A coworker observed that an occupational hazard of working in a place where we hand out rapid tests kits is the risk of people over sharing *why* they want the tests. This gives you this wild anecdotal taste of how widespread Covid is right now – business owners, parents, students, neighbours on each side of you, people living in shared accommodations like apartment buildings/condo complexes, etc. etc.
On that note, is there a word for feeling like you must have Covid, even as rapid test after rapid test comes up negative repeatedly? I had that feeling a couple weeks ago (everyone else in the family has been repeatedly negative throughout which is a good sign that we didn’t have Covid.)
On the one year anniversary of the original Covid shutdown, I created a month-by-month guide to the “highlights” of the Covid experience which I have kept adding to each subsequent month (and which is therefore likely the longest blog post on this entire blog too.) In a fit of despair, I recently copied the template I used for adding each new month’s content forward by a full year to 2023 after feeling like this pandemic will never end (even though email forwards from elderly relatives assure me it will be over by spring!)
When Omicron first came out and they said it spread fast, I didn’t really get it until I saw people getting it all around me – coworkers, relatives, friends and perhaps most shockingly, people who I would say have been on the “extremely cautious” side of the ledger for most of the pandemic.
On that note, no one should feel shame or embarrassed about getting Covid. I mean, it’s a highly contagious disease and we’re living in a province with some of the most lax restrictions in the country.
It’s been wild to track the usage of masks through the pandemic too – early on, use was even discouraged (though I think that was intended to prevent shortages for those who needed them most) then it was mostly cloth/often homemade (I wonder if Government of Canada still has guidance on their site about how to make a mask from a t-shirt – yeah, that’ll be safe!). Then it was surgical style. Then it was medical grade surgical style. And now, I’m seeing N95’s in *very* common usage in a way that I never did through any other phase of the pandemic.
On the flip side, I get it but it’s sad how many people are moving into the “We’re all going to get it – might as well get it over with” camp and almost actively trying to catch it. Text messages like “Hey, we’re at the [hip local restaurant] and it’s packed. You should join us!” Uhm, no thanks?
I have a billion other thoughts about the pandemic – from government’s handling to thoughts on people traveling to the personal impacts but I think I’ll stop there or this post could end up being longer than that “Covid Timeline” post I linked to above!
