Who would have thought that this is where the world would be but here we are. I've been meaning to write this and plug it back with a date around March to look more Chronological but with the situation ever changing and developing around the World and at Home I think I will just leave it with this August 2020 Time stamp.
I think I first heard of reports on social media around the time of the Mac's tournament (Dec 26,2019-Jan 1, 2020) . I was busy and I thought it was crazy to hear about an outbreak but I wasn't really concerned. It was across the world in one city/province of china. I wasn't worried about it.
Fast forward to the weekend of Jan 18th, 2020, my family and I were on our annual winter vacation in Radium. I was seeing on Twitter the talks of Wuhan possibly going into lock down. I remember talking to my wife about it and telling her my thoughts about it. I thought this was insane to lock down an entire city that had a population of 10 million plus. I still wasn't overly worried, more looking in amazement from a distance.
Then media started reporting on how the novel coronavirus was spreading despite of the lock down and quarantines. It was getting more and more serious. I talked to my friend Mark and we were discussing why our borders weren't going to close to travelers from China. We didn't know why it wasn't happening.
Then on Jan 26th, 2020 the first presumptive case was reported in Toronto. It started becoming more real now. Feb 4th there was an presumptive case now in BC. It was getting closer. I started getting worried, but nothing close to a panic. People though, started panicking. People started hoarding. Toilet paper was the first to go. What?! Right but yup, toilet paper. Then all the hand sanitizers, and other sanitizers such as Lysol Wipes. Purel was nowhere to be found in the city. Amazon prices for these items were 100x their normal pricing (surge pricing).
March 9th, the government of Italy was on pandemic lock down. If you followed it up to this point you were aware of the absolute carnage that was happening. I remember seeing death counts of 900, then 1000, then 1000+ per day. I read Italian doctors accounts of the horror of too many patients and too much death. Reports of doctors not having enough respirators and having to basically choose who got to live or die. It was terrifying. The World was watching and in complete shock.
Fast forward to March 6th, 2020 in Calgary Alberta. It was reported that morning that we had our first presumptive case. By the end of the day my work sent out an email that the first case was one of our own employees. I remember this well. I was leaving a minor hockey playoff game I was covering and came out and read this email on the way to the car. I was shook now. Within a week of this we played our last minor hockey game playoff on March 13th, 2020...won a bittersweet South Final vs the Flames. But by that time we knew that our season was done. We were told before the game that the hockey season was suspended, at the first intermission Hockey Canada sent a notice that all hockey was cancelled in Canada...that included us.
Calgary shut down within a week of these developments. Things started changing fast. I remember running to the rink to grab everything from the room as I was worried we wouldn't be able to get in any time soon. My mother in law closed her nail shop by St. Patrick's day. It was becoming surreal. People who could work from home did. People who couldn't still had to go in of their business was deemed essential. Others were laid off. Fuck it was intense.
Everything was intense by now. Watching daily local and national reports for updates. Watching the infected rate rise, imploring everyone to stay in and isolate to "flatten the curve". So little was known about COVID-19 at the time and it made for some frightening times. My first few trips to the grocery store was an experience I'll never forget. I wore gloves, had a wipe in my gloved hands. Wiped everything that we bought and wiped it again when we got home. Not many were in the stores either. At that stage, it felt like COVID-19 just jumped out at you and infected you. Things were so uncertain then due to the lack of how it spread.
To be continued...
