Collected Item: “Life under covid-19, June 2020”
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Life under covid-19, June 2020
Creator (put anonymous if you don't want your name to appear)
Anonymous
Date
June 27, 2020
How are you doing?
I'm tired of the endless drumbeat of bad news, especially from the US. I want to go back to the time when we had never even heard of Covid-19. I'm tired of the US acting so irresponsibly and afraid of how that affects the rest of the world. I'm tired of seeing what their irresponsibility does to our economy and the savings of people like me who had planned to be only a few years from retirement.
Are you isolating with someone else, if so who (relationships, not names i.e.. father, sister, roommates, spouse, your children etc.)?
I continue to work part time at home and part time at my office. My husband is a student and continues to study on-line. He graduates at the end of the summer. We're concerned about what the future holds for his plans to start his own business.
How has COVID-19 affected your home life? How are you passing the time?
We watch a lot of comedies (movies and old tv shows) and read fiction - anything to distract from how scary the world is now.
How has it affected your work, education, etc.? Are you an essential worker?
I work at a health related agency but not as an essential worker. There are only a dozen or so workers in the building at any given time. I miss my co-workers and I miss the fun and laughter we used to share in the lunch room. It's oppressively quiet at work now, like a ghost town. We do what needs to get done and then get out of there. I'm anxious about the agency reopening to the public soon. I'm worried that the public won't be careful about infection control.
What about the outbreak and response to it has you most concerned?
I'm concerned that people don't take it seriously and will be careless as the community opens up more and more. London doesn't have many new cases but the virus is still out there and there are so many ways of passing it around- touchpads are everywhere.
Do you know someone who has or has had the virus? How has this affected them?
Fortunately no.
How well do you think the government and other leaders are responding to the pandemic? What do you think about the local, national and international media coverage?
Justin Trudeau is playing politics, trying to ride the pandemic to a majority government. I think it's disgusting that Parliament has packed up and gone into hiding because Justin would rather do a press conference every morning than face Question Period in the House. Terribly irresponsible. The Ontario Legislature sits so why can't the House of Commons? The Canadian media is just pathetic for not pressuring him to be accountable to Canadians. They've sat for only 38 days in this session. He thinks he can throw money around and the voters will re-elect him. In the short term maybe but everyone's grandchildren will be paying the debt off and people had better give that some thought. Media coverage of what's happening in the US should be a cautionary tale for Canadians. Be responsible, be careful, be considerate of others, don't reopen too quickly. If Covid can get rid of the Trump presidency that will be a wonderful thing. Jacinda Ahern has been brilliant in New Zealand. Whatever the disaster, she gets the job done!
What challenges are ahead? How and how fast do you think normal life should be restored?
We have to take our time moving through the stages of reopening. We don't want to become another Texas or Florida. People there are crazy and they are paying the price in deaths now because too many people - particularly ignorant young people -wanted to go the beach and the bars. Unfortunately we see the same type of behaviour in Toronto but at least the province and local governments clamped down on them quickly. The states that have the worst covid numbers now are led by Republican governors who couldn't stand up to Donald Trump.
I applaud our doctors and nurses and frontline medical staff but I pray for the scientists because they are going to be the ones who get us out of this.
I applaud our doctors and nurses and frontline medical staff but I pray for the scientists because they are going to be the ones who get us out of this.
What do you think will be different after the pandemic? What do you think should be different? What will be better or worse?
The world will be upside down until they find a vaccine. I wear a mask everywhere but I hate it. I want to smile again. I want people to see that I'm smiling. I hope that some of the infection control procedures implemented now will continue when this is over--stores/banks wiping down touchpads and banning cloth bags. What is unhygienic now will be unhygienic then too.
Do you have anything else to say about the COVID-19 pandemic?
The government of China has to be held to account for their deception and attempts to prevent the world from finding out about the outbreak in China before it was too late. We need to never forget it and we should punish China anyway we can. We need to shut down our borders immediately when/if another outbreak happens. We need to learn from countries that handled the crisis well and from those who didn't. When the reviews are completed, we must follow through on the recommendations, not just shelve the report which is what happened after SARS. We must never again be reliant on despotic countries like China or so-called friends like the US for any PPE or strategic goods. We must become more self-reliant. The western alliance needs to work together to stand up to China. Our lives depend on it.
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