97 Paradise or Prison?

When COVID-19 sent Canada into lockdown, I was in Aspen, Colorado on a ski trip for the March break with my family and another family. I was fourteen years old, in ninth grade, and a hypochondriac. I remember the panic that immediately ensued when the rumors flew around the community that a group of skiers from Australia had tested positive for the newly disquieting disease. Now, in 2025, almost everyone I know has had Covid-19 at least once, but in March 2020, nobody knew what to expect. All we knew for sure was that it was spreading rapidly, and that people were dying. Borders were closing, and if it weren’t for our extreme privilege in that moment when our friends were able to quickly charter us a flight home, the chances that we would have been able to book a commercial flight back into Canada in time would have been very slim. When we returned to our home in Toronto, our friends we had vacationed with graciously offered to continue to isolate with them at their property in Muskoka, Ontario, about 3 hours north, to which we happily agreed. From the middle of March to the beginning of May 2020, my family of four moved in with their family of six to a relatively small, very isolated house on a lake.

Over the next two months, we were entirely remote. Almost all of the neighbouring houses were cottages, so they were empty during the springtime aside from a few families that decided to do the same as us. Living in our house were six children — I was the oldest, at fourteen, my sister was eleven, and our close family friends had three boys, ages twelve, ten, and eight, and their youngest, a four-year-old girl. Our four parents left the property only once a week to drive into town to buy groceries. These first two months were terrifying for the entire country, and we were extremely lucky; everyone we knew from home, who were forced, to quarantine in the city did not have the luxury of a large open property. Nature served as our escape, but like everyone else, we still struggled with isolation. To combat the stress that came with quarantine, our parents scheduled us activities that included daily walks, and mule drives in the forest, baking, even canoeing, kayaking, and paddleboarding when the ice began to melt. At this time, schools were still figuring out how to move online, so we created our own “school”, and had different educational activities for each subject, but I rarely participated. This was a particularly difficult time for me. I had begun to struggle with my mental health in the months prior to COVID-19, and when I was forced into quarantine, I isolated myself even further. Just two weeks after we temporarily moved to Muskoka, I decided that I was sick of our new life. I moved out of the room I was sharing with my sister and the 4-year-old girl, and into a small apartment above the garage just a few feet away from the main house. I hardly socialized with the other kids, I wanted to eat in my apartment, but my family insisted I eat with the group which I reluctantly did. The more time we were forced to spend together, the more tensions rose, the more there was fighting, and our paradise quickly became a prison. Around the time I moved into the apartment, the mother of the other family was diagnosed with COVID-19, and this was an extremely early case. We had a “secure in place” order which did not let us return to Toronto until it was lifted around the end of April. When we returned to Toronto, we were still required to quarantine, and it was not until the summer of 2020 that we began socializing again, but with strict rules. The hard part was over, but by this time, COVID-19 had reached Ontario, and almost everyone became sick at some point. Fortunately, everybody I knew made a full recovery. In September of 2021, school returned but with mask mandates and required social distancing. We also had to complete a health questionnaire to be scanned on our way into school every morning in order to be allowed inside. These restrictions started to lift by April of 2022, and more than two years after the initial lockdown, life finally began to return to normal.

The cultural impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic will be felt for decades to come, and I believe that some of these changes will have a permanent effect. In my experience, COVID-19 created a more germ-conscious society. It has normalized the usage of face masks in public, although many would consider COVID-19 to be “over”, I still see masks being used by almost half of the riders on Toronto public transit, an occurrence that was rare before the pandemic. During lockdown, my family adopted the tradition of fanning an object to put out the candles on a birthday cake as opposed to blowing on them, spreading respiratory droplets all over the cake, and this is a practice that has stuck with us. By far the most significant change I have noticed since COVID-19 is the normalization of virtual interactions. Even when school returned to in-person learning, many of the virtual components that were developed during quarantine stayed in place. Virtual meetings have become much more commonplace, and I see this as a permanent change directly related to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Privilege has had a place in every pandemic the world has experienced. Historically, privilege has been associated with good health, and this is something I witnessed firsthand during COVID-19. I was one of the wealthy, white, and Western families who had early access to the COVID-19 vaccine. I remember watching the lineup outside the ice rink where vaccines were being administered early on and walking past the families who had been waiting for hours, while we skipped the line because our friends had money and connections. At our new home in Muskoka, we had an abundance of COVID-testing kits, antibody testing kits, and enough food and PPE equipment to last a lifetime. I was heavily involved in social justice from a young age and had a difficult time understanding and taking advantage of the opportunities I was handed without feeling a sense of guilt. One of the few things that eased my discomfort was the hefty donation made by the family we were quarantining with, but somehow, I didn’t feel like it made up for the resources I felt that I was abusing. I refused to help put away the groceries when our parents returned with them once a week because I knew how much of them were going to be wasted. We had Cleveland Clinic come into the house administering PCR tests once a week, for what? It was not like we were going anywhere. We did it because we could.  I don’t know if that’s something I will ever be able to fully accept without feeling a sense of shame. I will always feel grateful, but I will also always feel guilty, and I am not sure that I will ever completely understand why.