Thursday afternoon.

Tomorrow is the end. Here, now, today, is my last day without the full two-shot vaccine protection. Sure, it’ll take my body a couple of weeks to fully ramp up its anti-covid defenses, but that’ll be on autopilot: there’ll be nothing else I’ll need to do. With tomorrow’s update, this blog series will finally end.

I’m writing down the bulk of my thoughts today instead of tomorrow: I don’t know whether I’ll get side effects from my second shot of Pfizer, or if I’ll be in any shape to write. Proper planning and practice prevents poor performance, eh?

I’m not sure how long I thought the pandemic would last back when I started this project in March 2020: memory is unreliable like that. I might have thought this virus could be constrained and isolated. I definitely don’t recall thinking this would go over a year – multiple years in non-G8 countries. Truth be told, I never thought this random project, inspired by a random post I saw on Reddit (“keep a journal, it’s good for you!”) would last over a year. Had I known that, I might not have started, but I’m glad I did.

My personal pandemic is about to end even as most of Canada remains unvaccinated, as Brazil remains every epidemiologist’s nightmare, as India is posting record-high case numbers and running out of oxygen, with people dying without that most basic supply – something that would’ve been unimaginable before covid. Over the past 13 months, I wrote primarily about the things that interested me: video games, books, investing, covid’s effect on public health, politics, finance, etc. There were quite a few aspects I didn’t cover: the plight of frontline workers who eventually lost their “hero pay” and in some cases had their stores shut down, or the spike in anti-Asian violence (almost always anti-Asian-women violence…) in the US and in Canada, or the way children and young adults all over the world regressed and got traumatized away from their teachers and peers, forced to stare at a laptop for months on end. All this – and more – happened, but there are some topics that I have no idea how to approach beyond just shaking my head and muttering “WTF? WTAF?..”

This pandemic highlighted – and will continue to highlight – the growing gap between the rich and the poor, both worldwide and within allegedly prosperous countries. It showed how inefficient world leaders can be, especially when they’re authoritarian populists. Bolsonaro’s Brazil became one of the world’s biggest covid hotspots. Trump and his wife Melania got vaccinated in secret in January – for once, he didn’t want cameras to see him, and his follow-up message to his supporters to get vaccinated was too little, too late. Putin finally got vaccinated on live TV, but his own administration never revealed what exactly he got injected with. (That may or may not have been Sputnik V.) Doug Ford got vaccinated with AstraZeneca a few days ago, just a week after publicly criticizing it, and then pretended to die right afterwards to get some cheap laughs from his entourage. None of those things inspire confidence; none of those alleged leaders showed any leadership. (Incidentally, this recent article provides the inside scoop on Ford’s flip-flopping, which it charitably calls “climbdowns.” The short version is that the lockdown measures were decided by a committee; no doctors had been consulted.)

The pandemic also showed that not all high-ranking doctors can be trusted. The WHO spent those first few precious months arguing that covid wasn’t airborne (even as the anti-aerosol evidence kept piling up) or that it wasn’t a pandemic at all. Dr. Fauci, despite all his stellar performance afterwards, originally told Americans that masks don’t work and shouldn’t be used. Later, he revealed that he was trying to trick people so that more masks would be available for healthcare workers. That might have been an okay tactic, but it was a terrible strategy which destroyed trust. Dr. Birx kept sucking up to Trump, at one point claiming that his extensive business background and his alleged ability to read balance sheets and such would make him great at reading academic papers on covid. (That was not the case.) Birx’s post-election attempt at a PR rehabilitation tour haven’t been very convincing. Here in Canada, Dr. Tam (Canada’s Chief Public Health Officer – our version of Fauci) told everyone that only sick people should wear masks. That was in March 2020, that most critical month… She doubled down on that statement in the following weeks, before finally recommending masks seven weeks later. She never did apologize. She still has her job.

All of the above provides plenty of fuel for anti-vaxxers and overall crackpots, and only strengthens my own inherent distrust of authority figures. (Born and raised in the Soviet Union/Russia, remember?) Some leaders, some countries, some communities performed admirably against all odds (way to go, Navajo Nation!), but most did not. An idiot can skate by fairly long in absence of any real emergencies, but when they actually happen… Well, we’ve al seen the results. The Peter Principle is all around us at all times, and I’m not sure it’s possible to adequately tell if someone will perform well or absolutely crumble and self-sabotage when a true crisis comes along. All I know is that next time there are reports of a weird highly contagious virus, I’ll try to run off to New Zealand, or Taiwan, or Vietnam, or at the very least to Canada’s Atlantic provinces that formed their own bubble: it didn’t last forever, but it was quite impressive nonetheless. Not everyone has those options or mobility, I know: most people would have to make do with the idiot leaders and/or doctors that happen to be in charge at the time.

On the personal front… I am not okay. I’ve learned some cool and useful things about myself, such as the fact that cider doesn’t actually do anything for my stress levels, or that I can operate just fine without ginkgo biloba (though it does make feel great), or that I cannot survive without caffeine – those withdrawal headaches suck. I perfected my investing skills and learned a little French and a fair bit of Spanish. But on the other hand, I’ve gone pretty damn feral. It’s been many months since I touched another human being. (My party-loving Vietnamese landlords weren’t into hugging.) The only real-world conversations I’ve had over the past three months were with the vaccine trial doc. I can’t adequately describe my yearning to reconnect with the rest of the world, to date, to love, to party, to converse. I sense that I’ve grown much more irritable and easier to anger. I’ve definitely developed a video game addiction. With not much else to do but stare at various screens, my eyes dry up and hurt. (It doesn’t help that I have a stress-related tick where I forget to blink.) I maintain my pre-pandemic weight and try to do some half-assed exercises but with gyms being unsafe, I am – at best – in the same shape as before covid, and likely a bit worse. At least the vitamin D supplements (aka Canada’s national snack) keep me from getting depressed, to the extent that it’s possible.

If you’ve been reading this blog a while, you might think that I severely overreacted to this whole pandemic business and have only myself to blame for everything I just described. Who knows, you might be right. At first, it was a game of “dodge the virus” because things would’ve gone pretty damn bad for my then-gf if I caught it and infected her. And after those first 72 days, after we split up and went our separate ways, there were multiple reports of long covid, of survivors with ruined lungs or persistent brain fog. As someone who aims to die of old age with most of my brain intact, please and thank you, that alone was pretty terrifying. I’m up for many things, but I’m rather risk-averse when it comes to permanent damage, or high risk thereof. (If you ever see me riding a horse, a motorcycle, or both, please call for help.) I know quite well that I’m both lucky and privileged to have an okay job that allows me to work from home: had this pandemic happened just seven years ago, I would’ve been as screwed as the rest of all y’all. My experience has been very different from that of most of my fellow pandemic travelers, and it is my hope that maybe, somehow, someone will find this long (and occasionally dry) recollection of events useful.

In more down-to-earth news, today was spent preparing for the big trip tomorrow, as well as the big quarantine that will follow. A bit of cider, just one can every other day. Two bottles of champagne, one to celebrate my full vaccination tomorrow night, one to celebrate my last day at work two weeks later. A bit of salmon and chicken to last me a week: the tiny fridge doesn’t have a freezer, so the second half of my house arrest will consist of Ramen noodles, canned tuna, sandwiches, white chocolate, and good vibes. An urban hike to the nearest Royal Bank of Canada bank (which turned out to be closed due to an unspecified emergency – a covid outbreak?..), followed by a hike to a different branch, where I learned it takes three whole weeks to deposit a check from myself to myself, from the US to Canada. I hope the dude they send on horseback to Seattle will avoid highwaymen and make it there and back in time.

As a night owl, I’m rather proud of myself for successfully waking up (and staying awake!) at 5am today. I’ll aim for 3:50am tomorrow. I am prepared: the US passport, the Canadian papers, the index cards with the locations of the covid-testing clinic (for the low, low price of $210 USD) and the vaccination center and my fake Toledo address. The water bottles, and a few cans of coke, and some cashews. A backpack for both my home and work laptops in case I can’t reenter Canada. Multiple backup alarms. Podcasts downloaded on a USB stick for the long 10+ hour drive. The Ohio addresses are already punched into my GPS. This giant blog post written and about to be released into the worldwide web wilderness… This is as ready as I’ll ever get.

I can’t believe that after all this time, my personal pandemic is almost over. So close. So very, very close.

Cheers, y’all. Wish me luck.