Déjà Vu in the Time of Covid-19
One Monday morning not long ago, I attended my yoga class. We stretched and twisted, breathed and meditated amidst a soundtrack of calming music and the instructor’s soothing voice. It was late January 2020, when we still took for granted our ability to move freely in and around the world. Afterwards, I chatted with another yogini. Standing close together, we discussed the first reported Canadian case of COVID-19. The National Microbiology Laboratory had confirmed the presumptive case two days earlier. We were concerned, but we agreed the problem could be easily contained.
The virus had seemed too distant to worry about, a continent away, an ocean apart. China had locked down the city of Wuhan and commissioned new emergency hospitals built in ten days. I viewed the time-lapse construction videos in awe and read residents’ blogs about self-quarantine, food shortages, and empty streets. Official news reports promised these extreme measures would contain the virus. A tiny alarm pulsed inside my head, low but steady.
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