26 COVID-19: Missing Out on My Own Life Experiences

Anonymous

I was sixteen years old and in grade 11 of high school when Covid began. Geographically, I was in my hometown of Burlington living with my parents and my brother. As someone used to the suburbs and a quieter neighbourhood, I probably did not ache for the same social interaction that someone from Toronto may have felt. I remember around December 2019 when early Covid cases in other countries began making the News in my community. I heard people in my high school making jokes about having Covid when someone would cough, or even saying things like “that would never happen here” which seems so ironic to me now. Being in grade 11 at the start of Covid had benefits and disadvantages. I was not in a major physical or mental developmental stage that younger children in elementary school were in, and I wasn’t in a new stage of life like grade 9 students, first-year university students, and so on. I felt sorry for the grade 12s in 2020 because there was so much uncertainty about their graduation, and they were abruptly robbed of their last year with their childhood friends. However, I secretly felt a sense of safety and relief, believing that there was no way that my graduation in 2021 could possibly be affected by this Covid. Unfortunately, I was completely wrong and my senior year of high school, as well as my first year of university, were anticlimactic due to Covid. During grade 12 of high school, I was still living at home, but during my first year of university, I moved into residence at McMaster University which brought the first change in pace in over a year. 

I entered lockdown and followed the various laws in place regarding social distancing and limiting gatherings to only a handful of people. The strictest lockdown I experienced was likely in 2020 when there was a lot of chaos and uncertainty, and people almost took Covid more seriously than in 2021 when most people had already been infected at some point. In terms of my daily activities, I was hardly seeing any of my friends and extended family, did not see many of my coworkers, and stopped playing sports. I was no longer attending high school for full days in person, and when I was there it was only for one half of the day or to write a test. Since I no longer had extracurriculars and I did not have to commute anywhere, I saved a lot of time and ended up sleeping and exercising at home a lot more.

In university, almost every lecture and lab was still virtual, but I was accustomed to online classes so this was not a massive change. The biggest change for me was transitioning from being stuck in a house with my family to being stuck in a tiny university dorm room with a roommate I had not met before. Since it was my first year, I had no reference point for how university was supposed to feel. However, I know that they changed the rules so no one could visit other residences or rooms, and tests and exams were largely online. These restrictions continued until the end of my first year, bringing my lockdown and restriction experience to a full two years, March 2020-2022.

There were definitely big life events I feel I missed out on. The largest one is likely my senior year in high school. I had dreamt of graduation for so long and looked forward to spending time with my childhood friends before we all went to different cities to further our education. However, I was not allowed to see my friends because of restriction guidelines, and my school split us into small groups that would only come to class for half a day, and I was not placed in a group with my friends. Our graduation was also cancelled and I never had the chance to proudly walk on stage and receive my diploma. My senior year quickly changed from being full of beautiful memories, to lonely days and an anticlimactic end to four years of study.

Aside from the life event of graduation, I also missed out on spending critical time with family. My grandmother, who passed away in 2023, had been declining over the years and particularly during Covid. I felt frustrated not being able to spend time with her, considering it could be her last months or years. However, since she was older and immunocompromised, she was unable to receive a vaccine which increased the importance of my family staying away. In a similar situation, my grandparents on my father’s side began developing dementia around the pandemic, and we missed out on the last times of them having full cognition and control. Shortly after Covid, their abilities declined drastically, and they were not able to complete tasks like driving or cooking anymore. I am grateful that I can still spend time with them at their long-term care home, but it is a bittersweet feeling knowing I lost so much valuable time with them.

Similar to the course theme of the stigma surrounding infectious diseases, there were stigmas associated with having a Covid infection. Especially because the media pushed a lot of ideas about the importance of isolating and fueled society’s fear during the pandemic, people began judging those with Covid. I distinctly remember there being rumours in high school about why someone was not in the in-person portion of class, and if they had Covid. Anytime someone caught Covid, they were automatically viewed as having done something negligent. The conversation always revolved around what “promiscuous” behaviour they had engaged in. My classmates would question who they were hanging out with, how many people were there, why they were not following restriction guidelines, and ultimately the infection could tarnish someone’s reputation. I believe this stance was taken because we were impressionable high school students engaging with the media that would frequently shame people for having Covid.

My classmates did not consider the many other reasons why someone could have contracted Covid, such as being a frontline worker at a part-time job, having family members that are frontline workers, or having a small gathering that follows the restriction guidelines but still catching Covid from the small circle of people. As someone with parents who were frontline workers and unable to work from home, I could never completely prevent myself from the infection. The stigma associated with Covid caused me to both fear the sickness itself but also the social repercussions. Eventually, my mom became sick with Covid after exposure at work and I became sick shortly after. Fortunately, my family’s health recovered quickly, but I was still scared of what my classmates and friends would think of me. I felt the need to defend myself and explain why I had the infection, insisting I was not one of the people “misbehaving” during lockdown. Looking back now, I realize that this was a direct result of the stigmatization of Covid and can use the experience to empathize with the people who have experienced other infectious diseases we learn about in ANTHROP 2U03.