Life in the Time of COVID, Part 4

Another four weeks have gone by. Summer arrived recently, with temperatures almost at 30 (before the humidity). Right now, it’s hard to believe that on Mother’s Day, we had snow! But this is Southern Ontario, and that is what happens here. We have moved quickly from closing up the house to keep the cold out, to closing it to keep the cool in and the heat out.

Ontario continues to open. And that is a bit scary. I went with Richard to try a bike ride down by Hamilton Harbour. The day was sunny and a bit warm (low 20’s). And it was Saturday. The park was jammed with people, very little attempt (it seemed) to maintain distances, We left without biking, and went to the rail trail some distance out of town. I am worried that we are in for a rise in illnesses, likely in a few weeks. Ontario’s cases, while not as bad a those in Quebec, are rising slowly. Two weeks ago was Mother’s Day, so this might be the consequence of that day. Doug Ford wants to test more people, so is making it clear that anyone who wishes to be tested will get it done. We watch and wait, holding our breath a bit. Some (many) parts of the province are now in “Stage 2” of re-opening, where the barber shops and pools are open, and stores can partially open - including restaurant patios. Toronto is the odd city out, as well as Windsor. Their rates of infections are still high, whereas the rest of Ontario is settling down.

And Doug Ford’s government has begun to get back to its old tricks. They have proposed a new bill for LTC, which goes in all the wrong directions: more privatisation, less supervision, less democratic control. Don’t they ever learn?

Otherwise, life goes on. I have now had a few meetings over Skype or Zoom, and they seem to go well. But it’s just not the same as an in-person meeting, and I miss those. I find myself being less involved with my friends by and large, less interested in what they are up to. I am doing a bit of gardening, which I sometimes enjoy. And there are now renovations starting across the road, which I find really interesting. We are getting the bathroom and the kitchen renovated, so there are new cabinets, some new appliances, new electrical and plumbing. And of course new paint. Right now it’s a mess, but it is beginning to look like a house again, and it is very exciting.

Biked with William the other day. And have been out myself a few times. Walking most mornings. Still getting up quite early (about six),and heading to bed about ten. This is quite a shift for me, but seems to be working.

Enough for now: let’s get this online.

Life in the Time of COVID, Part 3

It’s been another two weeks (seems like two months!) since I wrote the last entry. And things are starting to change—perhaps for the better.

Weather has been cold: we had snow and below-freezing temperatures last week and last night. When I went to the Metro this morning, at 7 for the Seniors’ Hour, it was snowing and cold. Not that it’s been entirely cold. The first weekend of May saw temperatures in the low 20’s, with lots of sun. I took my bike around the Bay, and it felt good. Even got some sunburn on my arms. Then it returned to cold, and, as I said, it is still around the freezing point. Tough that yesterday we talked with both our boys (for Mother’s Day) and both Victoria and London have temperatures in the 20’s. Our time will come.

But we have dilemmas still to deal with. There is the “mask” question. More people are wearing them, even though the science is unclear about benefit(s). And entrepreneurs have begun to produce some pretty nice-looking ones for sale.

Then there are the re-opened rail trails (hurray!!). How to navigate these without breaking the distancing rules, and still get good exercise. Right now it seems too cold to try, but that of course will change soon. When I think about this, it isn’t really a dilemma. I will use the trails and take my chances. And the Driving Park is now re-opened to traffic, and is busier because of this. 

Stores are beginning to re-open as well. We can easily visit garden centres, can actually go inside the hardware stores, and can get curb-side pickup at any store with a street entrance. Quebec has decided to restart elementary schools, and the rest of the country is watching with a mix of hope and fear to see what will happen. 

It is clear that there is not one, but many COVID outbreaks. There are nursing homes, then all the other places. There are big cities, then the rest of the provinces. There is Ontario and Quebec, and then everyone else. There are the poor, and then the rest of us.

And how are we reacting to all of this? We are fervently wishing for this to be over; to get back to some kind of normal, where you can visit and hug, shake hands, pat people on the shoulder, put down the computers to talk directly to people. We are by times bored, at a loss of what to do, and overwhelmed by the sadness of the situation. Humans, including us, were not meant to be this separated. We wonder what the new “normal” will look like, and when it will come. It seems that it will be coming slowly, and in measured steps. Looks like we will be in this for some time yet, perhaps eighteen months.

Anyway, enough for now. More later.

Life in the Time of COVID, Part 2

I’ve been meaning (and trying) to sit down and write for about a week. Not sure why it’s so difficult, since I have the time, and lots of it. But something, I think, about the amorphous days and the general, “down” news has put a hole in my ambitions.

We had thought we were hoping for some break from having all the news be about COVID. Be careful what you wish for: we had, four days ago, the worst mass murder in Canadian history, in Nova Scotia by (of all things) a denturist gone mad. Twenty-two innocent people killed by one man in 12 hours of rampage through rural Nova Scotia, damaging community after community; it will take years to repair the emotional damage. But I suppose it takes your mind off the pandemic.

What is hitting me is the difference between the acute phase of this, when there is some novelty, and constant re-visioning what we are doing to manage to cope with the situation; to the longer-term part of it, when you understand that will be months, and we have to settle in and have good work habits to just keep going. 

“They” say we are past the peak of the first wave, by and large. LTC Homes are still getting explosive numbers, and are demonstrating to the general public the errors of our past ways. Perhaps we will come out of this with a resolve to own these homes publicly, and manage them in the interest of the public rather than for profits. Perhaps we will see the need to pay the workers in the homes (ALL the workers, including kitchen and cleaning staff) a real  living wage, with benefits that include the safety equipment they are now crying out for. Perhaps we will start to staff them well enough to manage outbreaks like this. The cynic in me doubts this will happen in Conservative Ontario. The optimist in me hopes that our Premier has seen the light: his mother-in-law, after all, is a patient in a LTC Home.

Otherwise, life goes on, at a very different pace. The weather has been cold for April, but the gardens are coming along slowly. My bike calls me, and on warmer days I have been out on it. Without access to the rail trails it is more difficult, but I have worked on a few routes to give me several kilometres of exercise. And the garden cleanup has begun in earnest. Days are longer, which is helpful for mood, thank heavens. I walk in the morning with Richard, often walk or bike later in the day, do some reading outside of the newspaper, watch my screens too much, and eat more than I should. That will have to be changed.

So there is an update. More will come when I get inspired.

Life in the Time of COVID, Part 1

It all began so quietly, as to be missed. Somewhere in December, 2019 and somewhere in China, there were reports of a new type of virus showing up. It was related to, but distinct from, the SARS virus we had in 2003. And we didn’t know much about it. But it grew, to take over Wuhan City (a city of several million Chinese). Didn’t seem to be anywhere else outside this city. The Chinese eventually closed the city down, and then closed the province down, then closed the country down. They tested like crazy, built a brand-new hospital in just over a week, and suffered thousands of deaths. But it was still just in China, so why worry in Canada?

Then (surprise!) it went over the borders; travellers brought it to other countries starting in about early February, and the world began to notice. Public Health Units woke up (if they had been sleeping before). Trump denied there was a problem; Trudeau agreed with the experts, not Trump. People in general ignored it as well - after all, it was no worse than the flu, right? Turns out it is worse than the flu: this virus is smart, being less deadly but more contagious than SARS. It goes further and faster.

It has been interesting to watch, with horrified fascination, the march of the virus across the world out from China to Europe and North America, and then to the Middle East, South America, and finally Africa. It seems the countries with the most travellers got it first. In fact, Canada’s first major exposure was on a cruise ship (the Diamond Princess) in Japan. Several Canadians were on board, and they had to isolate in place for two weeks. Before being let off the boat and flown home to isolate another two weeks. Not a great vacation, but a memorable one.

We are, by habit, constantly comparing ourselves to the US. They were slow to get going, with the Washington administration at first denying it, then acting reluctantly and slowly—behind the rest of the world. They stopped travel from China, then from Europe (but oddly not the mini-Trump Boris Johnson’s Britain).

That now seems like an eternity in the past. We have seen this go from a distant threat to a present danger. We watch in horrible fascination as the numbers climb to over one million known cases, with overall deaths in the many thousands. And it’s just getting going. Canada is still on the upswing, probably. Perhaps BC has reached the peak (As of Easter), but the other provinces are still working to slow it down. Restrictions are getting more and more draconian (with good reason). The parks are being closed, playgrounds are closed, businesses are closed, the streets are quiet (there are some positives).

We can still walk, six feet apart or more. We can bike, solo preferably. We can shop for groceries (but there are now line-ups at the stores since they are restricting the numbers of people in the store at any time) and go to the pharmacy (which is locked, but they will get your things for you). I discovered yesterday that the local nursery is sort of open, so you can go and see their products and buy things if they have them.

And of course the hospitals are open, working in the dread that the “wave” of sick is on its way. When the wave comes, it will be hard: people are very sick, and will be sick for some time. Some will require ICU and intubation, and for some time as well. And the death rate with intubation is about half. Speaking of half, about half the cases in Canada are in LTC homes. I believe this outlines the fault lines in our health care system. We have underfunded Long Term Care for decades, allowed private enterprise to run it for profit; sat by while they sucked out the money by cutting staff and reducing food, not renovating, not offering anything but part-time jobs, and other ways to boost their bottom line (but of course hurting the frail residents).

In fact, this is, as was pointed out on CBC the other day, the way in which pandemics work: they exploit the weaknesses in society. In this case, they expose our population densities, globalization, neo-liberalism, even capitalism itself for the money-hungry anti-human system it has always been. Because of neo-liberal, global-capitalist ideology that has been prevalent for the last forty years, we are now in a deep recession and will be for some time. Governments are in serious debt; unemployment is hitting new highs; even low interest rates are not stimulating the buying that the economy has grown to need.

Are there good things coming out of this? Yes, some. The streets, as I said, are quiet, and that’s wonderful. It is spring, and the daffodils are about to come out (forsythia, scilla, crocuses hav already bloomed). The birds are back, and you can hear them because there are not so many cars and trucks. The air is cleaner than it has been in decades (it was calculated that the number of lives saved in Wuhan from the decreased pollution may have surpassed the number lost to COVID). We have re-discovered the telephone, and have phoned our old friends in Halifax and Montreal and Huntingdon. And we have the internet still, so we can FaceTime, Skype, or whatever, our friends and family.

Weekend in Huntsville

Winter this year in Dundas has been relatively warm and snow-less. So we have an easy time walking and getting around; and my back is less sore since we don’t have much shovelling to do. But for those of us who wish to do some winter things, well, we have to look elsewhere. I wanted to ski and snowshoe, and felt a three-day sojourn in the relative North would be good for this. Huntsville generally has some good snow, and my Chorus buddy Alistair tells me there is good snow this year (albeit not as much as usual). So I phoned the hotel Joel and I use for our canoe trips, and rented a room for the three nights (February 12-15).

Then, to my pleasant surprise, I got a call from my friend Richard asking whether I would welcome some company. Since he doesn’t appreciate the cold as much as I, this was a real treat, and I readily accepted. So the die was cast.

We left—laden with skis, skates, snowshoes, and the boots and paraphernalia associated with it all. As well as winter coats and hats, and so on. Got out of Dundas about 9:30, and arrived in Huntsville about 3 hours later. After checking into the hotel, we had a lunch at the Mill on Main: a lovely chili. 

Then a first effort at winter sports. We went to Arrowhead Provincial Park, where they have a skating trail, and I tried my hand at it.

The trail is just over a kilometre long, not smooth, and a bit rutted. But I made it around twice, and endured being passed by 12-year-olds! But it was a good experience overall, even if it was really nice to stop. After that, I still had some time before dusk, so elected to do a bit of a ski. The trails here were well-groomed for both regular skiing and for ski-skating. I did regular skiing, and covered the trail (again, about 1-½ Km long) two times before calling it quits. Richard did some walking and sitting, and was comforted by a nice hot chocolate he was able to find.
(This picture and the one above are courtesy Richard, included because they are better than mine).

And so went the first day, which we followed by a pleasant supper at Tall Trees restaurant. And then to bed.

Thursday, after a breakfast of bacon, eggs, toast and home fries, at the Your Place spot, we went back to Arrowhead Park for another skate before lunch, then off to Limberlost Forest and Game Reserve (a private large land area open to the public, with some trails for skiing apparently). I had never been there, and was anxious to see it and experience it. After some trouble, we found it and reached the office for information. The nice young woman directed us to the trail, we parked, and set out. Even Richard was there, for a while.

This trail was supposed to be a ski trail around the lake (distance 3.5 Km). Well, it turned out to be a fair snowshoeing trail, and was closer to 8 Km. Since I didn’t have my snowshoes with me, I elected to walk the trail, and carry my skis. So I was pretty tired by the time I got to the end of it. So was Richard, so we went for an early supper, back at the Mill on Main, before heading back to room for a glass of wine, some reading, and early bed (for me).

Thursday night got cold, and Friday morning was as cold as I have ever experienced:

So skiing that morning was not going to happen. We decided on a Belgian Waffle breakfast at the coffee shop, and then to go to Algonquin, visiting the Algonquin Outfitters store at Oxtongue along the way. This was a pleasant time, resulting in a few purchases, as well as a visit with Rich (the owner, who Joel and I have known for forty years). We had seen Rich the day before in Huntsville, but nice to see him again. We left the store and, after stopping for a walk on Canoe Lake (it’s kind of neat to walk on top of the lake, having many times canoed it), proceeded to the Visitors Centre to a lookout there and to see the exhibits they had. The day was clear, and had warmed to a balmy -16 by then. So after our visit, we stoped by the West Gate so I could ski along one of the shorter trails (5 Km) before the end of the day. It was wonderful, albeit cold. But you do warm with the exercise.
That night, supper again at the Mill, and back to the hotel. And the next morning, being our last, we went back to the coffee shop, this time for some oatmeal and fruit. Then back to Algonquin West Gate for another ski along the same trail, before a short pizza lunch at the Mill, and hit the road for home.

A fine three days.