9 Beware the Ides of March: A Reflection on the First Spring of the COVID-19 Pandemic

Despite the decision announced in mid-March of 2020 to temporarily halt my tenth-grade classes for two weeks, I only completely realized the severity of the Corona virus 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic on St. Patrick’s Day. I was at a performance in preparation for the 50th World Irish Dance Championships, scheduled for only a month later in Dublin, where I would be competing against fellow 16-year-olds. It would have been my first time returning to Ireland since I had fractured my right hip at a competition the previous February. However, a similar pain had just started in my other hip due to the intensity of my training. When the competition was cancelled, to prevent the aggregation of people from across the world and subsequent disease transmission, my initial response was relief from my physical exhaustion and anxiety.

My ability to view a global pandemic as an opportunity for personal recovery reflects the privilege of my position. As in the case of many historical outbreaks, the demographic categories that an individual occupies greatly influence their experience with the related disease. I was not subject to the racialized stigma faced by East Asian individuals, who were unjustly associated with the origins of COVID-19 in China. I was also not considered an essential worker by the provincial government of Ontario, which failed to provide a sufficient number of paid sick days for when these same workers inevitably contracted the virus. My older brother, a development planner for a Canadian seniors housing company, had immediately relocated to assist the vulnerable elderly community in another town’s long-term care facility. On the rare occasion that he would return to our family’s backyard, fully dressed in personal protective equipment (PPE) to minimize the potential risk of transmission, he would recount having to package and return belongings to family members of the recently deceased. Meanwhile, I remained sheltered inside our family home as the two-week school closure progressed into a full lockdown.

On most days, the furthest I would venture beyond this hub was on a solitary walk, exploring the nearby trails of my suburban neighbourhood in Oakville, Ontario. There were a few other individuals who shared this routine, but a fear of contagion and guilt underlay all interpersonal interactions. I started to only find safety when I returned home. My room, in particular, became the location where I spent my mornings completing the asynchronous instructions posted by my teachers in a virtual classroom, and my afternoons practicing tightly spaced dance routines. Due to these constraints, and those similarly faced by my peers, evaluations were no longer taking place, and new lessons teaching fundamental skills became a formality.

However, I heavily relied on the completion of academic tasks for a superficial sense of accomplishment. As I previously described, my daily routine was largely composed of lesson plans. I created meticulous to-do lists for each day after April 6th, which were all written in my red-bound notebook. This will likely be the most enduring record of my experience throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, as digital evidence, like photos and videos, will be lost if the software that stores them is not continually updated. Technology has rapidly changed since the beginning of the outbreak in Ontario five years ago. As I write this reflection in March of 2025, my memory of the specific details has since faded and the red notebook has been my most reliable reference. This is consistent with the primary methods through which previous pandemics have been studied, as anthropologists rely heavily on the descriptions written within historical texts. This is not exclusive to disease, as I gained an interest in learning about recorded historical events during the lockdown. In particular, the Roman Republic and Empire, as I spent much of my free time listening to a podcast chronicling the life of Julius Caesar. His assassination in mid-March paralleled the misfortune and social upheaval experienced in 2020. While learning about his rise to power and the populism that enabled it to occur, I gained a new understanding of the politics that surrounded the COVID-19 pandemic. The mismanagement of the outbreak by the governance of Western nations (e.g., the Trump administration) seemed to me like a repetition of ancient history, just with the addition of new means of distributing propaganda. Social media was the primary means of interacting with the external world during the lockdown, as more personal channels of communication were difficult to maintain. In my case, isolation from my brother and peers was a significant challenge. For this reason, I blamed the public figures who regularly violated social-distancing policies for the continuation of the pandemic. I had heavily overestimated the role of individual behavior in the progression of disease. It was rather the collective action of scientific researchers that enabled the development of a COVID-19 vaccine, ultimately reducing the severity of the outbreak in Ontario.