Columnists
It’s not a Cold
9:05, Sunday, April 3rd.
Let me just get this out and y’all can mull it over. The Pandemic isn’t over, I’ve got the feeling in my head. The Coronavirus is never going away. It’s always been here. It’s still here. To make this point, in the past 10 days I’ve heard from more people who have tested positive than in the two years previous. That’s right! I know more people who have tested positive for COVID-19 recently. Just because Doug Ford said we could drop the masks and get back to the life we remembered way back in 2019, doesn’t mean it’s over. Remember, Mr. Ford is all about the votes, and a provincial election is on our horizon. Are we, generally speaking, going to vote for the person who advocated continued mandates to be the “hero” who freed us all from masks? And, for the average person, it is about the mask. Oh yeah, some of us are happy to sit in a restaurant or cafe again, but mostly it’s about masks. So, thanks to Doug most of the mandates have been dropped— but let’s not be delusional. COVID-19 is here for the long run. You, and I, would be very foolish to think otherwise. Some folks test positive and never have any symptoms; others are down for the count. Either way, COVID is here for a good time, a long time and likely forever.
All I’m saying is in spite of our deep, heartfelt need to hand all of the responsibility of a pandemic over to those in power, we can do the right thing for ourselves and our loved ones by exercising some common sense. You remember common sense? Right! “If your friend jumps off the roof, are you going to do the same?”, common sense. We can continue to take the precautions ,which we know work, such as wearing a mask in public places and frequent hand washing and using sanitizer. We can do this. It’s not complicated. It works. We have to do this for ourselves, our family and our friends. In the past few days, almost 20 of my friends have tested positive for COVID-19. Many of them believed the lifting of mandates was a reason to stop being cautious, some of them said as much. Several of my friends work in the service industry and are confronted by people who are unmasked and have not been taking precautions because the Premier of Ontario has led us to believe it’s okay. He’s not saying those words (exactly), but those are the words we wanted to believe we heard. Unmask. Lift mandates. It’s okay. You’ll be fine. Doug kinda, sorta, almost said so.
And here we are. Thanks to those little kits we pick up at the pharmacy, the grocery or the hardware-eporium, we’re testing ourselves more often and much to our horror, the results aren’t what we expect. How could a person be testing positive if Bubba-Buck-a-Beer told us we were just about okay to do whatever the H E double hockey sticks we want to do? Want to party with your friends? Party with your friends! Do I, have I, got a cold? I can still party with my friends. Am I suffering from season allergies? Who’s bring the keg? It might be “the VID”, but I’ll just party with my friends, anyway. Should I have worn a mask at the Post Office or in Giant Tiger when I clearly got the notion it’s okay to go in all bare-faced and unsanitized? Get in there! It’s all good now, Doug sorta said so.
The thing is at 9:05 a.m. on April 3rd I think I’ve got a cold. I think LOML has a cold. One of our kids felt the same—and it isn’t cold. Now what? Well, now we test, because chances are it isn’t a cold. I’ll let you know. I’m not going to the gym this week. I’m not having anyone over to the house this week. We’ve washed all the masks and sanitized all of the doorknobs and the inside of the Rolls-can-hardly. We’re staying away from you and hope you understand. Even if we’ve got colds, we don’t think we should share our virus.
Be safe, kiddies. It’s not getting better. We’re just not talking about “it” like we used to.
16:15, Sunday, April 3rd—it’s not a cold. Ding-dang!
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