Observations from Just Outside the Pandemic #5

I try so hard - I really do - to be moderate in my statements, to avoid judging too harshly other people's statements or actions. I am usually careful about my language so that I do not hurt or insult other people BUT sometimes my anger or frustration is so overwhelming that it is all that I can do not to go to that person, grab them by the throat and shake them. I am a lifelong pacifist but sometimes people need a slap alongside their head.

1) There is a couple, it is reported in the local press, who have just returned from a trip outside of the country. They, despite being warned, are refusing to self-quarantine for the fourteen days as required by law. Really? I know it is a nuisance not to be able to run around and do all of the things you would normally do like showing off your vacation pictures and flaunting your tans - but the rest of us living in the Cowichan Valley are doing our best to stop the spread of the virus by minimizing our contact with other people. We don't need people who may have been exposed to share their disease with us. For heaven's sake stay home! If they don't, perhaps they should receive a healthy fine and then be forced to stay at home.

2)  One could write 500 words every single day on the silliness of Mr. Trump. In fact, there are reporters and stand-up comedians who earn their living by doing exactly that. It is so easy to find fault with some of his comments that I generally do not bother - if I did, it would just be me being lazy. But his latest decision to restrict the export of n95 masks to Canada it such a flagrant, absurd, isolationist decision that someone needs to sit him down and do a mental health check. I am having a hard time believing that even a politician could be that selfish or short-sighted.

I can't ever remember when a country stopped shipments of a product to another country. I get that there are shortages everywhere and I can even understand why someone might initially think that country that makes them - should get them. But it is incredibly short-sighted. I wonder if Trump knows that at least some of the pulp used to manufacture gowns and masks in the US comes from Vancouver Island? Perhaps we should just redirect those materials to Canadian manufacturers. I know we are a much smaller country that Mr. Trump's but if he does not want to share, there are other countries that will.

When the public hears a president of a country looking out only for his country first - it is perhaps not so hard to understand why individuals put themselves first before their community. This is not the world I chose to live in.