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It’s been five years and a day since everything shut down for about a year during covid pandemic. It feels like yesterday and forever ago. I’ve caught covid a couple of times, although I still mask when I can, and in each case I did not get my cardiovascular fitness back for at least a month. I wore a mask at a very crowded indoor venue last week and I was the only person there with one. If it were not for the news that people at the SNL50 concert caught covid, I might have decided to go without. My personal experience has been somewhat muted. I don’t have long covid, my job has always been remote, I didn’t lose anyone close to me and yet I have a deep distrust of people and of situations that will likely never go away. The lack of common sense and common decency that the pandemic exposed was eye opening to say the least. On the bright side, I started hobbies over lockdown and made positive life changes. I love baking and hiking now, after previously having little interest in either.
The Guardian has a new article featuring brief interviews with six people about how their lives have changed since March 13, 2020. It’s a concise, evocative read in which you get a sense of each person’s experience. There’s a sweet story from a retired woodworker in Vermont who started cleaning up felled trees and replacing steps at public trails near his house. There’s a young man whose long covid is so bad he has trouble getting around the house, and there’s an older man who grew closer to his family. I’m going to excerpt the part from a public health expert who gave the quote in the title. This was the interview that resonated the most with me:
I have worked in public health for 10 years now, most of that time spent in applied infectious disease control. While I was finishing my graduate degree I read an email about some “undiagnosed pneumonia” in a Chinese city. I still remember the goosebumps flittering up and down my arms. We had always been taught about “Disease X” and that another pandemic would eventually happen, but here it was.
Studying pandemics in textbooks and through academic journals pales in comparison to living and working through one. I remember receiving calls from friends and family asking about what to do, how to respond, questions about anything from masking to vaccines. I learned to take responsibility for each word I gave in answer.
At the same time, I remember the sense of pride I felt that I was able to go into work each day and help people. I remember the joy at hearing about the results of the vaccine trials and the excitement I felt standing in line at the hospital to receive my first dose.
Being adjacent to such suffering has taken a toll on me that I have yet to fully process. If I have changed as a person, it is perhaps that I feel more cynical. How could so many people die, and yet so many more be so unmoved by such tragedy? It feels as though we have ignored the lessons of yesterday at our own peril.
My anger at the injustice around me has driven me to consider political work and to continue my path towards practicing medicine. There is always work to be done, there is always responsibility to be taken, and I want to be involved. Nicholas, 29, works in public health, New York
Earlier this week I read an article on Yahoo! Life about the differences between mask wearing in the US and in Asian countries. It’s often assumed that people wearing masks in the US are immune compromised, while people do it in other countries to protect others. About ten days after I caught covid last fall I wore a mask at a gynecologist appointment. My voice was still quite raspy. The doctor told me that it had been ten days since I tested positive so I could remove my mask. I said it was a nasty illness and I didn’t want to spread it.
We are of course woefully unprepared for another pandemic, especially under this evil administration. Many people I know are getting vaccinated in reaction to a vaccine denier being appointed head of HHS and due to multiple disease outbreaks around the US. Last Friday I got an MMR booster at CVS. The pharmacist told me that more people are getting immunized now and that we might not be able to get vaccinated in the future. I agreed and mentioned my mom getting one of the first batches of the polio vaccine as a child. One of her classmates was on an iron lung. Since 2020, the US has lost over a million people to covid, millions more are facing long term disability and it’s like we’ve collectively decided to ignore it. I can make a mean baguette now though and I really love hiking.
Photos credit: Getty and Adam Schultz/Avalon
