Thread by @JANEMCARTHUR11

🧵A thread - Same birthday gift three years in a row: a lesson in public health and politics

1/ It was the evening of Thursday, March 12, 2020. I was out shopping with my daughters. My youngest daughter had a gift certificate tucked in her purse. She was eager to find something to spend it on.

2/ Having turned nine years old, the day before, she was still bouncing with happy birthday joy.
Walking through the aisles of toys, I heard a notification on my phone. A text from a friend relayed the news that schools would remain closed after the upcoming March break.

3/ The COVID-19 pandemic declared the day before had hit home.
I had been following the news. I knew there was a serious respiratory virus spreading and had recently been detected in Canada.

4/ I don’t think I had believed it would directly impact my kids or me – until that moment I read the text. Suddenly, I had a lot to think about, plan, rearrange.
I had to tell my kids that they would not be going back to school after March Break. I had to explain "pandemic."

5/ I had to assure my daughters we would take measures to keep ourselves safe and healthy. And what seemed like the worst part of it at that moment was I had to break it to my daughter her birthday party on Saturday, booked at a local trampoline park, would have to be cancelled.

6/ My nine-year-old was devastated. It broke my heart watching the tears tumble down her cheeks. I tried to be pragmatic, explaining why it was necessary to not be around people, that this was just a delay, that soon enough, she would get to celebrate with her friends.

7/ Little did I know that that would be the first of three birthdays (so far) that she would not celebrate with extended family and friends.

8/ Yesterday, my daughter turned 11. She and her sister had been home from school for over two weeks, having returned to classes only briefly when they came down with an illness that multiple RAT tests told us were not COVID-19.

9/ But I, and they, knew that these tests sometimes have false negatives, so with caution, they stayed put. Last evening, we did as we have done the previous two birthdays – took video and photos of singing happy birthday and blowing out the candles.

10/ Last evening, we did as we have done the previous two birthdays – took video and photos of singing happy birthday and blowing out the candles. We shared our captures of the moments with family and friends.

11/ My daughters spoke of their memories of that moment in the store when we learned they’d have an extended March Break and miss out on a birthday party. There was sadness, but also resolve, that life is, and has been different, for a long time, and probably will continue to be.

12/ Early in the pandemic, I assisted in research on protections – or lack thereof – for health care workers. As a sociologist focusing on environmental health, I quickly learned about the virus that caused COVID-19 and the dispute about how the virus was transmitted.

13/ While writing a chapter for a book that investigated the systemic implications and already evident inequities of the pandemic, I read papers about the airborne spread of the virus.

14/ I did not realize that there would still be debate about the science of aerosol transmission three years later despite the preponderance of evidence that it was so.

15/ For my daughter’s 11th birthday, along with gifts, cake, blowing out candles, she had the lessons about public health and politics reinforced, as we talked about how she and her sister when they return to school after March break, will still wear child-sized N95 respirators.

16/ This was not surprising to them, as they know how the virus is transmitted, they know that ventilation and filtration can mitigate conditions where the virus might be present, they know that viral load can influence whether or how sick someone might become if infected,

17/ they know that a mask – or much better, an N95 respirator – is like a personal filter working in both directions capturing inhaled and exhaled virus particles carried in the air;

18/ they know that despite their two shots of the vaccine, a layered approach is needed to prevent transmission of this sometimes deadly, sometimes long-term virus.

19/ They also understand that the decision by the provincial government to remove mask mandates on the day they return to school is a political one and not a public health decision rooted in scientific evidence.

20/ Three years in a row, my daughter got the same birthday present: a lesson in public health and politics. My wish for her twelfth birthday is that public health will have returned to its roots of illness prevention, health promotion and social justice.

21/
#COVIDIsAirborne
#COVIDIsNotOver
#PublicHealth
#SocialJustice
#VaccinesPLUS
#N95sForAll
#Ventilation
#Filtration
#WearAMask
#YQG
#onpoli
#cdnpoli

@threadreaderapp unroll