Varghese Podur is a retired social worker for the city of Toronto. He is 75 years old, and is recently recovering from heart surgery. He’s also my Father-in-law. Like many people, he’s concerned about the pandemic, and how the quarantine has changed his life. We recently had a chat about life during COVID-19.
Hi Varghese, how are you folks doing?
we’re ok. It’s a little boring, but so far, we healthy, and that’s the important thing.
How have things changed for you and Hilaria?
Malls are closed! Hilary and I used to go to the Square One mall for a stroll, have a coffee and come home relaxed before bed time. Schools are closed and no one knows for how long. We live close to schools, and are used to watching kids play whenever we go out. They are gone now, and we miss them. Restaurants, cafes and bars around the world, which always met the most basic of human needs, are mostly closed.
I always took these places for granted.
So did I, I’ve never seen anything like this before…
The last few weeks have been unlike any time in my 75 years of life.
You had a long career as a social worker, what do you think of Canada’s response so far?
Prime Minister Trudeau, who himself has been observing “self-isolation” due to his wife being diagnosed with the virus, told people of Canada “to go home and stay home”.
It’s easier said than done in many cases. Even though Canadians are generally better housed than most others, we still have over 200,000 homeless people in Canada. How are they supposed to go home and stay home? Many more thousands share tiny rooms in basements and attics in big cities, making it difficult to practice social distancing. Canada has thousands of foreign students who cannot just go home because of travel restrictions around the globe. I’m worried about them.
What do you think the future holds? Are you staying hopeful?
I have reason to believe we shall overcome this disease and may be wiser in the end.
As a child I had malaria, and my wife Hilaria had a near death encounter with smallpox. Both were deadly diseases which killed millions of people over time. Aids and Sars were scary. The Spanish flu added to the tragedy of WW1 with very high mortality rates among young people at the time. The black plague in the middle ages ravaged, and set back Europe for centuries. Smallpox, for example, was ten times deadlier than covid-19.
What is different this time is that humans are much more interconnected. News travels even faster than the virus. Never before has the whole world been practically shut down to contain a disease. Vaccines and medicines were developed to control infections before. Fortunately for us humans, the scientific community has much better tools today than ever before Experimental drugs are beginning to be used. Vaccination may become available sooner than expected. I am sure within a year we all will look back at this as a bad dream!
