Mistakes Were Made

Two weeks and two days ago, on March 11, 2020, I participated in an act of reckless endangerment to the public. If I did this thing today, I would rightly be held up to public scorn and possibly even reported to the authorities. By next week, the same act might well be illegal.

At the time I was aware of doing nothing wrong. It was a regular school day at the adult-education centre where I teach — our third-last school day for the 2019-2020 school year, most likely, although we didn’t know that at the time — and the middle of our Spirit Week. And as part of Spirit Week, I and another staff member, and one student, stood behind tables in the lounge with big 4L containers of ice cream, scooping up ice cream and spraying on whipped cream, encouraging everyone to dip a spoon into communal bowls of toppings, or pass squeeze bottles of syrup from one person to another. Then everyone sat down less than two feet apart from each other and ate their ice-cream sundaes.

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Stock photo by Leah Kelly from Pexels

At the time, having a make-your-own sundae ice cream bar seemed like a fun, team-building activity. We had already heard news of the coronavirus in other parts of Canada, but nobody had tested positive in Newfoundland at that time, and while we all washed our hands well before and after serving, nobody wore gloves or masks or suggested that serving ice cream to fifty people was a bad idea.

Two weeks later, our centre is closed, as is everything else not deemed an essential business. And the very idea of communal ice cream sundae bars, or eating a meal next to anyone who doesn’t live in your house, seems like an exotic relic from a past civilization. Things are changing so quickly it seems trite to say that things are changing quickly.

Three days later, on Saturday, March 14, our church held a long-planned musical worship service. It was more poorly attended than we would have liked, since some people were already staying home out of caution. We cancelled the potluck lunch that was supposed to follow it, and we dispensed with handshakes and hugs during the greeting time. We left church that day not knowing it would be the last time we’d gather as a congregation for, potentially, quite a long time.

That same day, Newfoundland reported its first positive case of Covid-19. That night, Jason and I had another couple to our house for a long-planned board game night — again, an activity that seems positively exotic now.

Also on that day, March 14, the Canadian government warned Canadians who had returned from outside the country to self-isolate for two weeks, even if they were not showing symptoms of Covid-19.

On Sunday, March 15 — as everyone in this province probably now knows — some grieving families gathered at a local funeral home for visitation, just as people did in funeral homes all over the province. I don’t know any of the people who were there, but I’m sure people hugged and shook hands and maybe handed each other tissues as tears were shed. And, as we also now know, someone at that visitation, between March 15 and March 17, later tested positive for Covid-19.

Since then, dozens of infections — the vast majority of all positive cases in the province — have been traced to that funeral visitation. Some folks on local social media have called for the naming, shaming, and public punishment of the person or persons who attended the funeral home, reportedly after returning from travel outside the country. (It’s unclear whether they returned to Canada before or after the government warning to self-isolate on March 14; if they returned a few days earlier, they likely assumed, as did thousands of other returning vacationers, that there was no danger and no need to isolate as long as they felt well).

Others have taken up the opposing side, defending the person who unknowingly spread the infection and saying that the funeral home was at fault for holding the service, or even that the grieving families were at fault for holding the visitation. But on March 15, there was no guidance whatsoever to suggest that gatherings of the size of an average funeral or visitation could be dangerous: those warnings would come later in the week. At the time, this funeral home and these families were doing what everyone else was doing, following the best guidance they were given.

Yes, some people were cautious early; some returning travellers self-isolated before they were told to; some people began avoiding gatherings a week or two ahead of the official warnings. But most of us didn’t. Most of us went about our daily lives until we were told not to. Some of us even scooped up bowls of ice cream for other people. (I’m only telling you the ice cream story because 16 days have passed, and no-one who was there that day has tested positive, so we got lucky).

Most of us did what we thought was right, or at least okay — and a few people, tragically, found out later that it wasn’t okay after all.

As we all react with fear to this new era of uncertainty, there’s a lot of blaming and shaming going on. Some of it is deserved. People coming home and refusing to self-isolate when there’s a clear directive from the government to do that. People going to house parties when bars are closed. When you know what you have to do and refuse to do it, you’re purposely putting people at risk.

But a lot of us did a lot of things in the first half of March that now, in the second half of March, look like really bad ideas. And most of us did not do them out of any malicious intent.

Go back a bit further, and outside our province: to March 5, and a party of 50 people in Westport, Connecticut, now known as “Party Zero.” On the day of the party, Westport did not have any known cases of Covid-19; now it’s considered a “hotspot.”  Over half the people who attended the party are now infected, and, before finding out they were infected, they travelled to several different parts of the globe.

In retrospect, this is a terrible thing to have happened. But who in North America thought it was a bad idea to have a party on March 5? My husband and I were invited to a party on March 7 that would probably have had more than 50 people and, as it was celebrating a happy occasion for family friends, would have included a lot of hugging and other close contact. We didn’t go only because the party was cancelled — not due to fears of the virus, but due to a snowstorm that night.

Any of us could have been at a party in the first week of March — or at church on the second weekend in March — or at a funeral early in the third week of March. Almost all of us were at work till mid-March (and many people still are, because their jobs are deemed essential).

Most of us did things in the first half of March that could have spread the virus, like shaking hands and hugging and going to plays and concerts and serving ice cream to our students. Most of us were lucky; we weren’t infected and didn’t infect anyone else. Some were not so lucky.

I truly believe strong social distancing measures are absolutely essential right now. I believe it’s vital to comply with them and irresponsible not to.

I also believe there is no point looking back in anger at what people did a week, or two weeks, or three weeks ago. Last week, even, feels like a different time. We had different information. We made different choices. Some people made bad choices; others made choices that seemed good at the time but now seem … not so good.

We can look back at the tragedy of what happened at that funeral (and at similar gatherings in other places) as a warning: see how important it is to self-isolate, to avoid gatherings. See how easily the virus can spread.

The only way our community — any community — is going to get through this unprecedented threat, is through unity, support, coming together rather than letting this drive us apart. While we must learn from mistakes that were made, I hope we can avoid the tendency to witch-hunt, to blame, to publicly shame people for things they did last week or the week before, whether it was going to an event or holding an event.

We can’t change the past. We can only go forward, never backward. Going forward, we have to apply the best knowledge and information we have at this moment. And maybe, just a little bit of consideration and grace.