By. Tiffany Lee

About a year ago today, marked the beginning of the lockdown. Little did we know that this lockdown would change our lives radically and this would become the “new normal”. Many of us took this extra “free time” to reinvent ourselves or spend quality time with our families, but this wasn’t the reality for other Canadians. The lockdown was put in place to keep Canadian citizens safe, however, it has also indirectly affected many, if not all of us in a negative way. 

Many Canadians have been put out of work due to several businesses closing in light of the lockdown, preventing them from providing for their families. It’s difficult for businesses to tell how much longer they can continue to operate at current levels before being forced to permanently closing their doors or going bankrupt. This is causing unemployment rates across the country to skyrocket. 

As stay at home orders come into effect, learning online through virtual platforms can be disengaging and may cause a lack of social interaction which can be detrimental to our health. Learning online poses several new challenges, with students being exposed to a greater number of distractions making it more difficult to focus and retain knowledge. In addition, with academic dishonesty, teachers truly do not know how much information the student actually knows. 

Parents send their children to school every morning while they work to support their household. However, with school closures forcing children to stay at home and strict restrictions placed onto daycares, many working parents must take time off work to care for their children. Due to this, unemployment rates have reached record-breaking numbers during lockdowns, as mentioned above. 

Lastly, thousands of surgeries, procedures, and consultations were postponed due to COVID-19.  This has affected the health and well-being of countless Canadians as most medical priorities are shifted to dealing with the virus, causing diseases and medical procedures of undiagnosed Canadians to go completely overlooked. The lockdown has also affected people’s mental wellbeing since many mental health services were mandated to close. Canadians are unable to receive adequate healthcare that they need and deserve. 

Taking this into consideration, are the COVID-19 lockdowns really protecting the most vulnerable?