5th Anniversary of COVID-19 in America

On January 17th, 2020, one month after the outbreak of Coronavirus (later called SARS COVID-19), the CDC began screening airline passengers in San Francisco, New York, and Los Angeles arriving from Wuhan, China. It didn’t work. Covid arrived anyway. On February 6th, 2020 the first American death from Covid would be recorded in San Francisco. It was the first of many.

Yet five years later Covid is still with us. It’s progressed from epidemic to pandemic to endemic. And the difference between those words – pandemic and endemic – is not often understood. 

We lived through a global pandemic. Pandemics cause “large-scale social disruption, economic loss, and general hardship.” In 2022, Covid slowly crept into an endemic, like the flu. It’s still with us (and likely will be forever) but it’s treatable and we have flu vaccines to protect at-risk populations. The US Government was slow to declare an end to the pandemic, but ultimately decided to end all Covid restrictions by May of 2023. 

There was no ceremony. There was no national day of remembrance, no parades or celebrations that marked the end of the pandemic, and no official welcome into the age of endemic. The news barely mentioned it. It was the most challenging and disruptive event in our lives, yet it ended with barely a footnote in the CDC archives.

Because there was no definitive end to the pandemic, and no collective recognition of it, I would submit that many Americans are still in a state of limbo. Some people still wear masks at Kroger. We are “socially isolated and suffering economic loss” five years later. Fist bumps have replaced handshakes and hugs. We stay home and watch Netflix instead of going out to see a movie or a comedy show. And isolating isn’t good…especially for introverts.

When Covid first hit us we were so scared of dying that we forgot how to live. And if the “large-scale social disruption, economic loss and general hardship” is ever going to go away, we have to put the pandemic in the past and embrace normality again. As we turn the corner and begin a new year, I hope 2025 is the year we can finally say the pandemic is over, and let’s move on. Our physical, social, mental, and financial well-being depends on it.