Knowing this virus has killed people is far different when it's in your house and in your blood.
It's a bit weird.
It hasn't been 'haz-mat-suits and rows-of-mosquito-netted-beds-in-a-desert-baked-hospital-room" weird — like the way they portray pandemic outbreaks in movies like "Pandemic" and "Outbreak" — but being part of the growing statistical pandemic data is weird.
My household had 1.25 per cent of the 70 active COVID-19 cases reported in the Lac La Biche region as of last Thursday. Two days later as the active cases in our region jumped 30 per cent, so did our household contamination. As I write this on Sunday morning, two of the four people in the casa de McKInley have a case of the virus.
So — what's it like, you might be wondering? Well, one is suffering and the other is showing few symptoms. Just like the debate over the virus we see playing out in all corners of the globe— some say it's serious, others say, meh. In our house one says it's like ice is running through their veins, but their skin is on fire, they can barely keep their eyes open, but can't sleep because they have body aches, a constant headache and a sore throat ... and the other one 'feels a bit tired' sometimes.
But it's not about the contrasting symptoms and severity. It's the fact that it's here. People have been parading across the province, standing on trailers in parking lots telling upturned, maskless faces that their freedoms are being violated by having to wear a mask, by being told to socially distance, and not being allowed to be shoulder-to-shoulder in stores or restaurants as the pandemic rolls along. Well — because of that mindset, my family is sick and we're now in quarantine for 24 days
Am I speaking about the the anti-mask folks at the recent Lac La Biche rally? Well — maybe. The little event held just a few days before local virus numbers jumped from single to double digits would definitely have provided the start of the petri-dish that could be behind that sudden spike in numbers. The same crew also had an impromptu gathering in a Plamondon business parking lot, with the organizer appropriately standing in an ashtray garbage can to trash-talk the government and spread rubbish rhetoric about the health initiatives. She rallied the small crowd into fighting communism, government over-reach and people who make them wear masks. She said the community needs to be free to choose their future.
I'm pretty sure Plamdonon has an outbreak now. Look at that freedom movement go.
It's just an assumption — but I'm guessing that if this mindset of selfishness and paranoia hadn't rolled through our communities, then one of my family members wouldn't be shivering and sweating in a dark basement room right now.
It's just a cold. It's like a flu ... they say. Let it run its course ... they say. It's a government conspiracy ... they say.
I don't care ... I say. Who wants to catch a flu, a cold or a virus? I don't. I don't care if it's only a few days of aches and pains, sweats and chills ... we didn't want it. I don't want to see my family suffering for any reason, let alone one that can be prevented. Who would?
So far in our house, our exposure to the virus has been relatively mild ... mild if you put having terrible aches, pains and fever on scale between 'Feeling OK' and 'Being Dead.'
Don't be dramatic ... they will say.
Walk a mile in our shoes ... I say.
Knowing that this virus has killed people is far different when it's in your house and in your blood. Watching it on TV, reading in the papers, hearing bull-horn prophets spew their alternate-science from truck trailers is nothing compared to watching it affect your son, your daughter or your family. Actually having the virus gives a person the exquisite luxury to comment on the dialogue preached by those who don't have a clue. If the range of symptoms in my home continues to run between 'a bit rough' to 'Uggh, I feel like crap', we are actually lucky. And I hope it stays that way.
There's still two of us who haven't had our test results back yet. How severe will it be if we get it? From what we've seen so far, it's a roll of the dice. Ironic, as that's what the people with their signs and bull-horns have been saying to their lemming-like followers. Roll the dice. Take off your mask. Fight for your freedom.
Covid doesn't care if you're free to make your own choices.
Covid's in my house now. I sure as hell didn't choose to let it in. That was a result of someone else's selfish choice that has now restricted my freedoms.
