64 It’s Just a Pandemic

Anonymous

March 12th, 2020 was a normal day. March 13th was not. Neither was the 14th, 15th, or any day afterwards for at least a year. By then, a ‘normal’ day had a different meaning entirely. March 12th, 2020: I was 15 years old, celebrating the beginning of our grade 9 March Break with my friends, going bowling. I turned to the TV, where CP24 was reporting that the prime minister’s wife had COVID-19. This was not abnormal. At 4:07pm earlier that day, the Ontario Government announced that schools would close for three weeks. Three days before then, Canada had its first COVID death. We knew about the looming threat, but not its future impact. All we knew was that we would get an extra-long March break.

Five years later, I still distinctly remember the moment I realized this was something different. March 13th, 2020: I asked to hang out with my friend, who lived just a ten-minute walk from my home. Both our parents said, “maybe not for a few days.” I spent the next week inside my home in Oshawa, Ontario.

I think I had it better than most. We had just moved into a bigger house, with a huge backyard and pool. I had enough people in my house to be occupied—siblings, my dog, my parents and my grandma—but not so many that I felt claustrophobic. That week, shutdown announcements rolled in: first schools, then work-from-home, then limiting contact with people, then major sports leagues paused. That’s when it felt real—not even celebrities could escape it. It was gradual, but we went into a never-before-seen lockdown. Avoid others, do not leave the house unless necessary, wash your hands.

The next time I left home it felt like a dystopian movie. March 19th, 2020: I filmed the garage door opening in front of us for the first time in a week. The outside world was different now. At Costco, we wore my grandma’s homemade face masks. I felt contaminated, my breathing was shallow, I did not touch anything, we disinfected every grocery item. I didn’t breathe normally in public again for two years.

Lockdown was not so bad, though. More time with the family, more baking, fewer obligations. The world was on pause, and I was happy about it. As an introvert who just started high school, I wasn’t upset about staying home, not missing anything, and enjoying my hobbies. My dog wasn’t upset either—seven people stuck at home meant extra attention.

Much of the blame we learned from history was large-scale: blame on where a disease originated from or on a group that transmits it. In this pandemic, the blame we saw was quite different. Initially, it followed the usual pattern: trying to find the source to prevent the spread. This information quickly turned into hate and racism against certain countries. Being a 15-year-old Canadian girl though, this was not the blame that I saw. Rather, I experienced blame between people in my personal life. Now that COVID was here, it wasn’t the source’s fault, it was that of the people keeping it going.

One of the most frustrating parts of COVID was that it never seemed to end. My family followed the rules, waiting because we knew it would be worth it when COVID went away, and we could see each other again. But that day seemed to never come. As cases decreased, we’d get excited. Then they’d spike again. I could see that many people felt this frustration—following rules did us no good. However, there were also people who didn’t care about these rules. We’d see people posting, going to parties and gatherings with no masks or distancing, despite us not even being allowed to visit my grandparents.

This divide created anger and blame from both sides. For the first side—they had been following every rule, no contact with anyone, so how was it possible for COVID to keep spreading, and getting worse? The only outlying factor was the people who ignored these rules. How dare they be so selfish, while we sacrifice everything, they are out partying, spreading disease and not caring. On the other side, COVID wasn’t stopping, so some people questioned why we should keep punishing ourselves by isolating—it’s not like we have COVID to spread. Thus, the conversation of blame and frustration with the other side was the topic of conversation on family FaceTime calls, government shutdowns, and public service announcements.

This divide deepened when vaccines arrived. One side got them as soon as possible, the other refused. I was lucky my family agreed that vaccines were safe—but this issue permanently altered society. When COVID still raged after vaccines, the blame was fully on the unvaccinated. I still remember exactly which distant relatives weren’t invited to Christmas. If you weren’t willing to keep the family safe by getting vaccinated, you didn’t get to see the family. How could we trust you were being safe if you wouldn’t get the shot? Vaccinated people weren’t the ones transmitting it, so the unvaccinated were seen as actively choosing to continue the spread. It is interesting to look back on COVID now, knowing our course themes, and seeing how the blame shifted. Just like the ‘Spanish’ flu, China was initially blamed by some. But after time, we saw the development of a different kind of hate— blame against one another within our own communities.

I’m privileged to say that COVID was a good time for me. My greatest challenge was the frustration of the pandemic being never-ending. I couldn’t see my friends or my extended family, and I had to entertain myself at home. Luckily for me, I’ve always been a homebody. My main stresses in life were school and socializing, but COVID got rid of both. I was not falling behind or missing out—everyone was stuck doing nothing. With my stress gone, I got to focus on doing whatever made me happy. I binged watch all of the Star Wars movies, something I’m still into five years later. I baked a new treat every week. Bagels, pretzels, cookies, souffles—you name it, I baked it. I spent time with my family, starting our own new traditions. We’d go on family walks with the dog every afternoon and we still do when I visit home nowadays. We’d pick a TV show that released an episode each week, sat down at the same time, ordered our takeout and watched as a family—we had no other obligations. I was lucky to live in the ideal COVID scenario—a spacious house, a family I liked hanging out with, a Netflix account, and all the baking ingredients I needed. When summer came, we’d spend every day in the backyard swimming, playing badminton, volleyball, basketball, or just taking a nap in the sun. Looking back, this was amazing for my mental health. I was a socially anxious grade 9 student that got all her stress taken away for a few months, leaving me ready to slowly ease back into the real world when the time came. I could talk about this experience forever but, in short, I’m grateful for the experience. The world paused, and I got to simply enjoy my life.