With Covid-19, live life as it is, not as you wish it was

Dear Tingasiga; 
The world matches towards a dark anniversary, a year since the beginning of the new coronavirus pandemic. More than 37 million confirmed cases, including more than one million dead – and counting. Here in Canada, the second largest territory in the world, with a population of only 39 million people, the new coronavirus has, so far, infected nearly 182,000 and killed nearly 10,000.  With the onset of the Fall season, we have entered the second wave of the pandemic. 

The impact of the disease on the survivors and the families of the deceased is almost impossible to quantify. The negative effect on the Canadian economy and the country’s health care resources, including burnout of health care professionals, continues to grow. The lockdown that shut down most of the country resulted in severely decreased business revenues, over one million job losses, permanent business closures, personal and business bankruptcies and other consequential shocks to the economy.  

Canada, one of the most well-managed countries with a very resilient financial system, is walking a tightrope as the Federal and Provincial governments, together with the Central Bank of Canada, continue to steer the nation through very challenging times. The Government has spent vast amounts of money in the last seven months, in an effort to support businesses and individuals’ incomes. As a result, the Federal budget deficit and the overall national debt have grown dramatically, though the fundamentals of the country’s finances remain sound enough that the alarm bells remain silent. The Central Bank’s  benchmark annual interest rate of 0.25 per cent is projected to remain steady for the next three years. 

However, in the words of the Bank of Canada, “it will be a long, slow climb to get everybody back to work. While the country’s job growth accelerated last month, full recovery from the crisis will take time, and many risks remain.” First, the extent and impact of the second wave are unknown at the moment. Second, the uncertain political situation in the United States of America, this country’s largest trading partner, does not allow one to make economic predictions with confidence. Third, nobody knows to what extent people will alter their personal borrowing and spending behaviour. 
To remain solvent, the government will very likely have to raise taxes at some point, an unpopular necessity that could well bring Canada’s minority government down. So, this quiet, undramatic and outwardly confident country, faces big challenges inflicted by an invisible little virus.

Meanwhile, our way of life has been severely altered. Whereas many businesses have resumed activities, very many people continue to work from home or go into their offices only one or two days a week. For example, the virus has turned medical practice on its head. Doctors, who were trained to have face-to-face interactions with their patients and families, have had to make a rapid switch to remote medical care for the non-critically ill patients. Everything is done online, mostly through video conferencing with the patients. 

Where this is not feasible, a telephone conversation is all that the doctor has in order to form an impression, request investigations and, where necessary, write a prescription for the patient. Fortunately, the long-established use of electronic medical records (EMRs) and Internet-connected laboratories and pharmacies, has made the transition to remote medical practice relatively seamless. 

 Of course, the acutely ill patients are seen in clinics and hospital emergency departments. Excellent medical and surgical care continues to be provided to those who need it. The governments have gone the extra mile to support healthcare professionals, complete with new financial incentives for those who are working in the frontlines, putting their lives at risk for others and enduring the increased stress and emotional trauma of anxiety about their own health.
 
For many of us, social interactions are now limited to virtual contact only. We have become involuntary hermits. I am writing this on Canada’s Thanksgiving Weekend that would have, ordinarily, found my wife and I enjoying the lovely company of our children and our very dear friends. Until Covid-19, several of us would normally gather at one home to celebrate life and friendship. Instead, each family in our social group is tucked away behind their doors.   We miss our children and friends, of course, but we are resigned to the new reality without complaining. We live life as it is, not as we wish it was. That is why we wear our well-fitting masks each time we step out of our residence, even for a walk that does not involve entering a building.

You will notice that I wrote “well-fitting masks.” That simple intervention has been shown to play a significant role in reducing the spread of this and other airborne viruses. It may reduce the risk to the wearer and, more importantly, it markedly reduces the risk to others. 

I wish I could tell you that all Canadians were routinely wearing masks. Studies have shown that whereas the vast majority of Canadians have embraced the practice, we still have about 20 per cent who do not. This is still better than the United States where less than two-thirds of Americans routinely wear masks. In Donald Trump’s America, a significant number of people, including the president himself, are against masks for political reasons.  
The situation in Uganda is particularly troubling. Nearly every day, I see images from Uganda showing human gatherings with many people with no masks. (wearing a mask that covers your chin or just your mouth is as good as wearing none at all). 

I have seen images of people at family gatherings, weddings, funerals, political meetings and such, carrying on as though the new coronavirus had retreated to the forests. Whereas we have been lucky, so far, to have had relatively few cases in Uganda, such gatherings, especially without wearing masks and physically distancing, is playing Russian Roulette with a virus that incapacitates and kills. It is certainly being inconsiderate of others who may be at increased risk of developing the serious forms of the disease. 

Our lives have changed. So must our behaviours. Whereas this does not guarantee that we shall not get the infection, it is every person’s duty to take up the only arms we have against this virus. It begins with acknowledging our duty to protect others and to do unto them what we would they do unto us.