
It’s day ten of my quarantine as mandated by the National Government of Canada. The day began as do most of my days – wake up early, put up the furnace [we put it down to 15 Celsius for the night], turn on the coffee, and then open the draperies before we sit on our love seat to enjoy our first cup of the day.
Then, as usual with out new reality, we both reached out to our kids and grandkids for chat opportunities. I then recorded my second part of a Science Fiction story for my grandchildren, a story that has all of them and their parents, as well as a few friends as the main characters. It is a fun activity for me, and one they are quick to tell me they like. Once the audio file was posted for them, I returned to my Post-Pandemic Naturist story. Before lunch, part two was completed. It is now up on the Patreon site, scheduled for release on Monday.
Then, with everything flowing smoothly, we got a message. One of our older nephews was airlifted from his town to a city. He is 60 and is unconscious and on a ventilator. There is no diagnosis yet, but all parties believe it is CV19. Two days earlier, another nephew was diagnosed with an aggressive case of prostate cancer. Suddenly, the world has caught up with our family which somehow had miraculously been spared much in the way of tragedy. This has ceased being a mental exercise and has become very visceral.
The Federal Government also released its tentative predictions for the effect of Covid19 in terms of infections and death rates. The best case scenario sees just under 5,000 deaths. The worst case scenario has nearly 50,000 deaths. No matter which way one looks at these numbers, this will forever change our country and its people. What is almost as powerful in generating a change in who we are as a people and how we are as a nation, will be the impact on how we will govern ourselves once this has passed, and how we live together as a people.
What will change? Will we become a kinder population [we are already noted as being a kind people on the International stage]? Will we become more tolerant of differences? Or, will we retreat into our clans with little trust for those not within our clans? I don’t have any answers or predictions. What are your thoughts?