First of all, why Day 75? Well, because December 31, 2019 was the day that the WHO first officially got wind of this whole nightmare, and we need to start somewhere.
Just like everyone else, coronavirus has basically taken over my brain. This time last week, things were very normal. I was watching Star Trek Picard with my friends, eating shepherd's pie and cookies, just generally living life. I'd had a great weekend of swimming and socializing. And then on Thursday all hell broke loose. I usually like to write out my thoughts when something's bothering me, even though I've fallen out of the habit in recent years. Coronavirus is definitely bothering me, and I'm going to have a lot of time on my hands, so I decided to take that time to write about it. I'm not sure if this so-called Chronicle will go beyond just this post, or become a regular thing. I'm not planning to spend a ton of time writing or editing, either, this is just going to be off the cuff musings.
For the last several days I've been crossing off all my planned engagements in my calendar. A long distance swimming event and every single one of my swim practices, shows, etc. I'm not sure whether I'll be starting to work from home at some point next week but definitely expect to hear from me a bit more if that happens. I have several coworkers who are currently being required not to come in to the office due to travel, and I have friends and family already working at home. I also won't be able to get any new books from the library but rest assured that I am well-equipped to read ebooks and this is not going to slow down my reading of books from The List.
My hope, as I've been telling everyone because nobody can stop talking about the coronavirus, is that this will be another Y2K scenario. That is to say, we will take the necessary measures and precautions to prevent a public disaster and no one will ever know just how bad things could've gotten. If we come out of this remembering it as a huge overreaction, that's much better than remembering it as an enormous disaster.
The toughest thing for me right now is that global events usually tend to happen very far from where I live in the middle of the Canadian prairies. This is the first one in my lifetime that I feel has really affected my life in a significant way. We're snuggled very safely in the middle of the continent here, where we can't be touched by hurricanes, tsunamis, or earthquakes. We get tornados, and more and more often in recent years we get bad spring flooding in isolated areas, but that's about it in terms of natural disaster. When it comes to security, the September 11 attacks were a defining moment of my teenage years, but although that was a frightening day, it was not a day that I felt that I, in my small Saskatchewan city, was in any personal danger. The girls in my high school who were supposed to travel to Europe in spring of 2002 did have their trip cancelled, but ended up coming along with me and my classmates when we went in 2003, during the SARS outbreak. This is when I remember hand sanitizer really becoming "a thing," and we had a lot of it with us on our trip, but that's about the only precaution we needed to take. During the swine flu pandemic in 2009, I was back in Europe, and to be honest I don't think I took any precautions at all.
I'm not saying this to be callous or minimize anything, but more so to say that the world has finally come knocking at my door in a way that it never has before. We truly are more interconnected than ever, and I hope that that will prove to be a good thing right now.
Anyway, here are a couple of resources I've been using to keep track of things/cope:
WHO's Noval Coronavirus (COVID-19) Situation Dashboard (updated daily as far as I can tell, as it says there are 244 cases in Canada at time of posting, but the Canadian government is reporting over 300 cases)
Government of Canada Coronavirus (COVID-19) Outbreak Update
Self-assessment tool from the government of Saskatchewan, via Alberta Health Services
(I'll add to this list if I come across anything good.)
Stay healthy and wash your hands!
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