[Show opens]
[Music starts]
Myrtle Alegado: When the world first heard about COVID-19 and countries started enforcing lockdowns, I don’t think anyone foresaw that we would still be in the same situation in 2021.
Back in March of 2020, personally, I was one of the individuals who kept asking, “How bad could this be? It’s only like the flu, right?” How wrong I was! It was only after hearing of people that I personally knew becoming ill and even passing away, that I was jolted to awareness. Now, imagine being a newlywed, already just trying to get used to married life, but now you’re doing that in the middle of a global pandemic. We’ll talk about that today.
Welcome to Happy Life, a podcast brought to you by INC Media that aims to help newlyweds navigate through the first years of marriage. I’m Myrtle Alegado, and I’ve been married to my husband, Paul, since 1999.
[Show jingle/catchphrase]
Inspiration to make your marriage thrive, you’re listening to Happy Life.
Myrtle: In January of 2020, the World Health Organization or WHO began looking into a cluster of reported pneumonia cases in Wuhan, China. On January 31st, 2020, the Emergency Committee or EC advised the WHO Director-General that “the outbreak constituted a Public Health Emergency of international concern.” And on February 11th, this new coronavirus was given a name: COVID-19. One month later, on March 11th, the outbreak was declared a pandemic. Life, as we knew it, changed drastically.
Today, let’s welcome Sean and Vanessa from Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. They’ve been married since September of 2020. Hey there, Vanessa and Sean! We’re so glad you’re here with us today. How are you and things on the island?
Sean Condie: Hi, Myrtle. Things are good here, [I] can’t complain too much. But you know, it’s been the same for the past year.
Myrtle: True! At least we kind of had nice weather today, at least we did here. Was it nice there today?
Sean: It was, yeah. I would say it’s been pretty nice.
Vanessa Condie: I think we got a couple of weeks where we had, like, really hot weather in April, which was surprising. So that was good, we had like summer weather.
Myrtle: I agree! It was like, “summer is here, yes!” and then it started to rain again.
Vanessa: Yes. [laughs] Exactly, like the time the weather changed so much, drastically.
Myrtle: Well, for our listeners out there, Victoria is an hour and a half ferry ride away from mainland British Columbia. And honestly, it’s one of the most quaint and picturesque cities in Canada, in my humble opinion.
Sean and Vanessa, I mentioned how I was
completely unprepared for what we faced last year, when we first heard about the worldwide pandemic. Can you share what your initial reactions and thoughts were?
Sean: I’m going to be honest, I was kind of in the same boat as you.
Myrtle: Right?
Sean: I didn’t actually take it as seriously as I thought it should have been taken seriously. But I guess here we are now, so it goes to show what I know.
Vanessa: Yeah, that’s exactly like me. In the beginning, it didn’t hit me as much. I was still going to work. And then when things started to shut down, and we started to get, like, know people that have had it, we were like, “Oh, this is really serious.”
