The only time I’ve left my house in the past several weeks is to just drive. I don’t get out of my car. I don’t really do anything other than drive… to see sights that aren’t my house, even if it’s just ten minutes.
The truth is, my anxiety is keeping me from doing much of anything these days. One of my guilty pleasures in life is Pepsi (it’s 100% better than Coke so don’t even try to argue with me on that one) and I can’t even get up the nerve to walk into a gas station to get some. I won’t go into the grocery store, and since you have to order $35 dollars worth of stuff on Instacart before they can process your order, I’ve been going without until it’s time to get groceries.
Yeah, I know… no Pepsi. Boo-freaking-who, what a horrible problem.
Honestly, stay at home isn’t awful. And it hasn’t been awful. The problem is the fear.
The government in this province has just decided that if they ask people nicely to stay home then restrictions aren’t necessary. As such, we’re the only province in the country without a mask-mandate. We’re also consistently breaking our COVID positivity rates each day. Tonight on the news they said that there have been more confirmed cases of COVID in the past three days in this province then there were in the first three months after the pandemic was officially declared by the WHO.
I mean… I guess we’re winning at something right? Testing positive?
I’m too anxious to go anywhere. I’m too anxious to do anything.
Every time our Premier opens his mouth I’m reminded of the saying ‘it’s better to have someone think you’re an idiot than to open your mouth and remove all doubt in their mind’. He’s an idiot. He is. He won’t mandate masks, the simplest, easiest fucking thing to do during this pandemic, because he believes it infringes on people’s basic human rights to live freely. While the rest of the country is in various stages of lockdowns and closures to try and slow the spread and not put such a strain on their health care system, he’s advocating for the laying off of 11,000 health care workers and to putting portable buildings in hospital parking lots for overflow. Some hospitals in this province are at 135 percent capacity and his response is ‘They went into health care to help people, so now’s the time for them to step up’.
No. You fucking moron. No.
You wouldn’t tell everyone to set fire to their homes because firefighters go into fire fighting to put out fires.
We’re consistently pushing over 1,000 cases per day, and that’s with the ‘voluntary measures’ they trust the public will follow. They have so many positive cases at the moment that they cannot even contact-trace. They’ve said they’re going to hire 400 people to do contact tracing to get a better hold on where spread is coming. Because, you know, he did promise ‘JOBS, JOBS, JOBS’ when he was running for election. At least he’s holding true to one of his fucking promises.
I can live without manicures and hair cuts. I can live without window shopping. I can live without the gym. I can even live without seeing family at Christmas. But, we’ve reached a 6.9 percent infection rate. Why do we have a play a game of how many people can we infect?
I’m worried people are letting their guards down with all of this news about a vaccine. The truth is, while a vaccine may come in early 2020, it’ll be months and months before regular folk are able to get it. Health care workers will get it first, as they should. Seniors and high-risk professions will get it next. Then politicians. Then, you know the most privileged of society. It could be July or August before the majority of the population is able to get it. Hearing a press release that a vaccine is coming doesn’t mean that we get to let our guards down now.
The bottom line is that I don’t think I’ll be going anywhere soon.
Hopefully in three years when the next election rolls around people will remember how thousands of health care workers, and specifically emergency room doctors, begged and pleaded with the government to put some restrictions in place that would stop people from getting sick and the government turned to the television and said ‘People have a right to live freely and get sick if they so choose’ and ‘That’s why you went into health care so stop complaining’. Okay, I’m paraphrasing on that ‘get sick if they so choose’ part, but it pretty much was a giant kick in the teeth to anyone who’s a health care worker in this province.
If you can’t tell, this stuff makes me really angry.
Doctors are saying they’re nearing a point where they’re going to have to choose which people to save and where to divert their resources because they’re stretch so thin. The government is like ‘Meh. I don’t have it so I don’t care’ and the general public is just like ‘Meh. Let’s go to a party’.
Okay, I’m done ranting now.
If anyone knows how to talk some sense into the human race, please let me know. Also, and this is so dumb, if anyone knows how to get Pepsi without going into a store, without needing the $35 order minimum, please share your wisdom with me.
Okay, one more thing.
I realize my ability to stay home comes from a place of privilege. I realize that a lot of people in this world work jobs that don’t allow them to stay at home. I just also know that we have had large subsidies to help people get through this pandemic in Canada and that the option is there for more, if the government were to decide to enact on it. The federal government offered $2,000 per person per month. The provincial government offered $1,000 on top of that. They imposed rent freezes. They imposed regulations stopped any landlord from being able to evict someone from a rental property during lockdown. The banks postponed mortgage payments and credit card payments for clients. I guess, I just… I think if they really wanted to look out for everyone, if they really wanted to act like the elected leadership they are, they’d do more than tell health care workers they’re complaining and it’s not that bad.
Also, I didn’t start this job I’m at now until the end of May (just a few days before June) so I went through three months of lockdown using these government subsidies to get by. So I’m well aware of what it’s like.
Okay, I’m really done now.
Sorry for all of the complaining.