Lessons learned from COVID-19
Have you heard of this COVID people are talking about? I feel certain that living through a year and a half of a pandemic has been a real learning experience for many of us.
Here are some of the things I’ve learned:
1. I can have extremely interesting, in-depth conversations with my dog.
2. Throughout my entire life up to early 2020, my hand washing was inadequate.
3. In retrospect, judging by the lack of precautions I took prior to COVID, I simply accepted colds and flu as an inevitable part of my life.
4. A pandemic can be a handy excuse to avoid unwanted tasks and social obligations. “Oh, honey, I’d love to get together with (fill in blank), but, you know … COVID.”
5. A surprisingly wide range of furnishings can be fashioned from packages of hoarded toilet paper and bags of hoarded flour.
6. It turns out that “masked” is an improvement to my usual appearance.
As educational as this whole experience has proven to be, I hope we will get through it to something approaching normalcy.
But I fear that until that last quarter or so of the population gets vaccinated, I’ll have to go on learning lessons pandemical.
Michael Erwin
Saanich
Disagreement is OK, insults are not
Re: “COVID denial and the meaning of stupidity,” Islander, Aug. 29.
Geoff Johnson’s intemperate attack on the vaccine hesitant increased my respect for the hesitant.
Skepticism about inserting into your bloodstream substances whose composition you’re not allowed to know because it’s the private property of the corporations that manufactured them, does not equate to “denying COVID.”
It’s about preserving the right to choose what to put into your own body, and protecting privacy around personal health information.
You can be as terrified of the coronavirus as everyone else without embracing police patrols at restaurants, an apartheid two-tier society of unvaccinated pariahs with separate mall entrances, “passports” and Big-Brother-style smartphone surveillance.
But Johnson calls these concerns “brainless, boneheaded and stupid,” complaining that anyone not seeing things his way is “stifling discussion and debate.” Sorry … who’s stifling it?
The last way to impart information to others is to attack and insult them and call them stupid. You’d think a former teacher would know that.
Flora Jardine
Saanich
Helping us understand these complex issues
Re: “COVID denial and the meaning of stupidity,” Islander, Aug. 29.
Once again, Geoff Johnson has written an article so on-topic, and so clear, as to go a very long way to help the reader understand why so many are defying logic and science to refute COVID and refuse vaccination.
His straightforward writing style and use of excellent reference material goes a long way to help us understand some of the most complex and frustrating questions of our times.
Carolyn Brady
Brentwood Bay
Social media does not make ‘informed consent’
Re. “Freedom of choice vs. vaccine mandates,” letter, Aug. 28.
The writer’s concern “around our loss of making an informed consent and the freedom to do so” is understandable. However, she likens this situation to a hospital patient’s consent, which is informed by a medical doctor or nurse.
Sadly, this logic is flawed because the majority of those who do not wish to be vaccinated are not receiving their information from the medical community — they are receiving it from social media.
Judy Love-Eastham
Nanoose Bay
Where do the police find the time?
A month ago, a Victoria roadblock for drunk drivers was called off after it ran out of cops who were overwhelmed with paperwork.
Now, the premier, who apparently thinks five- to eight-year olds are immune from COVID-19 and thus don’t need masks, wants to send those cops into restaurants to arrest mask scofflaws.
Patrick Murphy
Victoria
Help your children cope with the world
I was puzzled to see the photograph in the Sunday edition of the anti-vaccination protesters in front of the B.C. legislature. One of the signs reads: “Stop Traumatizing Our Children.”
I am assuming that the woman holding the sign is a mother; otherwise, she would surely let parents speak for themselves.
Is she blaming the provincial government for traumatizing her children? We taught our children that, in most cases, they cannot control what happens around them, but they can control their reactions to it.
As a result, our grandchildren are happy that their parents are home more and matter-of-fact about wearing masks in public.
If this woman’s children are traumatized by the pandemic, perhaps her time would be better spent at home helping them to cope with their changing world.
Judith Appleby
Duncan
Reliance proposal is a welcome concept
Reliance Properties is planning to developing the area on Store Street which certainly has needed an upgrade for many years now.
Since moving here more than 40 years ago, we have always wondered why, Victoria being the capital city of B.C. does not have an arts centre for the community.
Yes, we have the Royal Theatre and other smaller venues in the city, but none are large enough to serve a growing population in the area.
What a magnificent site, right on the waterfront, to incorporate a centre and, as apparently planned, the art gallery?
Just a fantastic area with all the arts and innovations in the plan. Thank you to Reliance for your vision and foresight in finally developing this area of the city which will certainly revitalize the whole district.
Wanda Walker
Victoria
Create a large reserve for wildlife
Whenever we save a park or marine area in B.C., it often seems that ecotourism is the main objective.
The animals and plants come second to the money and jobs that can be created. With mounting new evidence from unintentional no-go areas where humans are not allowed, we are beginning to understand how tourists can negatively affect the environment and its animal residents.
One example is the demilitarized zone separating North and South Korea. The radioactive Chernobyl Exclusion Zone is another. Wildlife is thriving in both of these areas in the absence of human visitors.
A study by Christine Gabriel in Glacier Bay National Park in Alaska should have everybody rethinking whether whale watching should be allowed to continue.
COVID-19 has shut down the whale-watching and cruise-ship industry there. Once again, undisturbed wildlife is thriving. And not only that, the whales are acting differently now, resuming their natural behaviours.
When the boats were around all day making a racket, the whales would talk louder, stay closer together and keep the conversation simple.
Without the whale watchers, the whales spread out to feed, and can leave their young to play and explore. Because of the lack of noise, they are even able to take naps.
The Fairy Creek area should become a no-go zone, except for scientists and animal visitors.
The area between Barcester Bay and Escalante River on Hesquiat, south of Nootka Sound, would be a great candidate to become a no-go marine environment for whales.
We need to create the largest possible reserves where wildlife can thrive undisturbed — as the guiding principle of conservation. Tourism must come second.
Fred Fern
Merville
Progression of English leading to hesitancy
As a retired English teacher, it’s been interesting to see the progression of English usage in regard to the ongoing COVID-19 scenario.
From vaccinations > inoculations > injections > needles > jab (dictionary: poke roughly).
Maybe by eliminating the questionable usage of “jabs,” more hesitant people will decide to go forth with a vaccination. What comes around goes around.
John Vanden Heuvel
Victoria
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