Today our province declared a public health emergency due to COVID 19.
For people like myself, things will carry on much the same as they were before. I live a life of mostly isolation with my children in a small town, I only go into “the city” when I need to or when the cabin fever becomes too much. There has been limited opportunity on my area for employment for quite some time now and despite applying for jobs constantly for the last 9 months, I’ve only been interviewed for 3. Self isolation is just my life.
For others, this will be significantly more challenging. People who are accustomed to having daily adult interactions are already speaking out about how this is impacting their mental health and we’re only within the first week of social distancing. People are beginning to see the affects of reduced business activities including layoffs and all of this is happening during a major economic downturn. Some people are clearly panicking already, hoarding household goods.
But what does all this mean in the long term? To be frank, we don’t know. This situation is unprecedented, our governments are working to address the biggest concerns first (or so we hope) and to try to keep the population calm, but they are unable to give us a road map for what comes next.
Our Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Hinshaw mentioned the potential for a “second wave” of infection in the fall, like we saw with SARS in 2008. We don’t know though, so we have to all do our best to be cautious and make the best decisions we can with the information we have.
What I can say, from what I’ve read is that if we follow the recommendations from our health authorities, most of us will be fine. Our children appear to be mostly safe from my understanding, with 15 total cases in children between 1-19 in AB today and 0 in children under 1 year old so, that’s something to be grateful for.
We have measures in place for those experiencing symptoms, including an online symptom checker, which you can find here https://myhealth.alberta.ca/Journey/COVID-19/Pages/COVID-Self-Assessment.aspx?utm_source=google&utm_medium=sem&utm_campaign=Covid19&utm_term=self-assessment&utm_content=GoA-sitelink-v1&gclid=Cj0KCQjw6sHzBRCbARIsAF8FMpVfpoQ_W8Jk68OISKF6LditLpw0XblhCYmMkEMq5YA4B-HWn-rm1CgaArctEALw_wcB and health link 811.
Vehicle registrations (surnames beginning with B,D,G and Y, driver’s licenses, permits and other certificates are being extended to may 15 so people don’t have to worry about that, which is nice.
Per the Alberta government website: If you have symptoms
1)Fever
2) dry cough
3) fatigue
4) difficulty breathing
Stay home, do not go to the ER or doctor’s office. Use the self assessment tool to determine if testing is necessary.
Please stay safe, stay informed and be excellent to each other.
P.S. Wash your damn hands.
Calamity out.
The Prolific Progressive 