119 Unprecedented or Unprepared?

Covid-19 was the universal experience that connected the world on so many levels in 2020. It brought people closer, highlighted our differences, introduced new ways of work and communication, and overall made everyone realize their resilience in the modern world. Although universal, everyone who lived through Covid-19 experienced its impact uniquely depending on where they were in their lives, what specific events were occurring, who they were with, etc. In this piece, I’m going to share my Covid story and express how the pandemic impacted my personal life and the lives of those closest to me.

When the first serious news of Covid broke, it was March 2020, and I was at my house in Burlington, Ontario on my spring break. I was 16 years old, in my second semester of grade 11, so when I initially found out that my March break was getting extended until further notice, I thought, “Wow this is awesome, I’m so lucky”. It wasn’t until probably a week into lockdown that I actually started to grasp the reality of what was going on, and that this wasn’t just a nice break, a total pandemic was starting. I think I had it on the easier side, since it was just me, my mom, and my dog. So, throughout lockdown, we were either watching movies, making weird viral TikTok recipes (because everything was viral on TikTok at the time) or going on mental health walks with our dog.

My city only went through one serious lockdown in March of 2020, which lasted until the beginning of May. Some people might say we went through multiple lockdowns, but honestly, it was quite vague and confusing. New rules and restrictions were coming out every day, and lots of people treated things with very different levels of seriousness, so I only counted the first shutdown of everything as a lockdown. This lockdown was a strict, do not socialize with people outside your “bubble”/cohort, do not make unnecessary trips outside the grocery store or pharmacy (the LCBO was very soon included in this list, might I add), and if you do go out in public wear your mask and stay socially distanced.

Honestly, a lockdown, where everyone’s lives took a pause for a couple of months, would have actually been nice if I wasn’t having the best academic year of my life and wasn’t a competitive dancer, about to start competition season. As soon as my classes went online for the remainder of the semester, I completely disengaged, started falling behind, and didn’t take my classes as seriously. Some of the harder classes I was in, like chemistry, were really difficult for me to grasp and get comfortable within an online learning format, and the others I simply didn’t try as hard in. With dance, it was really disappointing because we worked so hard as a team all year to go to competitions and compete our rehearsed numbers in April. To have all of that just go down the drain was pretty disheartening. Not to mention, we were always required to pay for all the competitions in full by January, so not only did we not get to compete, but we also did not get refunded for many of the competitions. During what are usually the most exciting months of my year, I was doing Zoom dance classes in my room, attempting to teach myself stoichiometry, and wishing the stress I would usually be feeling at that time would come back.

Covid-19 very quickly became political. How you handled it and viewed measures that were implemented, represented your personal politics. While the majority of people complied with the measures taken by government health officials, there were a few who felt very strongly about the extent at which these measures were being taken and to what degree they were actually effective. Some people believed that the masking and the mandatory vaccinations were a violation of human rights and their freedoms, when in reality it was just simple science and consideration for others around you. I was immediately reminded of this situation when we were learning about some of the public responses to the 1918 Influenza virus. I found some of the more adverse reactions to masking in 1918 very similar to those who were against masking and vaccines during Covid. It’s a little strange and maybe concerning to me that the reactions from 1918 were so similar to those in 2020, with anti-mask group meet-ups, posters, protests, etc. I would have thought that with the exponential growth of science, research, and healthcare since 1918, we would have more trust in the science behind it all, versus simply associating someone telling us to put a mask on with a violation of our freedom.

Covid-19 managed to impact a lot of significant life events for a lot of people. The “unprecedented times” line was used more times than I’d like to remember, and it seemed to be an excuse for everything and anything. Although both my graduation and prom in 2021 were not directly affected by the initial covid lockdown, my year got the residual effects which in my opinion was just as disappointing. My graduation from high school was me, alone, with my mom who had to stay in her car, walking across the parking lot of my high school to receive my diploma, and then going home. That was it. That was the way I capped off those 4 years of my life. Prom? None. Whether it was due to restrictions or just the lack of care from school, my year also did not get a prom. This, more than disappointing, underwhelming display of congratulations from my school also came after a whole year of back and forth, wishy-washy, maybe we are maybe we aren’t, kind of thing. So, that last year really was a confusing unprecedented emotional rollercoaster that nobody knew the ending too.

Now, my high school prom and graduation are both trivial events which I’ve gotten over. Something that I have not managed to look past, nor have I forgiven or will ever forget, is the passing of grandmother during Covid-19. My grandmother was sick all throughout Covid, luckily she never contracted coronavirus, but her health deteriorated a lot over this specific time period. In November of 2020, she passed away after having a stroke in the hospital, and I wasn’t allowed to go visit her in those final days of life. This was one of the most difficult moments to accept and probably made me resent Covid and all of its rules, restrictions, and regulations to this day. The hospital had a two-visitor rule, and those visitors could not change in order to mitigate any possibility of contamination. I’m glad my mother and grandfather were able to be there with her in the last few days of her life. But I would have really loved the chance to tell her how much I loved her one more time, or to have just held her hand one more time, and to have simply said my proper goodbyes. I was not the only person who dealt with something like this at the time, and many people probably had to go through worse, but if I was ever entitled to anything, no matter what risks I posed (even though I was completely vaccinated and prepared to wear a hazmat suit), it should’ve been the opportunity to say goodbye to my grandmother.