Perhaps like no other profession on earth, librarians are dedicated to providing others with factual, accurate information across an incredibly broad range of subjects (if you’re a Dewey fan, you might think of it as us covering from 000 to 999 – basically the full range of human knowledge!)
So one of the toughest things about COVID-19 from a personal perspective is that there is so much that’s unknown, unknowable, or ever-changing and it’s reminded me of how important it is to be able to say “I don’t know”.
(On the other hand, it’s also frustrating to see how many people who barely knew the difference between a virus and bacteria a month ago are suddenly experts on infectious diseases! Or how otherwise intelligent people believe coronavirus myths.)
Anyhow, here are just a few examples of the current unknowns around COVID…
How many people in the general population have been exposed to COVID-19? We don’t know (but probably way more than we realise.)
How long does COVID last on different surfaces? We don’t know.
How dangerous is COVID to younger people? We don’t know.
Is COVID only spread through droplets or is it possibly air borne? We don’t know.
How long will restrictions last in Canada? We don’t know.
What is the actual COVID fatality rate? We don’t know.
How will COVID change the world going forward? We don’t know.
When Sasha was decorating her birthday cake, I’m sure it was just an unfortunate oversight that she had enough letters to write “Unicorn” but not enough to write “Daddy”! 😉
Was nice to see this pop up in one of my social media feeds today – one of my favourite classmates in library school (and a real life rock star librarian!) doing a digital program (and I’ll likely do a longer post at some point about the library’s role and response in the COVID era but am still thinking about it a lot).
Pretend this is one of those Facebook quizzes and put a checkmark besides any words/phrases you didn’t know (or think about regularly) *before* a month ago when the Coronavirus began to expand and grow our language…
Six Feet (minor quibble – the Prime Minister and others regularly say “two metres” which is appropriate as a metric-based country. But I wish they’d say “six feet or two metres” sort of like how they’ll repeat the same message in English and French!)
Slow The Spread/Stop The Spread
Social Distancing
Sourdough
Spanish Flu
Speak Moistley
Statistically Significant
Stay at Home Order
Super Spreader
Telework (or “WFH – Work From Home”)
Temperature Check
The Name of Every Chief Medical Officer in the Country
