COVID-TEST lineup proof kids alright
There’s an awful lot of finger-pointing at the younger generation for spikes in the you-knowwhat virus.
Yes, there was that party in south-end Halifax. And young people were going to bars, which were open for business until this week. There has been community spread among 18- to 35-year-olds in HRM.
Boomers thunder: “Spoiled, entitled and privileged. They’ve never known hardship. They don’t care.”
I always find it ironic to hear the most entitled, well-pensioned, and I dare say, spoiled generation — the baby boomers — accusing kids today of being all of these things, while glossing over the fact they face huge tuitions, an uncertain job market, skyrocketing real estate prices and big-tent problems like climate change.
Alas, it is a rite of passage for the old to gripe about the young. Young people “are high-minded because they have not yet been humbled by life, nor have they experienced the force of circumstances,” Aristotle said in the 4th century B.C.
Yes, there are spoiled, entitled, privileged people among the 18-35ers, as there is among every other age group.
So, let me tell you about an experience I had with that younger demographic this week.
When chief medical officer Dr. Robert Strang and “Angry Dad” Mcneil announced the asymptomatic testing program for the 18-35 age group this week, I shot over to the pop-up clinic on the Sexton campus at Dalhousie University.
No, I’m not between the ages of 18 and 35. I was there because — like many of them — I do shifts as a bartender and server and was working at a curling club after 10 p.m. a couple of times.
When I showed up, the line was long, starting on Morris Street and coiling around the Dal engineering campus, around, and around again, all the way down to Barrington Street.
It was cold, brutally cold, below zero with a north wind blasting through wind tunnels and stabbing us in the back.
There were hundreds of kids in that line, every single one of them wearing a mask and distancing.
They stood and stood in that weather, some without hats, some without proper winter jackets or footwear.
At any time, any one of them could have said, “No, I’m not doing this. I’m too cold.”
But no. They stood. For two-and-a-half hours.
My toes were frozen. When one of these socalled entitled, privileged, spoiled kids saw me jumping up and down to stay warm, he gave me two unused hand warmers for my shoes.
About an hour into my wait, my friend Jacqueline showed up with a cup of hot ginger tea after I answered her text and told her what I was doing. Two hours in, when it was dark and getting colder, she showed up again, this time with a blanket and ski gloves and another hot ginger tea. She was my
Covid-testing angel that day.
I saw others doing the same — young people showing up with coffee, sweaters and blankets to keep their friends in line warm. At one point, someone arrived with a bunch of new toques and gave them out to friends and strangers.
The “mum” in me wanted to hug those kids and tell them how proud I was. But I kept my “inner proud mum” to myself and soldiered on as one the COVID testing line warriors.
My point here is that not all kids in this generation fit the spoiled, entitled, privileged characterization. They are not all super-spreaders.
As Dr. Strang himself said: “It’s not about naming and shaming.”
The pandemic problem will not be resolved by unloading on kids who may not be receiving the same public health messages through their channels.
I saw a lot of goodness and sacrifice amongst those kids that day. And I want to thank them — and all the COVID testing line angels of mercy — for doing their bit.