RPL closed all branches and sent staff home on March 18 which means we’re now into our third month of quarantine.
(“Quarantine” is a bit misleading since I’ve obviously not been 100% locked at home during the past three months – trips to grocery stores, restaurants for pick-up, the “occasional” liquor store. Plus Shea’s going out to work in the hospital every day so “quarantine” is pretty relative for some yet, ironically, I’ve been doing the bulk of the outings for groceries and stuff and she’s limiting herself to work – home – work – home.)
Anyhow, I thought I’d try to come up with a few observations about what I’ve been thinking about lately…
1. One of the main things I keep thinking about is how so much that was unimaginable a few weeks ago now feels completely normal – everything from keeping a six foot distance from other people in stores to doing all our socializing over virtual services to being allowed (and even encouraged!) to wear masks into businesses up to and including banks!
2. Saskatchewan has done very well with keeping our numbers down. Some think this is due to government actions, some due to citizen response but for me, this is as much to do with luck and circumstance as anything – luck that we haven’t had any nursing home or factory outbreaks. Luck that we had a cool spring that may have kept people inside more than normal. Circumstances that we’re a sparsely-populated, spread out province without an international airport. In terms of the government, I’ll always remind people that they don’t deserve much credit – they were laughing at Dr. Ryan Meili when he was bringing up the threat initially, they were super-close to calling a snap election right until the very last moment, and their reaction in terms of serving populations – Indigenous, vulnerable – who they don’t usually serve well in the first place.
3. With that said, I wouldn’t have said this even a couple weeks ago but I think I’m ready to accept that the province is ready to begin slowly and cautiously reopening. But I am also *beyond* disappointed that the government plan had no mention of public libraries at all.
4. I was curious one day so went back through my bank statements and made a little spreadsheet of our spending on groceries, booze, take-out, and gas during quarantine. I won’t put the actual numbers but roughly, groceries are ~$1000/month, booze is ~$500, take-out is ~$300 and gas is ~$75! (To defend my booze spending a bit, I’m buying a lot of local craft beer which has a premium price but also a premium taste compared to a 48 pack of Bud Light for $48 or whatever they charge.)
5. If nothing else, one positive out of all this is that Coronavirus has led to a huge number of hilarious memes being created! 🙂
