I have been enjoying myself here in quarantine doing work on the cottage and playing in the water and ice. "Here" is a small rural Canadian town with waterfront second homes or family cottages, a local population who make livings supporting them, and a hospital system meant primarily to heal the wounds the Lakey People inflict on themselves chainsawing or boating or snowmobiling or falling down drunk. Circumstances thrust us here after getting back to Canada and we cannot leave for our house in the city until our federal quarantine is over.
Much like the people who live in the Hamptons and usually service people from Washington and New York every year, the Locals are not happy that all the Lakeys have fled up to Cottage Country right now.
The hospital system is not enough to provide just the Locals with the ICUs and support the Locals need to deal with the pandemic. The food supply system is suffering the same issues as in the City *plus* smaller and more fragile supply chains.
A family member and rural nurse called my bullshit on my Facebook post yesterday about my play in the water. I took defensive offense and replied that I know all about water and risk and was just fine, thank you. That's true as far as it goes, I have spent countless hours over fifty years in almost all types of vessels on most conditions water can offer. I've been stitched up lots of times because of bicycles but I've never had a single medical intervention due to boating.
But. However.
The reality is that the hospitals up here are built to handle and regularly do handle a given level of folks screwing up and getting hurt. My one trip to the rural hospitals up here was to get my face stitched up after smashing it with a branch cleaning up the yard. That sort of thing happens every day, and the people and hospitals up here deal with it.
The people and hospitals up here that need to be at their best and fastest and most heroic just to minimize the number of Locals, who don't have somewhere else to live, who are going to die this year.
So, two things.
1 - We do need to get out. Get fresh air as possible. Get exercise. But we need to be more careful than we usually would be. Not because we are more worried about getting hurt - though for your own health you do not want to spend more time in a doctor's office, if any, than necessary - but because other people need those beds more than your broken arm does.
Ride bikes. Just, be careful. I hate helmets but if I bike I'm wearing one. Bicycles fill hospitals every day, let's fill them less.
Go boating, if you can. More carefully than usual.
If you hurt yourself getting air and exercise, maybe you should just wrap that gash yourself.
2 - Do not move to the small town this summer.
Sorry. Go a bit if you are allowed and if you can do it safely. Drive slower, boat slower. Be the jerk who insists all the life jackets are worn or the boat doesn't leave the dock, period.
Or better yet, stay home.
