Living with a pandemic 45

 
Living Online…

The online experience was new to many people in 2020. Some even learned new techniques such as group meetings through Zoom and other similar programs. Having to stay home has meant using the Internet to find information, to shop, to communicate and to do many of the things we would normally do in person.

For my part, life has not changed a great deal, other than fewer trips to local restaurants and shops. Not being able to visit with friends and relatives, especially our children and grandchildren, has been the worst experience.

For many years, at least since I retired from the workforce, I have spent a great deal of time online, researching ancestors and writing articles about genealogy. If anything, I have learned about even more places to find records and data. I had seven articles published last year and two so far this year. Two more are scheduled and several others are in draft form at present. And I have made good progress researching the lives of some specific ancestors.

Missing our normal Christmas get-together and unable to share special occasions like our 50^th anniversary, though, was the pits. I don’t want to miss those kinds of things again! We were fortunate that our children and grandchildren could connect online.

In December many countries approved vaccines to combat this deadly infection. Those were developed in record time, compared to past epidemics. So, we are lucky. But it will take almost a year before everyone in Canada, for example, who wants a shot to get one. In most regions, people are now complaining about what they perceive to be slow rollouts of vaccines. That is likely to continue until the Fall.

Infection numbers of Covid-19 have never been higher. World-wide over 90 million cases have been confirmed and 1.9 million people have died from the effects of the virus. This second wave is relentless. Several countries now have reached a mark of over 1,000 deaths per million population. Canada is at 450 per million. Canada’s cases today total 664,606 which represents 3.3% of all tests. Very high!

In Alberta, where I live, there have been over 1,200 deaths, still low compared to other provinces and countries, but still alarming. The pattern still shows the average age of those succumbing is 82 years but there is a greater number of people contracting the disease who are much younger. Everyone is at risk.

Lockdowns and curfews persist everywhere but people still think they can travel freely and without danger to themselves or others they may come in contact with when they get home. Consequently, following each of the major holidays in the past year, there have been spikes in cases.

We are weathering the storm, but you can tell people are more stressed and more worried, as much from the loss of jobs and incomes as from getting sick.