All about COVID-19! Y’know, the pandemic?

No one’s talking about Covid-19, so I thought I’d write about it. This pandemic has taken us all by surprise, hasn’t it? As recently as the beginning of March, I know people at work will laughing and joking about it, and here we are at the end of April (where did April even go?), 7 weeks into semi-lockdown in Canada, with only a fuzzy end in sight. It’s fair to say that everyone’s 2020 plans have been thrown out of gear, mine included. In an ideal world, we’d have been 3 weeks away from our first European vacation together, in celebration of our 5th wedding anniversary. We’d have been starting our search for a bigger house, something we had been thinking about for the past 6 months. But it’s not an ideal world, and it probably won’t be for a while yet.

Everyone’s dealt with the virus and its impact in different ways. I wasn’t really, and still am not, too afraid of getting the virus myself, however, I am cognizant of the danger that poses to those around me. I’m also conscious of the immense economic and social impact this virus and the measures to control it are going to have. I fear for an increase in crime rate, debt, and mental health issues as people struggle to come to terms with this swift change in lifestyle from both a social as well as financial point of view. For elected officials, it’s a delicate line to tread between public health and economic survival, and I’m glad I’m not in their shoes.

Social media has been both a bane as well as a boon for me. Honestly, I’m sick and tired of hearing the word ‘experts’, especially because we never know who these ‘experts’ are and most of what they say is dire and hyperbolical in nature. They’re all over social media like a rash and are magnified 10x by every Tom, Dick and Harry, who in turn has an ‘expert’ opinion on something so serious with so many unknowns. Express an opinion on social media, and depending on your position, you’ll be attacked by one of two factions: those telling you how this is a government-manufactured hoax, and how the flu was much more deadly, or how the government is taking away our liberties and rights, OR those telling you how stupid you are, how you don’t understand the epidemiology, how you’re selfish and how we need to stay at home till a vaccine is found. There’s no winning with either of them, and I’m not sure who’s worse. I’ve tried to limit the insanity by interacting only with doctors and epidemiologists to try to get some sort of reading on what’s going on, and that’s helped to an extent, though I still do have moments where it gets too much.

It’s also shown me how much data we have out there. We are fighting the unknown in many ways, but we’re also blessed to have so much data readily available at a global, national, regional and even city level. As a market researcher, I’ve dealt a lot with data over the years, and it frustrates me when people present data points with no context. I can almost hear one of my boss’s whiny voice in my head ‘So….what does it mean?’ And this time I agree! There’s no excuse for presenting data points in isolation especially when there are so many variables at play here. This is particularly prevalent among click-hungry journalists who lace these incomplete data points with sensationalist headlines to form a cocktail of doubt and fear in the minds of a reader base who is already panicked.

An

d lastly, this virus has helped put things into perspective. I started this post off by talking about how I’m missing out on a vacation, but what’s a vacation to another continent when you can’t even ride the subway to the next stop? I’m not saying I’m going to stop planning or worrying when this is over, because that’s human nature (or maybe just my nature), but I’m definitely going to try to live in the present, in the ‘now’. There’s no point worrying about the future, or planning too much because you never know what’s going to happen when a damn pandemic is going to hit the world, something no one could have predicted 6 months ago. It’s almost unimaginable to type that line. I think a lot of us are still in shock, denial and grief deep down, but we’re doing the best we can to not let it come to the surface. We’ll come out of this stronger and better though, just as we and countless other generations before us have.

Thank you for reading!