121 The Waiting Game

When the global threat of COVID-19 began to percolate in December of 2019, I was a grade eleven student (16) at Glendale Secondary School in Hamilton, Ontario. Our collective mindset was that it wasn’t a major concern, that more people died of the flu each year; in just a few months, we were proven wrong. The day after COVID-19 was declared a pandemic by the WHO (March 11th, 2020), I received a text from my mom saying March Break would be extended by two weeks. My friends and I cheered, still naively thinking it was an overreaction.

But when Ontario declared a state of emergency days later, I became glued to the TV with mounting anxiety as the health ministers debriefed escalating case counts, death tolls, and new protocols. The lockdown happened so fast, we were told not to interact with anyone outside of our household, and to mask and social distance if we had to leave home. Early reports suggested that the pandemic could last years, and (having thought that a three-week shutdown would be relaxing) the reality of COVID became terrifying. I’d lived away from my relatives as a kid, and so perhaps that prevented me from succumbing to complete loneliness and despair. But still, I wanted nothing more than to hug my family and friends again.

After our back-to-school date was delayed by another two weeks, e-learning rolled out through Microsoft Teams. I was familiar with handing in assignments online and completing online summer school, but e-learning had never been fully implemented for “normal” teaching. School became independent, as most teachers uploaded written instructions or recordings instead of finicking with the unreliable live software. Every few weeks Doug Ford and Stephen Lecce extended the school closure, and I eventually accepted that we weren’t going back. I put more hours into schoolwork than I ever had, and staring at a screen for eight hours a day was draining. Now in university, after two and a half years of e-learning, I avoid taking online classes whenever possible.

To escape the confines of our home and get off my computer, I went for daily walks with my mom and brother. Everything was quiet and still, with very few people outside, but we carried masks in our pockets in case we passed someone. While I was certainly scared of getting COVID, I was more worried about my mom who has MS. We diligently followed the protocols to protect each other.

A light in the darkness came in June when Ford announced ‘social bubbles’: unmasked, indoor gatherings of the same ten people. My nana showed up on the porch to drop something off just after that news flashed on TV, and (to her surprise) I gave her a hug for the first time in months. The greatest challenge was being apart from my grandparents, and the reunions that followed were emotional. One lesson that the pandemic taught me is to prioritize family, remembering that at any point the ability to see them can be taken; I feel closer to my relatives now than ever before. Nearly that entire summer was spent outside safely seeing friends and family again. Even though things weren’t back to “normal”, the social interaction was rejuvenating.

In September, we returned to school in masked cohorts every other day. Each morning, we submitted an online COVID screening and showed our “approved” checkmark to our teacher before entering the classroom. By October, cases were rising, leading to capacity limits for stores and mask mandates, and in December, Trudeau announced the second shutdown. Our annual Christmas pierogi-making day fell on the last afternoon before lockdown, and on Christmas Eve my grandparents prepared our traditional Ukrainian dinner for our bubble’s three families to pick up and eat at our own homes.

While schools reopened in February 2021 with the hybrid model (until April, when they closed again), my teachers opted to remain online since the back-and-forth was too difficult. In June, I walked across a makeshift stage in front of the school in my cap, gown, and mask. Although my graduating year was far from how I imagined, it was still memorable: my parents arranged a ‘deck party’ where I saw some relatives for the first time in over a year, and one of my friends hosted a backyard ‘prom’ for us. We did the most we could in our new normal.

On May 15th, 2021, the day after my 18th birthday, I received the first dose of the Pfizer vaccine at St. Joseph’s West, 5th campus – the best gift I could have asked for! I got my second dose in June and later received the third booster in December, as well as a fourth in September 2022, on the pop-up vaccination bus at McMaster. To slow the spread, proof of full vaccination status was required to travel and eat in restaurants, among other things. I felt protected by these reopening guidelines, but anti-vaxxers argued that mandates were against their freedom. At the time I thought this was a product of contemporary entitlement, but I’ve learned that resistance was a common response in past pandemics. During the 1918-19 Influenza pandemic, there was a strong anti-mask mentality in many places like San Francisco, which had an “Anti-Mask League”. There was also widespread vaccine skepticism during the smallpox pandemic in the nineteenth century, including the belief in Japan that cowpox inoculation would cause someone to grow horns. While resisting a vaccine that involved slicing open the body is understandable, protests to the harmless COVID vaccine, like the ridiculous 2022 Trucker Convoy, are harder to reason with. Polio and smallpox eradication proved that vaccines work, and while vaccinated people can still get COVID, the likelihood of dying from it is now slim.

Three days after Easter Sunday in 2022 — the first holiday we could celebrate with extended family — my mom and I woke up with scratchy throats: the telltale sign of COVID. Two days later, having previously tested negative, we watched the double scarlet line appear. I felt angry knowing we’d been so careful. Thankfully our symptoms were mild — congestion, a scratchy sore throat, some body aches, headaches, and fatigue. We isolated together in a bedroom, watching TV and sleeping most of the day. The physical inability to do anything was the strangest sensation I’ve experienced. It was about a week until we tested negative, but the fatigue lasted for months afterward. I don’t have any lingering symptoms, but its future effects are unknowable. Unfortunately, I have tested positive for COVID twice more but was able to immediately get on Paxlovid both times, leading to faster recoveries (~3 days).

It wasn’t until September 2024, more than two years after the mask mandate was lifted, that I gave in to the social pressure of not wearing a mask in public. If masking hadn’t become stigmatized as an overreaction in so-called ‘post-pandemic’ times, it would likely be a more accepted part of our new, collective normal. When I regularly wore a mask at my retail job, I was frequently asked by customers: “Why are you still wearing that?”, or “Are they forcing you to wear a mask again?” As anti-maskers were once ostracized for their recklessness, maskers are now othered for being proactive. Much like the stigma surrounding testing for diseases like HIV/AIDS or STDs (syphilis) contributes to their spread, the growing stigma towards mask-wearing fuels the spread of COVID, especially since fewer people are testing due to milder symptoms and limited access to tests (which can now cost $6.99 each!). Although it is socially accepted that COVID is no longer a threat, its long-term effects will surely haunt us in the years to come.