Ever since Tracy came back from the US in late-March, she and I have been just mildly sick. Not significantly sick, not even like a flu, but we’ve felt like you sometimes feel after a flu, if you know what I mean: languid, listless, drained, and achy. A sore throat coupled with low energy has us mostly binge-watch shows or playing games. This, of course, is coupled with the obvious question: is this COVID-19? We don’t know. Is it worth testing? Well, we don’t feel sick enough to be worried, so maybe not? That seems to be so much of our lives today: a big old questionmark.
I’m happy that we did the right thing and self-quarantined for two weeks after she came back. We felt slightly under the weather, but not that troubled. We made sure to order in our groceries, kept a good distance, always wore a mask and gloves, and washed everything carefully. Last thing we wanted to do was get other people sick if we did have COVID-19. Then, after two weeks, we started feeling better, so we started going outside a bit more (though, of course, only for necessary things). Now, we wish we hadn’t. Yesterday, Tracy read that there’s some evidence that COVID-19 may actually have a much longer tail than previous expected. Somebody compared it more to Dengue fever, in that it might possibly last six months. A patient would be rather sick in a limited period, and just only mildly so for long after.
Now we’re concerned we may have inadvertently spread COVID-19 despite our care not to. It feels awful. Much worse, actually, than not being sure whether COVID-19 is what we have, or whether it’s just some silly flu that’s combined with poor fitness (due to our isolation inside). I am happy that we didn’t end up meeting up with my parents, who are in their 70s. I feel content that I tried as much as I could to safeguard others—I washed my hands frequently, always used my mask, and kept my distance. I know I couldn’t have known; I followed government advice, I followed what we read about research being done into COVID-19, so how could I have known more than I did? Still, it stings. I always aim to minimize the hurt that’s in the world, and even unknowingly I might have increased it.
For our larger plans, this pandemic has also been devastating. We already knew that it would be a while before we could do anything (that large amount of savings that we need to build up isn’t going to materialize out of thin air, after all), but right now the CIC has pretty much halted all immigration. So where does that leave us? We don’t know. Nobody does. Either immigration opportunities will increase, because the economy will need people to fill jobs, or immigration opportunities will decrease, because tragedies tend to make people conservative. Maybe the job market will be flooded with Canadian citizens that have lost jobs en masse due to the pandemic, or maybe so many new opportunities will be created due to previous business failing that there will be space. Our ambition to move to Canada hasn’t abated, but our confidence in our ability to go there has.