…there are signs that, for myself personally, it’s in a different phase compared to the heights of masking/social distancing/rapid testing that have been much of my (and society’s) approach for the past three years.
* I mostly mask when in crowds and/or as a sign of respect and understanding if I’m interacting with someone who’s wearing a mask. But otherwise, don’t mask as consistently as I did in the past in every store or whatever.
* I don’t wear an N-95 as often as I used to and often default to a surgical style mask (and yes, I’m aware of the differing views on the efficacy of both.)
* Shea and I recently had our first flight since March 2020. In fact, I would say our recent Mexico trip was a big turning point in how I feel about Covid – being in crowded airports, a full plane and then around hundreds of people at a resort (true, mostly outside but still…)
* noticing more and more locations that are removing Covid precautions (took a second to recognize why the check-out at Costco seemed so different a few months ago then realised it was because they’d taken down the plexi-glass that had lined their cash registers since soon after Covid hit!)
* I’ve organized vaccine clinics in partnership with the Sask Health Authority at multiple libraries around Regina since soon after vaccines were available. The last series I booked finishes at the end of March and my contact said it is unlikely they will be doing vaccine-specific clinics in the community going forward. These clinics have gone from lines that literally stretched around the library and into the parking lot to being very quiet.
* I had tears in my eyes when I got my first booster but when I got my fourth (at a clinic I organized!), it felt “normal” like getting a flu shot (and that’s likely what Covid boosters will become – an annual shot like a flu shot.)
* Weirdly, finally having Covid right before Christmas sort of felt like an inevitable way to “accept” Covid for lack of a better term. (One colleague described it as “ripping the band-aid off”.)
From my reading of legit sources online (not Uncle Fred on Facebook or r/conspiracy), I still know that repeated infections aren’t ideal and increase your risk for lowered immunity and other unknowable long-term complications so I’m still going to try to avoid getting it again if I can. But I’m going to keep recalibrating what it means to exist and live in a world where Covid is still around, still evolving and still causing ongoing health (and therefore economic) issues.
