March 2020 - a month of change

COVID-19 Pandemic

A little humour for these dark days

For those of us here in Vancouver, March has been the biggest month of change. Sometime in the future, I'm sure I'll be looking back on this time as THE month that shaped the future for us, so I thought I jot down some personal perspective, for posterity's sake.

4 weeks ago: I had a busy week working as an Extra - four days in a row, which is uncommon for me. On this day, 4 weeks ago, I was playing a doctor for an upcoming Marvel comics TV show, ironically. I remember being cognizant of touching things like door knobs and other common surfaces, but was not yet distancing myself from others much. Of course, we were glued to the news, watching the situation unfolding in China, wondering if/when it would turn bad here. Total BC COVID-19 confirmed cases: 12.

3 weeks ago: I'm up visiting my elderly parents in Kamloops, and we've taken steps to sanitize surfaces around their house, while we were watching how bad things were getting in Italy with how quickly their cases grew, and then moved to lockdown. I accepted a booking for Batwoman for March 16th, not thinking much of it at the time. I was washing my hands more frequently, and hyper-sensitive to touching anything in the hospital when I was visiting my mother. Back down to Vancouver on Thursday, when the WHO declares a pandemic; I started to get ourselves prepared at home for what I predict to be a coming lockdown. Friday, Riverdale shut down due to a potential positive case, so I told my agent that I wanted to back out of Batwoman, which got cancelled anyways, along with all of the rest of TV & film in BC. On the weekend, Whistler Blackcomb closed for the season. Total BC COVID-19 confirmed cases: 39.

2 weeks ago: Officials had started talking about "getting ready", and told people to not leave their homes. Having experienced the worst Costco shopping outing in my life, it was obvious that Vancouver had woken up to the reality of this pandemic, and what they might need to do for the coming weeks and months. I went back to Kamloops, and purchased groceries for my parents, and prepped them as best I could so that they don't have to venture out. Health officers and politicians talked about how we must social distance ourselves to slow down the spread. Later, back in Vancouver, friends and neighbours were out enjoying the warm weather, but staying safely apart. Total BC COVID-19 confirmed cases: 186.

Cocktails with friends via FaceTime

1 week ago: The official word came out - stay at home unless you are in an essential job or need to get groceries or drugs. After a particularly sunny weekend, officials chastised the "COVIDIOTS" for not following social distancing protocols. We heard that two of our good friends likely had contracted it, as had the next-door neighbour. With a downturn in the weather, sidewalks and front yards were almost devoid of life. Yet, when walking the dog, people would cross the street to avoid coming face-to-face with each other. Video calls with our friends became the new normal, and around a week or so ago, my wife started working from home, full-time. The house has never been so clean, and yet the "honey-do list" still grows. Total BC COVID-19 confirmed cases: 617.

Today: Had to go grocery shopping for the first time in almost two weeks; while the local Save-On Foods had put in social distancing protocols, it seemed very busy in the fresh produce section. Some people were wearing masks, and I instantly felt naked for not wearing one. No reusable shopping bags, as they can transmit the virus to store workers. Once I got the groceries home, we wiped down or washed our goods, but it still felt like a futile effort. We found out this week that another friend has it, as does her sister and brother-in-law. Aside from the schoolchildren, no one is enjoying this. Total BC COVID-19 confirmed cases: 1013.

While the total confirmed cases here is low relative to other countries and provinces, and supposedly the rate at which it is spreading is decreasing, I keep reminding people that these are just the confirmed cases - i.e. the ones that have been tested and come back positive. I've read studies that say that these confirmed cases are only the tip of the iceberg, and the ones that went untested, or where the individuals are asymptomatic, could be 10x, 20x or 100x the confirmed number. That puts today's potential number of infected in BC at between 20,000 and 100,000 people! Worse still, is the messaging that is going out from our officials that make no mention of this potential, unseen, "bottom of the iceberg", which is really what concerns me. I fear that the small relative number of confirmed cases will not make the general public wary enough, and that they will go back to their ways and start increasing the spread again. I hope that I look back at this post months, or years from now, and see that these predictions were way off the mark.