Covid Times Were Not a Free Pass

As I, like many others, will probably always associate Covid with this time of year, just a little, I think it's important to use this reflective mood to consider what we still need to address from that disruptive period we all lived through.

I think because of its pausing nature, people tend to view that time as a separate part of their lives, something that can be encapsulated and seen as not part of the greater whole. However, it all absolutely counted, was a part of your life, and not just a diversion from it. You have to think of it all in that context.

For example, we may never fully get over the idea that certain things are optional after we were repeatedly told that almost everything we previously couldn't imagine cutting out of life was, in fact, not essential.

It has been the duty of many to demonstrate that things we were told were right at the time were actually wrong - a perspective I share.

School closures did way more damage to kids than the disease itself ever had the potential to. Similarly, limiting access to healthcare essentially ensured our now seemingly permanent restricted access to healthcare. And while I see the value in health guidelines, I've always felt that any mandates or shutdowns were a disproportionate response to the actual risk of disease.

But I want to focus a bit more on the less tangible damage done and how we all likely changed forever, because of it. Ironically, given that things like vaccine passports and the convoy brought out divisions - I suspect the extent of damage done in this respect is something we can all agree on, though it’s not being widely discussed.

I think we don’t really want to talk about it because it hurts a bit to admit that it wasn’t just a contained, separate experience; it fundamentally altered how we relate to each other, changed many people’s views of family, and weakened social bonds.

You’ll always remember who deemed you important enough to make exceptions for, and who didn’t.

It’s not merely about being for or against Covid restrictions; people on both sides discovered how little some truly valued them. It became unmistakably clear who was genuinely in their circle, or not, when it really came down to it.

Figuring out who is more or less right in the myriad of personal conflicts is ultimately unresolvable, due to the complexities of relationships and the depth of felt slights.

But the Covid experience might have crystallized other past experiences, including issues we thought we had resolved but never quite did, especially the painful ones. It served as a reminder of these uncomfortable dynamics, highlighting how much, or how little, we are truly prioritized by others.

Personally, I found it quite sobering to realize that although my family of origin was happy to include me in routine events when convenient, I couldn’t actually count on them when it really mattered. Ultimately, I wasn’t important enough for them to make any extra effort to step out of their comfort zones.

Now, they expect me to start making exceptions and going out of my way for them as I might have before, as if none of it mattered - but I just can’t. It mattered a lot. I know now that when it truly counts, they won’t choose me, and it would be foolish of me not to adjust my own priorities in response.

It's nothing new, really; I can think of many things that should have clued me in sooner. This was just what finally made it clear.

So, I'm simply no longer willing to sacrifice time for those who don’t value me as much, preferring instead to spend it with people who genuinely do, and bring more joy to my life.

I don’t want to bad-mouth any of them too specifically, even anonymously. Once I decide to distance myself from people, even without a complete disconnect, I prefer to truly move on and not dwell too much on any bitterness.

They might pretend not to understand why I’m more distant than before, but they do; I’ve made it clear. They just don’t want to listen, preferring to act as if those times didn’t count.

But it all counted - probably even more than in less eventful times. I think what people do under pressure shows who they really are, more than anything else.

And just like in a family, our broader societal family can’t truly move forward without first addressing and acknowledging the wrongs and significant harm done under the guise of good intentions, which were often, in reality, quite myopic and selfish.

Too many remain unwaveringly committed to the belief that everything done in the name of Covid was justified. I disagree with them, but even if you don’t, the extent of the unraveling since then is hard to deny.

The collective reluctance to question the necessity of any restrictions, even with hindsight, or to acknowledge that current issues may stem from them, only strengthens my belief that most people were never fully convinced of their justification. They just didn’t, and still don't, want to be the ones to question them.

Because admitting this means facing the tough reality that we might not have needed to lose years in the way we did. It's hard to admit, even to ourselves, that what was ostensibly done for the greater good might have instead caused deeper, more lasting damage.

I’ve already noted how school closures hurt kids while doing little to stop the spread of Covid, as well as how the shutdowns and delays in non-emergency procedures and treatments exacerbated the healthcare crisis by causing backlogs and increased pressure on services.

And we all understand, even if it’s left unsaid by many, that our current economic woes were made worse by fiscal stimulus and supply chain disruptions in response to Covid, which spurred inflation by increasing demand and limiting supply - although, as with healthcare,  other long-standing poor policies also contributed.

But revisiting the notion of felt slights, this time at a societal level, I can’t help but think that younger people are struggling to overlook the substantial sacrifices they made for older generations.

Even though considerable efforts were made at the time to obscure this fact, it was, and is, widely known that only the elderly and frail were ever truly at risk. Yet, older people don’t seem to feel any need to reciprocate such extraordinary efforts.

Just imagine if we treated the housing and cost of living crises, which disproportionately affect the young who haven’t had the chance to accumulate wealth and assets, with the same urgency we applied to Covid.

I would argue that affording shelter and the basic necessities of life is not only as crucial as avoiding disease, but also essential for maintaining health in the long run. However, it appears the older demographic is not willing to sacrifice any of their comforts for the younger generation’s security, even though such sacrifices were made for them.

They aren’t even willing to concede the good changes that came from our Covid response, let alone make any further, more intentional efforts.

They are still pushing people to give up the benefits of working from home - where they enjoy more time with loved ones and less commuting - for outdated practices which waste time and carbon, just to attend virtual meetings that could have been done from home, if only their geriatric boss could adapt to modern collaboration tools.

But we won't just forget that what we used to think we had to do, and how we used to do it, turned out to be completely optional. This applies to the way “things are done” in general, not just remote work.

This breaking of the spell of “the way things are” has many drawbacks, too. I think not being around other people as much, for so long, led us to become all too used to not considering others.

This is something I think about in the context of skyrocketing crime, car theft, and home invasions across Canada. I wonder if, in addition to being a consequence of exacerbating economic inequality, it could also be because we shrunk people's circles so small during Covid, for so long, that civic duty now seems like putting a square peg in a round hole.

I think we may need to consider broken norms in the context of police who don’t want to police, as well. I was kind of grateful when many Ontario police forces refused to enforce Covid measures that allowed police to stop motorists and pedestrians and ask where they lived and why they weren’t at home, citing concerns for civil liberties.

But I'm wondering if the police's unwillingness to intervene in more traditional crimes now - suggesting that citizens simply give up and make it easier for car thieves to steal their property - might be an offshoot of that same mindset. Perhaps we should have debated such measures more vigorously to stop them at their source, instead of relying on the police becoming resigned to giving up.

It's apparent that I'm not alone in being willing to move on, but not necessarily with the same way of relating to people, or with the same norms in place.

We really do need to talk about all of this, now that we’ve all had a chance to cool off. It shouldn’t be taboo to admit that perhaps we shouldn’t have done what we did, that maybe a lot of the measures went too far and caused too much harm relative to the actual risk of Covid.

We need to do this so that if, or when, another crisis hits, we might handle our interactions and everything else just a bit better.

Because though you can pull away from or deprioritize certain people or things in your life, we can’t all just do that with society, or it will only fall apart further. Sentiments like "let them die” were simply not the right approach to dealing with people you disagreed with.

Though the extreme circumstances of Covid made such blatant expressions more common - like the issues within my family, I think the origins of most of our societal issues actually predate Covid; it just brought them to the forefront more quickly and all at once.

My hope is that the unpleasantness of this will be countered by the possibility that we deal with these problems sooner than we might have otherwise, allowing us to see improvements sooner as well.

But whether it was because of vaccine mandates, passports, work-from-home policies, small business shutdowns, or a Covid test that spoiled a family gathering - people remember that you didn’t let them in. And deep down, you know that’s a big part of why nothing feels quite the same as before, when you go out now.