Category: Pandemic Diary

Pandemic Diary, May 20th, 2021: Hello, iPad

My shiny silver, 10.2-inch, 8th generation iPad arrived via UPS this morning, and I am busy setting it up today: connecting my email account, installing Kindle, Netflix, and Amazon Prime, etc.

Although it is much the same size as my trusty old iPad 2, it is so much thinner, and the screen is slightly larger, too! This is going to take a little bit of getting used to. But it will be nice for streaming movies and TV shows, reading novels, and following Reddit, Twitter and Discord (I will continue to use my iPhone for Clubhouse).

I decided to splurge and buy a model with both WiFi and cellular capabilities. However, I discovered that the sim card from my iPad 2 is slightly too big to fit into the slot on the new model, so I will need to upgrade that, once I feel safe venturing out to the cellphone store at my local shopping mall. Then again, I so rarely use cellular because I am so infrequently in any space where I would need to use it! Ninety-five percent of the time, I am within reach of a public or private WiFi network, and anyways, at present I am still stuck within the same four walls of my apartment while Manitoba is in pandemic lockdown. Still, I decided to get cellular in the rare times that it would come in handy.

I also decided to go for 128GB of memory, since I expect I will be using this model for quite a while (my iPad 2, which I used nearly every day, lasted a whole decade and then some, before dying on me). That’s plenty of space for music, photos, videos, what have you. I’d rather have that extra space than rue not getting it down the line.

After my iPad 2 died, living without an iPad for two whole months was an interesting experience. My iPhone did double duty as both my cellphone and as a mini-tablet, and while I did get used to it, I do appreciate having all that real estate again! No longer will I have to squint at the screen to watch a movie or read a book!

I am still taking a break from most social media and from the news media, in order to get some respite from the doom-and-gloom headlines (the transfer of some patients from Manitoba’s overloaded healthcare system to Ontario, and further pandemic restrictions are to be announced before the long weekend). I don an avatar and hang out in my favourite escape spot, Second Life, or I pop into various discussion rooms on Clubhouse, and that’s about it for me this week. I am feeling very tired and anxious, and I am sleeping a lot this week, another sign I need to recharge my batteries and take care of myself.

Stay safe and stay healthy!

Pandemic Diary, April 18th, 2021: Time to Rest and Recharge

People, I am having a rough week, while the coronavirus pandemic is raging here in Manitoba. I feel as if I am on a runaway train on a track heading straight off a cliff.

I have decided to step back from social media and the news media, and just focus on taking care of myself. So if you don’t hear from me for a little while, that is why.

I will still pop into Bray’s Place in Second Life, and maybe drop into a room on Clubhouse every so often, but that’s about all I can handle for now. I just need to rest and recharge my batteries.

Pandemic Diary, May 17th, 2021: Living in the Epicentre

It’s official: as of yesterday evening, Manitoba has the highest per-capita incidence of COVID-19 in Canada, even beating out Alberta. We also have more infections per capita than any of the 50 states in the United States. Three-quarters of those cases are my home city of Winnipeg. I am now living right in the epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic.

Manitoba now has the highest COVID-19 case rate in the country, more than twice the national average. Manitoba just passed Alberta. Manitoba’s rate is double Ontario’s. This was entirely avoidable, had the government followed the science and implemented the right public health measures last month (image source: tweet by Tom Brodbeck, Winnipeg Free Press)

Manitoba’s healthcare system is stretched to the limit, despite promises from the provincial government that this would not happen again. CBC reports:

In the middle of April, when COVID-19 case counts were rising exponentially in Manitoba, the deputy public health officer promised this province wouldn’t allow the third wave of the pandemic to get out of control.

Dr. Jazz Atwal pledged Manitoba would not suffer the same fate as Ontario, which failed to enact measures early enough to prevent its own case counts from rising to the point where Toronto intensive care wards struggled to treat record numbers of COVID-19 patients.

Ontario, you know, when you look at how the case numbers went up, they likely waited much too long,” Atwal said at a news briefing on April 16. 

“We’re not going to go down that road, I could assure you that.”

One month later, Winnipeg intensive care wards are struggling to treat record numbers of COVID-19 patients. A record 71 COVID-19 patients are being treated in Manitoba ICUs. Hospitals are now doing everything they can to divert patients of all sorts from intensive care.

Some of the more stable COVID patients have been sent home, where they’re given oxygen and monitored remotely. Others have been sent to long-term care homes, most of which are no longer death traps, thanks to vaccinations.

Hospitals are placing acute-care beds anywhere they can, knowing the number of COVID-19 patients that require intensive care is expected to keep rising until sometime in June.

“Right now, it’s fair to say that from a physical capacity, we’ve expanded dramatically to all kinds of corners of the hospital and we’re almost working one bed at a time. Where’s the next patient going to go? Where can we move?” said Eric Jacobsohn, a Winnipeg ICU physician and anesthesiologist.

“We are sort of just running day by day, expanding where we can. And from what I’m told is … we’re going to make physical space, we have the equipment, but the issue is human resources. Where do you find the people, particularly nurses, other front-line staff, physicians, to look after these patients?”

All of this could have been avoided if Brian Pallister and his government had listened to the experts, who warned that this was coming. They ignored that advice, yet again. It could be that the third wave of COID-19 infections and deaths will be even bigger than the second wave in November and December last year. Hospitals will face an unprecedented crunch for space, resources, and staff over the next month.

This is NOT the time to get sick…any kind of sick. Don’t get into a car accident, don’t fall off a ladder, don’t have a heart attack. And above all, don’t get infected with COVID-19.

My anger at my incompetent government is percolating higher every day. I dearly hope that Manitobans remembers this absolute clusterfuck when the next provincial election rolls around in 2023. Pallister has to go, and the sooner he leaves, the better.

Pandemic Diary, May 11th, 2021: Bored Bored BORED

Ladies and gentlemen, I am bored.

You know you’re bored when you take a Second Life avatar and park her in front of the lucky boards at Scandalize and just sit there, waiting for your letter to show up:

I mean, yes, it is minimally productive in that I am adding to that particular alt’s inventory, but I already endlessly shop for fabulous freebies for all my alts, so it’s not like they’re going to be running around the grid naked. (Although there are sims where that is perfectly acceptable. This is Second Life; you do you, boo.)

Lately I have been hanging out at three different (virtual) places in much the same way as bored, pre-pandemic teenagers used to hang out in front of my local Seven-Eleven convenience store:

  • Second Life (my old reliable standby);
  • Clubhouse (the hot new drop-in audio app); and
  • Twitter (another old reliable standby).

I’m not sure what I think I am going to find by constantly going online and checking these three places. I have the attention span of a gerbil on benzedrine; I pop in and out of rooms on Clubhouse with alarming alacrity lately, barely listening to a sentence or two before I decide to bail and move on to the next room. What am I searching for? God knows. But I am certainly not finding it lately.

I have no shortage of practical tasks that need doing: a kitchen, bedroom, and bathroom that need cleaning; pharmacy receipts to enter into my insurance portal; a workbook with cognitive behavioural therapy exercises to complete (one of the many tools in my ever-expanding arsenal to combat my chronic clinical depression).

Speaking of depression, yes, I am going to lose my psychiatrist, who is leaving Winnipeg to accept a position in British Columbia. I am happy for her, but I am going to miss her, and it will be extremely difficult to find a new psychiatrist to take me on as a patient. She promises to try and find me somebody, but she is going to have to call in all her favours, and use every bit of her persuasion. The pandemic has caused a tsunami of mental health issues in Manitoba, as it has globally, which has led to a shortage of professionals to diagnose and treat people who are struggling and suffering, It is the worst possible time to lose a psychiatrist. It wasn’t good before, but now the situation is even worse. If all else fails, I will have to rely on my family doctor for treatment, a prospect neither of us particularly relishes.

I am restless. I putter around the apartment, go sit out on the patio next to the woods behind my apartment, and watch the budding trees and listen to the birds, but then I get restless again and park myself in front of my computer, reload Second Life for the umpteenth time, restyle an avatar for the umpteenth time. Then I log off, and go lie on the sofa with my trusty iPhone, scrolling through my hallway on Clubhouse to find an interesting room. Sometimes I even listen to a room on Clubhouse while scrolling through my Twitter feed!

People, I am stuck in a well-worn rut. I am bored, bored, BORED.

Photo by Magnet.me on Unsplash

And yes, I know that I could put on my Valve Index VR headset, crank up Tilt Brush or load NeosVR, and get creative, but I don’t feel creative.

God, I wish this pandemic were over already.

UPDATE 9:13 p.m.: Well, I did land this wonderful outfit from one of the lucky boards at Scandalize, however, while listening to a Clubhouse room about unconditional love and gratitude which is lifting my spirits this evening:

White Spessiha outfit from Scandalize

So, I might be bored, but I can still find some peace, grace, beauty, and solace in the middle of a pandemic, in my rather unconventional virtual spaces and my rather quirky Ryan Schultz ways! May you also find your moments during this pandemic.