uncertainty. 

We lost but it didn’t mean much because, of course, the season did end that day as sports and most of everything else shut down for months. After that night, my school board was entering March break with a 3 week break instead of 1. That turned into no more school for the year. The rules set by the administration were that grades could not drop even if students didn’t do anything else for the rest of the course. Because we had only been about 6 weeks in, nothing major had been completed so most grades were made up of early learning and simple tasks resulting in many 90+ grades. I did what many of my peers did: minimal school. My day-to-day life changed dramatically because my responsibilities were essentially gone and our government mandates were to stay home unless it was for groceries or an essential job. I stayed home permanently and basically played video games with a few friends. My parents did the shopping to minimize the number of contacts with the outside world. There was no other reason to go out so that was my life for months. However, I decided to complete the classwork for the chemistry unit of science and was under parental instruction to do math as well. Chemistry was about an hour of asynchronous work a day for a few weeks and math became watching YouTube videos my mom found due to poor teaching.

Virtual school began in grade 11. There were many consequences that came out of the situation, but there were benefits too. I can understand why there is academic curiosity from this mass isolation of youth. No events like this have happened, and the effects of isolation on society are fascinating. My experience in courses was very similar no matter the subject. Everyone would log on to an MS Teams call, 95% would only speak attendance, and cameras were only on by mistake. I was able to focus for the first half of the year and do what I was supposed to. The difference was that teachers had no way to verify cheating, and many allowed extra time and the use of notes on tests. This made achieving high grades significantly easier. The winter semester was similar but because I knew I could get away with low effort. I stopped paying attention to classes; I would iPad into the call, phone in hand. Grade 12 built on this by skipping exams and assigning many take home tests. I got into McMaster with 90s in courses that I didn’t grasp near that level. This came back to bite many people in university. I remember first year courses having midterm averages in the range of 10-15% below the historical average. Academically, many people were left in the dust on study habits. I think it took us 1-2 full academic years to perform how we were expected to.

I didn’t mind the whole situation though. I am an introvert, so this maximized my time to do what I wanted, plus I was forgiven for not searching for a job. The most surprising part of my online school experience was that once they allowed us to go to school in the mornings, I went. Normally, I would never choose to go to school, but I went nearly every day. There was even a day when I was the only student there with the teacher – not at all awkward. I felt happy at home, shy in public, yet chose to go in-person. I guess I was bored or wanted the change but still couldn’t entirely explain it. My friends weren’t there so that wasn’t a motivator. 

I enjoyed online school life for a year. The peace of being at home was calming and I was comfortable not attending social events. So, my biggest challenge was the return. I know that I chose to go to class in grade 11, but that wasn’t enough. I struggled with simple social interactions. I’d feel some anxiety talking to people like family and friends who I had either seen in-person or talked to during the lockdown. This wasn’t the case before COVID and isn’t any more either. I avoided talking to new people as much as I could and felt noticeable stress from anything like a job interview or class presentation. I still have some nerves now, but it’s not really a bother besides a few minutes before the event as opposed to over a day. I am now more confident socially than ever, but I am still not sure what my progress would have been like without 1-2 years of moving in the wrong direction. 

What I learned during this course reminded me of what I saw with pinning blame during the outbreak, lockdown, and recovery phases. I learned that during diseases like plague, underprivileged and minority groups become targets. This was true during COVID as well. I witnessed many racist comments and “jokes,” mostly online, directed towards Asian people. It started with Chinese travelers wearing masks before Canadians and many Canadians acted like they were being silly. Once infections started rising, suddenly it was apparently their fault. Many rumours surrounding the origin of COVID were spread too. This racism held true for much of the lockdown and may still exist but a new target group began to form. This group included the rebellious ones who thought they knew better and broke rules. From hosting parties and mixing social circles, COVID was spread a lot more and people died as a result. This same group became the anti-vax group once we finally had a solution. They still hosted parties, maskless, and unvaccinated. Tragedies occurred when these people spread it to innocent people like elderly family members. I blame the anti-vax group for unnecessary cases, use of healthcare equipment, and deaths. I view my position as the one that is correct in the name of medical technology. I won’t be rude to anyone’s face but maybe I’m still in the wrong for that.