Our COVID Year March 2020- March 2021

BY PIETA WOOLLEY

On March 17, 2020, British Columbia declared a public health emergency with 83 cases of COVID-19 and three deaths. Bars, schools and some courthouses were shut down. Provincial Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry - hardly a household name at the time - ordered businesses to institute a host of new regulations, from social distancing to sanitizing. A whole new lexicon entered our lives (see Page 14.)

Daily life quickly took a Twilight Zone-like turn. Remember the great toilet paper panic of March 2020? Your first meeting on Zoom? Google classrooms?

This St. Patrick's Day, ironically a day popularly dedicated to drinking whiskey, we celebrate a year of surviving the first of this kind of pandemic since polio. At press time, fewer than 60 locals had been diagnosed with COVID (about 1 in 333 people). Most of BC has not been so lucky. At press time, 78,278 people in this province have been diagnosed with COVID-19 (about 1 in 64 people), and 1,338 have died.

What's to come as we enter year two? Futurists wisely admit that predicting the future is truly impossible, because people want to guess what will happen later based on what is happening now. And, as COVID has proven, there are always unknowns lurking.

Based on what we know now, however, the next year is a race between two factors. We have several very effective vaccines that are available, but will take until at least the fall of 2021 to reach all Canadian adults who want one. In the meantime, the virus is mutating. Some new strains are faster-spreading, better at finding new bodies to infect. Will Powell River evade more COVID, until we're all vaccinated?

This pandemic is about much more than just a virus, of course. Over the next pages, you'll see that it's about people caring for each other, professionals stepping up, history drifting back into our collective consciousness, money, time, and continually re-inventing how we move (and don't move) in the world. Testing our values. Tapping our strengths. Feeling our weaknesses.

No one would choose to endure what COVID-19 has brought here, or across the globe - with 2.5 million deaths so far. But reflecting on the images and stories on the next few pages, I can't help but appreciate that living with the virus has so often brought out the best in us. Even as COVID-19 becomes, at some point hopefully not too far away, history. Our best has been sharpened, and will endure.

We’re all in this together

Back in March, when schools and workplaces shut down and everyone was asked to stay home, locals did a superlative job of staying present for each other. Hearts went up in windows. Inflatable dinosaurs and homemade furries strolled neighbourhoods. At 7 pm each night, we’d bang pots and pans to thank front-line workers.

Update: As the restrictions lessened, so did our collective, goofy, heart-on-our-sleeve neighbourhood presence. Is that bad? Not entirely. It means our fears from that time lessened; we haven’t seen the widespread infection rates and death rates we were anticipating last March. Our hospital and most health-care workers have not been overwhelmed. Instead here and now, COVID seems like a never-ending slog rather than an acute crisis. What heart and dinosaur-like thing might get us through this next phase?

School's out

At the beginning of Spring Break 2020, Dr. Bonnie Henry shut down most in-person learning in elementary and secondary schools. Students stayed home, and learned online. The luckiest kids, such as Daelin Austin, 8, also learned new skills from their parents, such as car repair. Post-secondary students either had their courses cancelled, or learned online. By June, part-time elementary and high school was offered again. In September, BC schools were fully open again, but with new protocols in place including cohorts, a late start time for senior high students like Abby Francis, reduced electives, and plenty of hand-san.

Update: Many places in Canada and the US have missed much more in-person school than we have here. In BC, keeping schools open has been a priority.

Professionals on the job

To the left, see former Complex Clinic manager Kate Dryden, Care Aide Hailey Unger, Powell River COVID-19 awareness Facebook group administrator Joseph McLean, and a booth by some of the front-line workers dealing with the fallout of the other health crisis: fentanyl-related overdoses and deaths. These are just a few of Powell River's hundreds of workers who are keeping us safe and keeping our institutions and businesses going through some of the toughest months in decades.

Update: With a slow roll-out of vaccinations and new variants of the coronavirus emerging in BC, we'll be leaning on our grocery staff, health care workers, teachers and other essential workers for the foreseeable future.

New residents and wild home prices

As city-dwellers found themselves cramped and working from home, it seemed all eyes turned to Powell River. By fall, home prices jumped by nearly a third since a year earlier here in Powell River - the biggest jump in BC.

Update: As of January 2021, the average selling price of a Powell River home was a whopping $462,505, up 55 percent from January 2020.

Neil Frost, president of the Powell River Sunshine Coast Real Estate Board, said, "Market conditions remain historically tight and tilted heavily in favour of sellers. Without any relief on the supply side we’re likely going to continue seeing outsized price gains and prices rising to record or near-record levels."

At press time, there were no concrete statistics showing how much this community has grown in the past year. But at PRL: there is no shortage of candidates for "I Made the Move."

Protecting ourselves

To mask or not to mask? At the beginning of the pandemic, that was still a question. Once it was clear - yes - dozens of local mask-maskers rose to the challenge including Miki Takahashi, owner of Mikibaby. Nate Alcos had barriers installed at Save-On-Foods, Modern Windows volunteered to make

barriers for the hospital and hand-sanitizer became the new Frank’s RedHot: we put that #!*# on everything.

Update: There are new recommendations for mask design, masks in schools, and bigger gaps between people. But the basics are the same: don't breathe on each other.

Pandemic 100 years later

Thanks to the Powell River Historical Museum and Archives for digging up these photos, we can appreciate that this region has gone through a similar pandemic before: The Spanish Flu.

The masks and other public health measures; the heroic doctors and nurses; quarantines. Back in 1918, the Spanish Flu ripped through this community, costing nine lives. It could have been much worse without Dr. Henderson’s interventions.

The photo on the right is the "Pest House," where those suffering with the virus were isolated.

Oodles of time

What do you do with all the hours you’d normally spend socializing, commuting or working? Other stuff. Gardening has never been so popular. Some locals, including Tla'amin member Randolph Timothy Jr. (above are his grandparents) turned to geneaology - searching for their ancestors. Others played music, such as Colleen Cox and George Huber. Some made Pumpkin People, such as this nurse at Henderson House. And some, including PRL’s "Return to Reverence" columnist Juliette Woods, made care packages for neighbours. Remember the Wine Ninjas?

Update: Time is perhaps the quietest, biggest change the pandemic has brought. Nothing has changed about that since a year ago. Events have not come back; our bubbles are gone, and many people are still not working.

Good things are happening, though. The Library reopened full hours this month, and has dropped all late fees.

Feeding people

While Ottawa came up with CERB fairly quickly, the Powell River Action Society Food Bank was overwhelmed with new clients. COVID cost many locals their jobs. Many seniors, isolated in their homes, turned to the now-late Gene Jamieson (centre) and other volunteers

and services to deliver groceries and prepared food. When Tla’amin locked down in September Andrea Paul and Serena Barnes (above right) and Community Wellness Coordinator Brandi Mariott made sure everyone had enough food.

Bread-making took off early on, emptying grocery shelves of yeast, just after the worst of the toilet paper shortage happened. Soon, sourdough starters were being traded around town, no yeast required.

The early days of COVID coordinated nicely with the beginning of growing season, so all things gardening popped - and they still are (see the seeds section on Page 26). Many locals threw themselves into canning, as well.

Tla’amin locked down

In September, the first outbreak in the region happened at Tla'amin Nation, when 38 people were diagnosed with the coronavirus. The First Nations Health Authority and Tla'amin Health, as well as the Nation's government, stepped in with a true lockdown. Kids stayed home from school. Food and medicine was distributed. Watchmen oversaw checkpoints on all roads going on and off the Nation.

Update: It worked. The virus didn't spread beyond the initial outbreak. Thanks to the transparency and swift actions of everyone involved, Tla'amin became a pole star for excellence in containing COVID-19.

Life goes online

After a wave of cancellations, PRISMA was one of the first Powell River events to go online. Many other events either cancelled or re-invented themselves online. Craft fairs, which normally fill every weekend from late October through early December, went online, thanks in part to Kevin Wilson.

Between Zoom meetings and Netflix, screen time and the ennui that comes with it is one of the top struggles of our COVID year.

Reinventing absolutely everything

Because gathering was forbidden, we realized what achingly social creatures we really are. But also, adaptable. The Class of 2020 had a graduation like no other.

Churches were shuttered for much of the year. Father Patrick Teeporten organized drive-through confessions. Even annual events such as Mother Nature's pet photos with Santa for charity were altered. But we did our absolute best as a community to respect the rules, and stay connected.

Among businesses, restaurants and bars have probably had to change what they do most, and most often, for the past year.

River City Coffee shut down, then reopened as take out only, and now it's open for socially distanced eat- in. The Thaidal Zone- winner of PRL's Best Take Out in 2020's Best of Powell River, shut down dinning and offers just take out now. Townsite Fruit & Veg, along side other grocery stores, expanded delivery services.