Scenes from the lockdown

Spring has truly arrived. Trees are unveiling their leaves; the first flowers are in bloom, and the sound of children playing outside echoes through this small village.

This is our second spring in lockdown and while that sounds very bad, an important qualification must be made, we in Nova Scotia have had a mostly covid free summer, fall and winter- with few restrictions. Unfortunately, our case numbers shot up like the early and unexpected daffodils in my flower bed at the end of April. Hence lockdown, again.

 

My lockdown experience looks a lot better than most, due to nice weather and a rural setting. I can walk beaches and ride my bike on wooded trails that practically start at my doorstep. And I live with my most favourite people as well as two very entertaining dogs.

 

It’s only been a couple of weeks, and even with all this goodness, I do feel a little lost. There’s less stopping and chatting with neighbours, no browsing for unnecessary foodstuffs during grocery shopping trips, and no planning for summer vacation.

 

A few scenes from this lockdown have stuck with me, vignettes of contactless life.

 

Last week I was riding my bike on the TransCanada Trail. The section of the trail near my house has long, telescopic views down a tree-lined path. You can’t not see someone coming towards you even when they are a quarter mile away.

 

During lockdown, there is a lot more use of the trail than there has ever been before, especially on sunny days. And everyone, when they meet another trail user moves to one side of the trail to allow for the most possible distance as proscribed by Covid-19 protocols.

 

I was on a bike, with my ducklings (children) riding in single file, as I had taught them, behind me. I could see a woman with a dog walking towards me and I did a shoulder check to make sure that my family was only taking up one side of the trail- leaving lots of space on the other side for the dog walker.

 

The closer I got to the woman and her dog the further apart the canine and human crept. When I less than 10 feet from the pair they were on opposites sides of the trail with a thick blue leash connecting them like an umbilical cord.

 

The woman stopped dead in her tracks and looked as if she had been turned into stone while the dog wandered to the extent his leash would allow.

 

I stopped my bike and waited for her to collect herself and her dog so I could pass. It took her a minute and she muttered a ‘sorry’ as she pulled her dog towards her.

 

I did pity her a bit—who hasn’t had that ‘deer in headlights’ moment. But I also felt a little annoyed. Reflecting on this moment today, I realized that I didn’t know this woman or this dog. That is unusual. This is a very small community and I know all the dogs- most by name. During the lockdown we are not supposed to travel outside of our home communities even if it is to visit parks and hike trails. People have been ticketed and given $2000 fines for such behaviour.

 

Maybe this dog walker had more to be nervous about other than the fact that she was taking up the entire trail.

 

This morning, just back from walking on another trail near home, the shoreline trail, I happened to see a small boy in the front window of his house. He was playing with a dinkie (that’s Nova Scotian for matchbox car) driving it along the window ledge, occasionally making it take wild leaps into the air.

 

The morning sun was warming up the room and I noticed the boy’s mother sitting a little out of the way with a baby in her arms. No place to go but home. Some sweetness in isolation. 

 

Yesterday was another large day, at least in the afternoon, as I was walking my dogs through the village, I passed a young girl bouncing on her trampoline, alone. Across the street, in the back yard of the neighbour’s house, another child was squealing with delight and running around as her grandparents, whom she is living with, sat in the evening sun.

 

Taken separately, these were wonderful scenes, but together, a little sad. These children live within tin can telephone distance away from each other but cannot play together. There is an invisible fence that divides them. I hope it will soon be dismantled.

Shot in the arm

I have never been congratulated for getting a shot --a needle, a jab, choose your colloquialism-- before and I’ve had many in my life. Shots for pain, shots for prevention, shots for pregnancy; I’ve had them all but never, prior to last week, have I ever gotten virtual high-fives for the effort. Nor have I ever before felt the need to tell the world about a shot in the arm. But this is, to use a worn-out cliche, an unprecedented era—the first global pandemic in the 21st century.

When talk began about a vaccine for COVID-19 I was skeptical. I didn’t think that the hoped-for timeline was feasible. How could a vaccine possibly be developed so quickly? I am still surprised by the speed of progress. I am rightfully amazed at what can be done when the whole world is mostly cooperating on the same project, which gives me hope for humanity and the ecosystems we impact.

 

That being said, I’ll admit I was in no rush to get vaccinated. I wouldn’t have wanted to be the first person in line to get a newly minted vaccine. And this statement may surprise people who know me; I have always had a scientific bent and my existence is directly attributable to the wonders of modern medicine. I have always trusted medicine—it has gotten me to this point in life whereas without it, I would have only had mere moments on this earth.

 

I admit my reluctance because it is important to know, that even people who have every reason to fully commit to the medical narrative; people like me who have studied biology, have a familiarity with medicine and owe my life to scientific advances—even we have doubts.

 

I couldn’t say exactly what that doubt was—it mostly revolved around the efficacy of the dose but there was a halo of concern about long term side effects. It’s understandable that people have concerns and doubts. Information, even legitimate information, is a moving target. One day a vaccine is good for this age group and the next day not—or that is how it appears. Plus, there is just too much information—it’s hard for anyone to sort through it all and come to an unquestioning understanding of an evolving situation.

 

If there is one thing I have done throughout my life it is trust in medicine. Part of that trust has been predicated on the many excellent health care providers I have had over the years; Dr. Anita Foley of Guysborough and Dr. Sutthep at Sukhumvit Hospital, Bangkok to name the first two that come to mind—as both had a hand in keeping me alive.

 

Three months ago, when many of my friends and relations in the United States were getting vaccinated, I told them I was in no rush. The pandemic wasn’t doing much damage in Nova Scotia. Next to New Zealand, we were the safest place in the world to ride out this global health crisis. But that dramatically changed in the past three weeks.

 

The infection rate in Nova Scotia has skyrocketed and exposure sites have begun to pop up in my neck of the woods.

 

As soon as I was eligible for a vaccine, I tried to book an appointment, even though the first type of vaccine that was available to me was one that had the most conflicting press coverage about possible side effects and preferred age ranges- AstraZeneca. With cases steadily and rapidly rising, that information seemed far less relevant than the fact that covid was on our doorstep and potentially embedded in every in-person interaction.

 

But booking an appointment, while easy to navigate online, wasn’t easy to access—an hour’s drive to the closest appointment was what was on offer in the first week I was eligible for the shot. I decided to wait until I could get a vaccine in my community rather than travel and risk exposure in other, more populous areas.

 

My local pharmacist had seen my social media comment about my online booking experience and assured me that shots for us over-40s would soon be available at her store, less than a five-minute walk from my house. Living in rural Nova Scotia, that’s pretty much like getting an old-fashioned doctor’s house call.

 

Last Friday, I got a message. I had just returned home from getting my new puppy his second set of vaccinations which included a shot for coronavirus. For all those people that think the world is making up coronavirus –take a look at your dog’s vaccination card – the canines in this area have been getting a coronavirus shot for years. To be clear and not start some new conspiracy thread, the puppy version is different than the human one.

 

The message from the pharmacist said: Want to come around 11?

Yes, yes, I do.

 

I did not know what version of vaccine I was being offered and it didn’t matter—despite all the confusing news reports, I knew, to paraphrase our Prime Minister, that the first vaccine your offered is the best vaccine.

 

I’ve never been so excited for a shot in my life. There was hope in that needle. Hope that when my child goes to university in a few years she won’t be facing pandemic protocols and she’ll get to have the full freshman experience. There’s hope that my parents will be able to get back to the activities they enjoy and take care of their chronic health issues without worrying that they will catch a deadly virus when they visit the doctor’s office or go to the hospital for tests.  There’s hope for travel; reunions with friends and family. There’s hope that once we get past this pandemic, we’ll have learned enough about working on one world-wide problem that we can find global solutions to the greatest threat of all-climate change.

 

Once home with that shot of hope in my arm, I took a picture to mark the day—with my dog—two coronavirus vaccine recipients. We just need a few more billion people to take the same photo.