One year of COVID-19 restrictions: Friday the 13th, vagus nerve and… memories of other restrictions
What were you doing on that day? The usual question, for example, about receiving the terrible news of the attack on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.
And on Friday March 13, 2020, what were you doing, when the City of Toronto announced the closure of swimming pools, skating rinks, libraries, community centers and other activities for schoolchildren during the upcoming March Break, while universities, one after the other, followed in the steps of the Province, which had decided the day before to close all its publicly-funded schools, as of Saturday March 14.
Two days earlier, on March 11, 2020, the WHO had decided to qualify COVID-19 as a pandemic (that is a global epidemic), hence the extremely strict lockdown measures announced two days after, on Friday the 13th.
A year later, each and every one of us must certainly go back in their memories, at the start of these 365 days of a roller coaster filled with uncertainties.
Pivoting in 60 minutes
Personally, the transition to the “new normal” happened in less than an hour on this Friday, March 13, 2020, while, of course, far from imagining at the time that it would last a year and still counting.
At York University — including the Glendon campus, where I am a contract lecturer, an email landed in inboxes on this Friday 13th afternoon, indicating the closure of its campuses the very next day, Saturday March 14th.
I read this email late afternoon upon returning from campus where I taught from 12 p.m. to 3 p.m. and was getting ready to go back to class the next morning, Saturday March 14 at 10 a.m. to give a lecture for another course.
Fortunately — considering the concerning international news and the spread of the epidemic wave in Europe and North America — I had discussed the issue just a few days earlier with a member of the IT support team at Glendon — in hindsight, this kind of informal chat is one of the benefits of working in person vs. not remotely : “What if we have to shut down the campus, how will we manage?”, I asked. The university has purchased copies of Zoom, the staff member replied. Zoom? Never heard of that application at the time.
Zoom in a rush
On Friday March 13th, 2020, I was able to reach by phone at around 6:00 p.m. the Zoom technical support (which had not yet imploded and became simply MIA ever since in my experience!) I quickly learned the basics to run a remote meeting on the app. that I just downloaded, got my access credential from the University technical support, emailed students the Zoom meeting I.D. and the next morning, we were joining our regular lecture online, all a little shocked having to pivot so fast, while also somehow relieved to be able to continue our course without any interruption.
On that day and the following weeks, we were also able to weave the current public health crisis into our class discussions (the course titled “Communication, Health and Environment” deals with health promotion and public health), which was also a way to provide students with a space to voice their concerns, as the first wave was swelling last March.
A year later, on March 13th, 2021, the class (same course, but a new students’ cohort) will still be taking place online, via Zoom — now part of the daily routine for many.
Restrictions and Liberation
Beyond this Friday March 13th, 2020 (and a year without any major physical health issues personally), another souvenir is rising up to the surface: that of my grandmother who liked to recount how she told my 6-year-old mother in August 1944: “You will remember that”, watching the German army tanks leaving the city of Bordeaux at the “liberation”.
This sentence has been echoing in my mind for several months now, a way no doubt to put our current restrictions into perspective, compared to the food privations and significant freedom restrictions endured by civilians during four years of enemy occupation during the Second World War.
Also, a way to remember the key question — even if it’s not quite the time to take stock as the light is starting to appear at the end of the tunnel, while we are not yet out of the “ Covid-19 woods”: why in 2002–2003 was the world able to successfully contain the spread of the SARS-CoV-1 outbreak (which severely hit Toronto), while 20 years later the SARS-CoV-2 became a pandemic?
Vagus nerve against chronic stress
Last but not least, as a way to cope, I have learnt to focus on stimulating my vagus nerve — the counterpoint to the sympathetic nervous system that kicks in when faced with danger, the survival “fight or flight” and stress response.
Because we have all been collectively in a state of chronic stress for a year — even though we are all in the same storm, but not on the same boat; the lockdowns and the pandemic public health restrictions are like the tide that moves out and reveals those who swam naked, as the saying goes, namely: the socio-economic underbelly of the foreshore, the coastal area uncovered at low tide, the reefs, the forgotten shipwrecks and the beached boats, lying on their side, trapped.
The most difficult undoubtedly will have been (and remains) not being able to fight or flee, but to wait, barricade oneself at home, passively (hence possibly certain conspiracy theories — some more bizarre than others — which must probably give some people a sense of regaining control over events, by creating an enemy, admittedly imaginary, to fight and act, by trying to spread the news even if it is false, and toxic.
So, exhaling longer than inhaling would activate the parasympathetic nervous system, including the vagus nerve — while continuing to exercise, doing some meditation, has kept me going, for 52 weeks, one at a time.
And recently, writing an article on the different COVID-19 vaccines to understand and do something to relieve the frustration of having to wait, passively without control, without being able to fight or run away (even so briefly on a short getaway) — and the major lack of information in the media about the different vaccine technologies…
How about you, what were you doing on Friday March 13th, 2020? And what have you been doing to cope during the past year?
