Roz’s Rant: Pandemic fatigue

Rosalyn Roy is a community reporter, blogger, entrepreneur and author of two very different books – a historical western romance and a non-fiction book called Becoming Autism Friendly. You can reach her via e-mail at rroy@wreckhousepress.com or follow her on twitter @tygerlylly where she’s prone to rants about pretty much everything, whenever the mood strikes.

I miss hockey. I know that in the grand scheme of things it’s a relatively minor grievance, but it’s been on my mind a lot lately.

Now that the summer is over it should be hockey season but it isn’t. COVID-19 is still killing people and there’s no pre-season. It’s as understandable as it is annoying.

Annoying is one of the lesser side effects of living in the midst of a global pandemic, and in truth I have little right to complain. There’s not been a single case here on the Southwest coast, and other than whipping a mask on and off every couple of minutes it’s not that bad, at least around here.

What’s going on in Québec and Ontario makes life here seem idyllic by comparison. And yet…

You can only remain annoyed so long before you start to chafe under the yoke. Lately my patience, never one of my virtues, has vanished altogether.

I’ve never been a big shopper, and when I do venture out to the stores I tend to go all at once.

On and off goes the mask, one of them anyway because I always have to carry spares. I’m either losing them or they’re in the wrong coat or in the purse that I forgot to bring.

The hand sanitizer has triggered old allergies and prompted new ones. You have to sanitize going into every single public facility, which is understandable of course.

But the cheap sanitizer – and a lot of it is actually on recall – stinks to the point where I now have to use gel saline to flush out my eyes after a trip to the shops. Just the regular drops won’t do.

Meanwhile my hands are raw from all the scrubbing because I always have to use soap and water to wash it off as soon as I get home to try to minimize the reaction.

I can’t remember to bring my re-usable bags or else they’re breaking from the constant use and rewashing. The cloth ones are a bit easier to handle than the plastic covered ones, but now I’m having to buy plastic bin liners instead of just the grocery store bags so I’m not sure the environment is better off anyway.

The constant state of being annoyed just to stay alive is tiresome and it seems there’s no end in sight. I have an endless stream of questions about our immediate and long-term future.

Is COVID-19 going to give way like the Spanish flu or the Bubonic plague? How long are the vaccine trials going to take?

Some people won’t even wear masks. Do we really expect them to sign on for a new vaccine? What if another pandemic breaks out?

Will life ever get back to “normal”, meaning pre-pandemic?

Can’t we just have hockey back so I can relax again? Please?

#Opinion #Weekly