There’s a challenge on social media to post the last picture on your camera roll before you entered quarantine.
I thought I’d take that challenge but go a step further to post a few photos and significant dates from my own personal COVID timeline…
My Personal COVID Timeline
Late November – early December 2019
COVID is found in Wuhan China.
Early January 2020
Given where we are now, it’s hard to believe that COVID wasn’t on my radar at all even a few short months ago. Life was normal – we went for a mid-month “staycation” at a local hotel, we ordered food in, we got to hang out with family. I mean, I know I heard about an outbreak in China but it may has well have been an outbreak of Ebola in West Africa. *Even* if I made the connection between something like SARS which also started in China but then led to an outbreak in Toronto, I probably still wouldn’t have worried that our systems couldn’t handle it by containment and, if not containment, treatment – just as we had for SARS and H1N1.
Sunday January 12
With buying a house in the late fall (and boy are we glad we followed our realtor’s advice and sold our old house in December instead of waiting until spring!), we debated it but ended up booking a Mexican trip only about a month before our departure date. In all honesty, a lot of my “seize the moment” approach to life is a worry about personal health related issues – god forbid, what if someone in our immediate family gets diagnosed with a terrible disease? Or gets in a car accident? Yes, I also worry if something changes in the wider world to prevent our ability to travel but that always feels unlikely – even hurricanes aren’t likely to make a direct hit on Cancun. But a worldwide pandemic that shuts down borders and reduces airlines to near bankruptcy over the course of a few weeks was unimaginable, like something out of a bad science fiction movie.
Thursday January 23
Canada has its first presumptive case of COVID-19 but even as begins to spread through Canada over the next few weeks, thought of canceling our trip don’t cross our mind. The outbreak moves more into “SARS” mode in my mind – “okay, it’s in Canada but we’ve handled this stuff before and we will again.”
Sunday February 23
Our departure date for a week of sun, sand and fun in Mexico.
Mid-Vacation
I don’t remember the exact date but as we are still able to follow news and social media on our phones while in Mexico, it’s about halfway through our trip and there’s a lot of coverage of the ongoing spread of the disease, especially quickly growing outbreaks in Italy. I remember looking over at Shea on her beach chair and saying “Wow – this is really turning into something.” I joke: “I wonder if we’ll get stranded here?” but little do I know, if we’d gone a week or two later or stayed for two weeks instead of one, that would’ve been a lot more likely!
Sunday March 1
At the busy Cancun International Airport for our flight home, we don’t notice anything out of the ordinary. A handful of cases have been reported on the Pacific side of Mexico in the past couple days but other than seeing a few people wearing masks (not unusual in many public settings as some cultures are more likely to wear masks when the wearer is sick or has allergies or whatever) – and our flight home proceeds without incident. As I write this, it’s the first time I’m realising that most of the people who worked on our flight are probably now laid off. 🙁 We’re home for about 11 days when the government announces that everyone who traveled internationally must self-quarantine for fourteen days. Oops!
Monday March 2
Shea and I are both off for our first day back in Canada so after getting the kids off to school, we hit Costco to stock up on groceries like we regularly do. We notice a picked over flat of Lysol wipes near the door but don’t buy any as we’d already bought a Costco-sized box prior to buying our new house/selling our old. Toilet paper hoarding wouldn’t begin for another week or so and we don’t bother buying any as we still have lots left from our *last* trip to Costco.
Thursday March 5
Wanting to do our small part to raise awareness, one of my staff members sets up a COVID-19 themed display in our library. I’m conscious that some of the books aren’t really scientifically-based, good info
Saturday March 7
One of the toughest things about the quarantine is not being able to see our parents regularly. This is the last shot I have of an in-person visit with my folks.
Wednesday March 11
I attend an election planning meeting for our local constituency. There are growing rumours that the Sask Party is planning a snap election and even though the outbreak is getting worse across the entire world, it appears that our provincial government is going to try to put political considerations over public safety. When *Dr.* Ryan Meili raises the issue in the Legislature a couple days earlier, the opposition laughs at him.
During Monday’s question period, Meili raised the potential risks of an election during a possible outbreak, prompting some government MLAs to laugh off the statement.
During the election planning meeting, I receive three text notifications – one saying Trump is banning all travel from Europe to try to contain the spread of COVID-19, one saying that the NBA is cancelling (!) its season after a player tested positive, and one from my wife saying Tom Hanks has been diagnosed with it. I interrupt the meeting to say “There’s no way that there can be an election. This thing could be at its height in a month just when people would be going to the polls.”
Thursday March 12
The next day, Premier Scott Moe officially confirms that he will not be calling an early election. Saskatchewan announces its first presumptive case of COVID-19. Montreal announces that they are closing most civic facilities including public libraries.
Friday March 13
In a meeting on a different topic, I suggest to one of RPL’s managers that, even if we’re not ready to shut down completely, we should at least be canceling programs like various other libraries have begun doing to minimize the number of unnecessary large gatherings that are happening. Shea and I also have parent-teacher interviews that day and debate whether to or not but decide to celebrate with the kids by taking them for lunch at a nearby restaurant.
Sunday March 15
Saskatoon Public Library announces they will be closing all branches to the public as of Monday March 16.
Monday March 16
Regina Public Library, in conjunction with the City and the Regina Board of Education, announce similar closures. Libraries will be closed to the public, schools will wind down by the end of the week with parents who can being encouraged to keep their kids home ASAP (we’d already decided to keep our kids home that day.) We joke that one benefit is we might have our busiest circulation day ever at the library. What’s not a joke is seeing so many regulars who count on the library for their Internet connectivity, their entertainment needs, and in many cases some of the only social connections they have.
Wednesday March 18
After spending Tuesday in a closed library doing a massive amount of cleaning, all at a safe distance from my coworkers, RPL staff are informed that they are being sent home with pay. (I had a good clue this would be coming when I received calls from different managers asking if I had a work laptop, if I had a key to our book drop, etc.)
And to bring it back to the inspiration for this post, I would say this is the last picture I have of myself before entering quarantine…
Since then, it’s been a blur of trying to set-up a home office, figuring out how to work from home (hint: lots of email, lots of online conference calls), reaching out to staff and community contacts to see how they’re doing. Keeping an eye on both kids. Trying to deal with the ongoing stress and anxiety about Shea being a frontline healthcare worker who, though not directly working in a COVID-unit (yet), is going into the hospital every single day.
Our personal life is on hold too – missing a retirement party for my first boss. A cancelled dental appointment. Wrapping up the bankruptcy of Coteau Books of which I was a longtime board member (that’s a long story for another time!) Missing both sets of grandparents. Suppers and/or drinks with friends. Getting a haircut. Popping out to the store to pick up random stuff for the house.
On that note, I have made very few trips out in the last couple weeks – a run to the corner grocery store when we ran out of milk and bread, two separate stops at gas stations to fill each of our vehicles, hitting a fast food drive-thru when we wanted a treat, hitting a favourite local brewery that was offering a growler exchange (it’s weird to try to find that balance between not going out *at all* versus finding ways to support local businesses that are having a tough go of it. On that note, we ordered delivery from an East Indian place last night and have decided we’ll try to order from a local restaurant at least once a week for however long this lasts.)
So here I am a couple weeks into quarantine. The days sort of blur into each other. During one conference call, a coworker made the observation that we need a new word for how so many of us are feeling – a weird blend of rising and falling anxiety, fear, nervousness, ennui, sadness but also occasionally moments of pure joy and freedom and relaxation. (I propose “Coved” that rhymes with “roved”. In a sentence, “After leaving the tip taped to the front door for the grocery delivery driver instead of handing it to them directly, I realised I was feeling quite coved.”) 🙂
Anyhow, it probably needs to be a different longer. entry. But beyond the immediate timeline of how our world has completely turned upside down in the past month, the other big thing filling my mind is what the world looks like – economics, work, government, healthcare, etc. – when this ends in two weeks or two months or two years.
