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How has the Covid-19 pandemic changed what is considered ‘the norm’? The Covid-19 pandemic has changed what is considered to be ‘the norm’ in many ways. For one, almost every weekend, I would be working. But now, I am not. The pandemic has also changed the fact that I can no longer go out to see my friends, due to the risk of spreading the virus, although that is the situation for everybody. What impact has Covid-19 had on Canadian institutions? Education: Previous assumptions have been shattered by the frightening Coronavirus pandemic. E-learning has arrived, by default, and the ministries of education and school districts are currently struggling to fill the gap. With children and families essentially quarantined and home-bound, educating children for the first few weeks has largely fallen mostly to parents and guardians. Some super-keen educators seized the interesting and unexpected opportunity to try something new and provide their students with short video chats, online learning and/or "lesson packets”. The first and most instinctive response was to reassert ingrained and widely practiced policy methods, such as addressing educational inequities first. E-learning programs require far more planning and coordination than is possible at this time in the specific instance of the coronavirus pandemic. Teachers are expected to become on-the-fly instructors online, while everyone struggles to adjust to the technology era of online communication. Some provinces, such as Alberta and Ontario, have moved immediately to ensure the stability of learning platforms. Students of the upper class and university-educated family members may strive in this environment. Poor and marginalized children and families without access to technology will suffer more so than others. Healthcare Front-line workers and service providers are thanked for their work. Employees are praised on a large scale, from handmade paper signs to corporate messaging. Health care workers adapted their behaviour in a variety of ways, both in the hospital and at home. The primary objective is to help patients who are suffering while protecting themselves as well as others. Canada is adapting to the crisis by expanding hospital capacity, preparing new positions for staff, and inviting retired health-care workers to return to duty. Everyone working in the healthcare industry is required to wear surgical masks. They're given a new mask, two or three times a day. At lunch, the staff will remove their masks to eat, either in the regular staff room, in the conference room or in the lobby. Virus-laden droplets that are smaller than what we expel in a regular cough spread all over the place. Healthcare workers need to wear N95 masks, face shields and clothes that liquid cannot penetrate. The PPE must be carefully prepared and removed between patients, along with handwashing. Economy Parliamentary budget officer Yves Giroux's latest figures guesstimate that the various programs to help those affected by the pandemic will add up to almost $146 billion in new federal government spending. This results in an estimated fall of just over $500 billion in the second quarter alone before a slow recovery period begins. It is the largest budget deficit ever recorded since records were kept to be obtained, in the 1960s. In order to make up for the sudden increase in spending, the federal government will have to increase revenues or take on more debt. These options are economically damaging in different ways, and all of them are unlikely to be popular with voters. Economists say that the best solution is a major economic stimulus package aimed at improving the nation's infrastructure. But they say it needs to be large and targeted to those most affected by the pandemic. The Trudeau government has regularly defended the escalating national debt by noting that it is shrinking relative to the growth of the economy. Some sectors may see the recovery period as a time to accelerate their moves towards industrialization. Examining the Covid-19 pandemic from the sociological perspective: Disasters are defined as serious disruptions to the routine functioning of society due to adverse events. The risk and impact of the virus are affected by social, economic, and institutional processes. Disadvantaged individuals are prone to work under conditions that massively expose them to the virus. Public health strategies implemented to manage pandemics in the form of social isolation and lock-up also have a significant negative impact on marginalized people. Underlying assets such as inequality, lack of access to resources, marginalization and exclusion could amplify the risk and impact of pandemics. Welfare policies and social security networks that ensure food security, health care, minimum wages, affordable housing, access to water, etc. are crucial methods to reduce marginalization and are all relevant to minimizing the severity of a pandemic. The socio-economic and political nature of COVID-19 and its impacts need to be considered in order to better understand how this can educate public health policies and pandemic management methods. On a broader level, we need to consider whether we want to resume the same socio-economic and institutional processes and systems that have created a situation of disproportionate risk. Underprivileged people are more likely to have limited savings and no medical insurance, which prohibits timely access to recovery from universal health care. Bringing everyone under the umbrella of healthcare will enable the quick detection of infectious diseases and the containment of local outbreaks. Without such a balanced approach, the pandemic treatment methods will fail to deliver the desired results.