It has been five years since COVID.

I realize that, technically, the disease was first identified in China at the tail-end of 2019, but as many of us can probably recall, it wasn't until March of 2020 that the World Health Organization (WHO) assessed the outbreak to be pandemic in scale. I was browsing the other day and saw that someone had written a line or a tweet or something referencing the five years since they were sent home from work with a laptop and told they would return to the office in two weeks. Remember when we only needed two weeks to “flatten the curve”? We were so optimistic!

I still remember hearing that a “severe respiratory coronavirus” had spread from Wuhan to other areas of China, then from China to other countries in Asia, and then globally from there. There were conflicting reports that it was just another form of SARS, which is another disease that generated some scary news headlines back in the early 2000s. And while it's true that SARS and COVID are both coronaviruses that share a lot of similarities, they also have quite a few key differences, the most important of which is that SARS was contained and there have been no documented cases of it since 2004. COVID, on the other hand, seemed very different. Something that I think all of us would figure out soon...

The Immediate Impact & Long-Term Effects

I'm pretty torn on my opinion of the year 2020.

In March 2020, I was working for a company in Indianapolis that did data entry and processed lab results for companies that were drug testing their employees. Though my dad likes to joke around and tell people about how I collected urine samples all day, everything that I did was mostly office and administrative work. I was very hands-off with the urine, I promise! I always had a dream of being able to work from home though — in fact, I had just been rehired at the company after taking a brief little hiatus to pursue a job that was remote-based, but didn't work out — so even though I was dreadfully anxious about COVID itself, I was ecstatic when my manager handed me a new laptop and sent me to start working from home! We were still deemed “essential employees,” but there was no reason why we couldn't do our data entry tasks and answer phone calls and emails from our own home offices. So we did!

As an introvert and homebody, I was practically made for lockdown. Working from home? That means no 25-45 minute commute to the office and back every day! It also means that I can basically be in my pajamas all day and nobody will mind one bit! I was saving all kinds of money: I didn't need to fuel up with gas or coffee for the drive, I didn't need to order my expensive sandwich from Potbelly's for lunch anymore, I didn't need to chip in for Karen from Accounting's kid's birthday fundraiser or whatever. Hell, I didn't even need to exchange fake pleasantries with Karen from Accounting anymore! Plus, I could take a nap in my bed with my cat or go on a walk around my neighborhood for some fresh air during my breaks! It all felt so freeing! Truthfully, I think a lot of us felt this sense of like, “Why haven't those of us who could work from home been working from home all along?”

There were, of course, things about the pandemic that weren't great. Hearing a constant barrage about the increasing death toll on practically every news outlet was depressing and terrifying. Everyone was afraid, confused, and scrambling for real information. The pandemic, for whatever reason, became a political issue here in the United States. Looking back, I think it was the start of people widely sharing misinformation on the internet. People started using ivermectin, a livestock dewormer, as a COVID aid and our clueless President suggested that we should inject disinfectants as treatment. Many Americans wouldn't wear masks in public and refused to get the vaccine. So many that the WHO listed vaccine reluctance or refusal as one of the top 10 global health threats. It was also a nightmare trying to find supplies from people buying up entire stocks of toilet paper, hand sanitizer, and other in-demand pandemic necessities.

Schools closed. My heart ached for kids who never got to experience some of life's most important moments like homecomings, proms, and graduations. That's not even taking into account the lasting effects on the behavior and mentality of kids who experienced the pandemic early on in life. Hollywood shut down. Many anticipated blockbusters and some of our favorite shows were either cancelled or indefinitely postponed because actors and crew were no longer able to report to set. The popular medical series, and one of my personal favorites, Grey's Anatomy, not only shut down but later adapted the pandemic into its actual storytelling. Businesses also closed. Some permanently. So many of my favorite Indy hangouts went the way of the dodo due to little or no patronage during COVID lockdowns. (RIP Big Daddy's, home of the amazing pot roast nachos and the first place that I ever played musical bingo!) Protests that occurred nationwide in response to the murder of George Floyd in Minnesota a few months into 2020 also permanently altered the vibe of Indy for a lot of residents. It went from being an eclectic and growing city to something that almost needed to be feared. The world in general seemed to follow that same trajectory.

Where Are We Now?

Thinking about the entire concept of being five years removed from the onset of COVID immediately made me think back to an eerie moment in Avengers: Endgame when the film slowly cuts to a time jump of “Five Years Later” after an event that wiped half of all living creatures in the universe out of existence. Including several members of the titular team of Marvel superheroes.

While the Avengers were (spoiler alert!) successful in bringing back their friends and the rest of the universe, we weren't quite as fortunate here in the real world. Alas, time travel isn't exactly something we've achieved just yet, so we can't really follow their blueprint to avert the crisis.

I recognize that I was extremely fortunate during this very turbulent time. Staying at home all the time is where I'm the most comfortable, the most productive, and where I'm the most in my element. Though I've been seriously sick a few times since the beginning of the pandemic and even had to have emergency surgery, I've never personally tested positive for COVID. But I have close family members who have had COVID, some who still have lingering effects of it. My father, who is getting up there in years and has some underlying health issues, was always in the forefront of my mind when it came to exposure or infection since he is essentially one of the more at-risk populations of complications from COVID. I've also known people whose lives came to an end due to COVID. It makes anti-vaxxers and those who deny that it was even real very difficult for me to stomach.

The plague of misinformation online and distrust that has been brewing with science and public health officials is a real crisis. I can get behind folks that are skeptical of their government and its policies. My fellow Americans should be questioning everything the current administration says and does. But science and medicine are real. Make sure you're listening to the right sources of information. You may sometimes have to do a little Google research to ascertain what is fact and what is complete bullshit. And rather than limiting fact-checking like I mentioned Meta was doing in my last post, social media and tech platforms should be discouraging the spread of lies, not rewarding it. Somehow, we even managed to install a notorious anti-vaxxer as our U.S. Health Secretary! Seriously!

I often hear about things “returning to normal” these days as employees return to the office and students return to school. Many places don't require a mask to be worn on entry or that you be vaccinated anymore. I've even been to a few conventions that didn't turn out to be “superspreaders.” It's nice that the world is regaining some of its normalcy, but I also think there are a lot of lessons from the pandemic that we should carry with us into the future. We should be embracing remote work. If it can be done remotely, it should be allowed to be done from home. We should also be embracing health initiatives like getting vaccinated, wearing masks and social distancing when you're sick, or even just washing your damn hands! The number of people who needed clearer information and directions on effective hand-washing was seriously alarming. If your hands aren't getting flaky and scaly from washing your hands too often, you're doing it wrong! (Just kidding! Kinda. 👀)

All things considered, I think that the pandemic is an interesting study on humanity's ability to adapt and survive. I think that our intellect might be one of the qualities that makes us so special and unique as a species. That intellect is what gives us our ability to adapt. I could probably write an entire dissertation about instances where humanity faced pivotal moments throughout history where adaptation was necessary for survival, but I won't do that here. This story is already getting to be a little too long in the tooth as it is. But if you think about the history of humanity as a whole, we've gone through a hell of a lot that some species didn't survive. And it's important to remember that not all of us survived the pandemic, either.

Keep them in your hearts and minds during this five-year anniversary as they have definitely been weighing on mine.