10 Blissful Ignorance

My COVID experience, as the title states, was not very different from my current lifestyle. As I or anyone around me had not contracted the virus, I saw little need to go into lockdown. When COVID-19 was first beginning to cause public concern around spring 2020, I was 19 and working at a bar in Hamilton. As restaurants were one of the last industries to close down alongside one of the first to open back up, I was rarely out of work, and when I was, I happily accepted $2,000 cheques from the government. While I was able to work for the majority of COVID-19, I also frequently violated the Stay-at-Home order that was introduced at the beginning of January 2021. As I had recently become an adult, many aspects of my life had changed; I now had a girlfriend and my own car. In the eyes of 19-year-old me, I had everything, and because of this, there was nothing that would have held me back. Especially what I at the time thought was just the flu.

It was not the fact that I doubted the existence of COVID-19. I saw every day the cases going up on the news, alongside the rising death toll. While the case total continued to go up, I continued to go out to parties, dinners, and picnics. It was not the case that I went out less, but more the case that I became more creative in my hangouts. The potential spreading of the virus did not deter me from going out; what deterred me was the associated $1000 fine you would receive if you were caught. Previously, my friends and I would have gone out and played various sports or had bonfires, so we transitioned into having more private hangouts. We would carpool to one person’s house to avoid having multiple cars parked out front and huddle in their basement for the evening. Over the last 5 years, 3 out of 15 of my friends have contracted the virus. It is always possible they were attempting to seem macho. But every one of my friends that got the virus expressed how much the media was overplaying the virus’s lethality.

The biggest challenge I faced during the waves of the pandemic was discerning the truth from the media. I grew up frequently watching the news. I always thought it made me look smart, and I loved being up to date with what was currently going on. But with the introduction of the virus, alongside the sheer lack of information about it, many news platforms led to speculation. Some news channels would have accredited individuals discussing real legitimate theories while other stations aired Tucker Carlson blaming China and doubting its mortality rate. Unfortunately for myself at the time, I was more aligning my understanding of COVID-19 with that of Tucker. I do believe the misinformation campaigns that ran alongside COVID-19 and the introduction of wearing masks publicly led me down this path of ignorance. I remember the sheer amount of news stations and social media posts that claimed masks were harmful as they did not allow you to breathe properly. Just to find out that this would be a flat-out lie with nothing but ignorance to back up their arguments. There was a silver lining that came from my exposure to misinformation. It led me to decide to no longer use social media. Alongside this, my consumption of news now is through somewhat less politically maligned online platforms. 

A common feeling that circulated during the pandemic was the feeling of distrust. Most days, I would sit around on social media, hearing a variety of different rumors. Some pointed toward what the government and public health were not telling us about COVID-19, and others spoke about the impossibility of the effectiveness of the vaccine. Distrust was not exclusive to social media conspiracy theorists. The feeling spread into a general day-to-day distrust of fellow employees as it has been seen in the past that blue-collar workers still had to go to work to make ends meet. For myself, the CERB (Canada Emergency Response Benefit) was, in many cases, more than my traditional wages. It may not have been the same case for everyone, leading to some people having to violate the stay-at-home order and still go to work.

I had a difficult time warming up to the idea of trusting the vaccine; in many cases, I still do not trust it. I am not alone in this feeling of distrust. In an article published in December 2024, a poll was taken surrounding the mandatory requirement for vaccines. This poll, while having taken place in the United States, shows that 41.9% of Americans are against the idea of mandatory vaccinations (Ittefaq et all, 2024). Making the COVID-19 vaccination mandatory to return to work created many feelings of distrust towards public health and the government. Vaccines have always had a bad reputation, but the forced requirement to get vaccinated to be able to leave the house felt oppressive. This feeling would evolve as more companies would come out with their own vaccines. This would be because it peels back the curtain on the economic issues associated with private medicine and mandatory vaccination. Without entirely going down the rabbit hole, Canada was able to pay a premium to receive Pfizer vaccines sooner than planned (Rabson, 2021). This creates an entirely separate issue where economic status leads to first-class access to vaccinations.

While I may not have been mature enough to understand the sheer scale of the pandemic, I have since grown up. I look back on my time during the first days, the lockdown, the vaccination process, everything. It upsets me to think about all the individuals I put at risk. My girlfriend was immunocompromised, making her an easy target for the virus, and even then, I chose to go out, putting her at risk. I do not possess the ability to say how I would act if I were ever in this position again, but I would like to think I would do better.

References 

Ittefaq, M., Vu, H. T., Zain, A., Ramazan, T., & Kreps, G. L. (2024). Analysis of  public opinion polls about COVID-19 vaccines: Theoretical and policy implications for vaccine communication and campaigns to address vaccine hesitancy. Human vaccines & immunotherapeutics, 20(1), 2437921. https://doi.org/10.1080/21645515.2024.2437921

Rabson, M. (2021, June 14). Canada paid a premium to get COVID-19 vaccine doses from Pfizer earlier than planned CBC News. https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-vaccine-contracts-1.6063776