TRUTH BE TOLD
LOSS AND LONELINESS
Image credit: ACTIONVANCE on Unsplash.
By DR VICKI BISMILLA
While brilliant scientists (see Earth League International and BBC Earth: The Pandemic and The Pangolin) whose job it is to track viruses appear to be trying to find a politically correct way to express how the coronavirus pandemic has been unleashed on the world, it’s the ordinary, innocent people of the world who are paying the price in suffering and sorrow.
Vulnerable children and youth are being thrown into the pandemic’s pathway in schools but the refrain seems to be, “Teachers will make it work, teachers will make it work”.
No protections provided for teachers and students; no PPE provided; no reduced class sizes; no increased space between desks; but “teachers will make it work”.
Well, a young desi high school teacher in Peel region ended up on a ventilator paying the price and he is one we know about because word spread in the community; how about the hundreds we don’t know about – teachers, doctors, nurses, front line health workers, personal support workers, factory workers and migrant workers picking produce for us?
People we know here and abroad are becoming dangerously ill and dying. It’s the suddenness, the shock, the pain and not understanding how and why this virus was allowed to travel that has caused anger, erosion of trust and sorrow.
The vaccines and the quickly evolving treatments for COVID-19 bring some hope but I feel that life as we knew it barely two years ago has both intrinsically and overtly changed.
I personally feel that I may never ever be able to travel or go out into a crowd ever again without wearing a mask.
That for me is broken trust, a wariness of people, not knowing who in the present or in the future is a transmitter of known and unknown viruses.
I am struggling to understand how in this modern world of science, when so much is known about viruses, chemical reactions and diseases, that a pandemic which has quickly claimed over three million lives and severely sickened over one hundred and forty million people, struck the entire world. For a visual see The New York Times: How the Virus Got Out, March 22, 2020, nytimes.com.
Why was travel permitted?
Was it known that lives will be lost and economies destroyed?
Lockdowns are the only sure way of controlling the spread and lockdowns take a toll on economies, people’s livelihoods as well as other collateral losses.
Young people, school children and toddlers are suffering the isolation of lockdown. Prior to the pandemic toddlers were taken to parks, met friends and peers at drop-in centres, community centres, enjoyed play dates and preschool – all of which contributed to their growth and helped them develop the social skills of friendship.
The pandemic has truncated those valuable experiences for more than eighteen months now.
It’s important for children as well as adults to be connected in our circle of caring. This pandemic is teaching us many difficult lessons not the least of which is the importance of friendships.
Organized sports, the “lifeblood” of young people around the world, has come to a halt, impacting not only the social connection but the exercise as well.
Other interactions among friends like sharing a meal, chatting over a coffee or laughing over a board game or craft at a community centre have all evaporated, leaving us longing and depressed.
Even casual meetings with friendly strangers at a market are now gone together with the smiles that cannot be seen under masks. The camaraderie of co-workers and the support treasured in workplaces have disappeared. Zoom meetings, often too long and unnecessary, sometimes only offering a chance to those who enjoy listening to themselves, have replaced meaningful work relationships, skill building and opportunities for growth.
Physically meeting and sharing ideas with different people help us develop new ways of thinking, innovations, varieties of solutions, a sense of community and the warmth of belonging.
The lack of human connections brings us isolation, loneliness and despair. In senior homes and long-term-care facilities this loneliness and despair have had drastic, obvious and well-documented results on the elderly and frail. The effects of loneliness and loss of social interactions for little children, youth and the rest of us have not yet been documented.
If the feelings in our hearts and minds are ever given voice I wonder what the resulting story would reveal.
Dr Vicki Bismilla is a retired Superintendent of Schools and retired college Vice-President, Academic, and Chief Learning Officer. She has authored two books.