Edited by Ann Marie Elpa
It’s March 22nd, 2020 and as I’m writing this there are over 337 000 cases of COVID-19 and over 14 000 deaths due to the virus. By the time you read this, there have probably been more cases and more deaths around the world. Am I scared? Of course, I am. I’m not just afraid of contracting it, I have a loved one in my home that is at a higher risk of dying because of an underlying condition. I also think about the aftermath of all this. What does this mean for the economy? My summer jobs? Summer classes? My future? Each time I check Twitter or watch the news (even though it’s the same news every time) more people are getting sick and more people are dying. The media has a way of making the situation feel as if the world is about to end, but I know it’s not. I have hope and faith that someday this will end on a high note, but until then we all must play our part and stay at home for the sake of people’s lives. I know that’s much easier said than done. It’s only been one week (in Ontario anyway)… How’d it go for you?
Here’s it how it went for me.
It started to get serious on the night of March 10th. Earlier that day, the World Health Organization also declared that this virus was officially a pandemic. I was on the couch watching the news with my parents, but of course, the news isn’t as updated as Twitter. I learned that NBA Players and celebrities such as Tom Hanks tested positive. I don’t know what it was about that piece of information, but the COVID-19 finally got my full attention. It felt like someone whispered in my ear: “No one is safe.” There’s something about celebrities that make peasants like us think they’re untouchable, yet here we are. From then on I started monitoring the status of all the U of T campuses, checking my email every 25 minutes for updates, reading more about the virus.
Everywhere I went on campus, I overheard people talking about it and eventually I was too. There was no escape from the topic. The main discussion, however, was debating whether or not the university would shut down – we all know U of T has a history of not closing the place down even if it risked the safety of students, especially the St. George campus. No one, not even I believed the school would close, but that didn’t stop me from checking for updates. The memes were popping up criticizing U of T’s decision to keep it open and the petitions were being shared to get the school to close and I’m pretty sure I came across events that planned to just scream at King’s College Circle and cough at the administration as a form of protest. Then Friday came.
And what do you know… We’re all stuck on our couches, watching our professors online, wondering if we still have toilet paper.
I’m not sure about your situation but I’m living with my parents, my older brother and my dog Mocha. To be honest I thought this would be a great opportunity for us to bond as a family like when I was a kid. I forgot that we all still had work to do from home. Each of us has essentially claimed a spot in the house where we prefer not to be bothered all day until 5 PM so we can get stuff done. My parents and I are working on our laptops all day while my brother eats, sleeps, and watches all day – he’s a chef and the restaurant he works at isn’t open. It must be nice to be him, but he was complaining about boredom after two days, so we’ll see what happens after a few more weeks or months of quarantine. We’re all separated the whole day, so it doesn’t feel any different from any other day, except for the fact that we’re in our pajamas. We don’t even eat lunch together because our work schedules are different. Maybe when this term ends It’ll be a little different.
Attending church was a little different. Instead of praising God with the congregation of the church, we watched the service on our TV like it was a show on Netflix. Clubs are different now too. If it isn’t canceled it just means you’re meeting through Zoom or some sort of video calling service. What would we do without technology? I don’t know how we would survive all of this. One of my biggest worries in my house is the Wi-Fi going down because that’s our main tool in this new norm that was brought to us all of a sudden. If it ever does go down, I already know I’m going to start cleaning the whole house for the sake of doing something productive.
Our pantry and fridge are pretty much stocked for a good two weeks. One thing that my parents forgot to take into account when grocery shopping was how much my brother eats. I work downstairs on the dining table and the only time I see him all day is when it comes down for food. He usually eats out so I guess he’s not used to taking it easy on the meals and snacks. The point of stocking up was so that we’re not out and about as much as possible. With my brother around, we may have multiple trips to the grocery store than we expected. I do miss eating out though. Not that I don’t love my parents’ cooking, but I have a special spot in my heart for the food trucks on St. George St. I miss the voice of the Brown Food Truck Lady saying, “Anything to drink for you?” And who could forget about Bubble Tea? That’s a whole other conversation and I don’t have a lot of time to get into how much I miss it.
One thing that a lot of people don’t think about when it comes to the effects of this situation is what it means for pets. Now whenever I walk my dog Mocha, I’m on the lookout for anyone else coming our way and potentially making contact with me. This past week I’ve had to move to the other sidewalk, take a detour, change my routes just to be cautious of practising social distancing. We also stocked up on kibble and canned dog food. The groomers may be closed for a while so Mocha might turn into a big furball, lugging all that extra weight around from her fur. Although it may be cute it can get to a point where it’s uncomfortable for dogs to have so much fur. If anything I’ll watch a tutorial on how to groom a dog. If she gets sick, we’d have to take her to the vet and potentially contract the virus or get someone else sick without even knowing. There are so many things to think about because there are so many factors that come into daily life, but all of that is changing as we speak.
I would say that my parents are paranoid, but I wouldn’t say they’re “panic-buying” paranoid. We’re all scared – some of us more so than others. We have family and friends in other countries, working in the medical field, and stuck in their homes just like us. We all have the right to be worried about each other. As for me, I’m one of many people that struggles with anxiety, so I’m taking all of this a lot harder than everyone else in my house.
I can imagine many other students can relate when I say that I’m having a hard time concentrating on my work and online lectures because the one thing on my mind is this pandemic that has taken over the lives of everyone in the world in various ways. I have no shame in saying that I’ve had two anxiety attacks in the past week and I’m pretty sure I’ll have more, but that’s okay because I have my family with me, my support system that will help me get through this, however long it takes.
For those of you right now, however, that are self-isolating alone, it’s only a matter of time when being alone with your positive thoughts is not enough support for your mental health. Trust me. Don’t keep it in because it’ll eventually explode out of you. Even though you may be an introvert or like your alone time, we are social beings and we need to talk to someone, so do that. Call, FaceTime, Skype, message someone. If not for you, for someone else. Someone you know may be waiting to see if anyone cares enough to see how they’re doing. Be that someone. It looks like this situation is going to take a while, but social distancing doesn’t mean you have to stop being social; some are even calling it Physical Distancing now to emphasize how important socializing is.
I know you thought I would be writing about the cool, creative ways I’m keeping busy while stuck at home, but I wrote this because I know a lot of you are just as worried, stressed, and bored as my family is and I thought this would give you a chance to realize that you’re not alone in this. I acknowledge how hard this may be for everyone and how much harder it’s going to be as the weeks or months go by, but know that we’re all in this together. (I know I’m not the only one that just started singing We’re All In This Together from High School Musical ;D)
Stay home and stay safe y’all!