Happy (?) Fourth Pandemiversary

 

For the last few years, I've made posts on the pandemic anniversary, or "pandemiversary," days. Here is one for March 11, 2024.

It’s our fourth pandemiversary. It was four years ago today that the World Health Organization declared the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Tomorrow I’m heading to Lobby Day for organized labor here in Tennessee. I’ll be joining my union, United Campus Workers, to lobby state legislators at the capitol in Nashville. For a bit of symmetry, the last time I went to Lobby Day was March 10, 2020, the day before the pandemic was declared. We knew COVID was an issue. We were already not shaking people’s hands, but not yet wearing masks or canceling in-person events. I was worried to be in the crowded halls and offices of the state legislative building. And then I got on a plane to Minneapolis that evening, but the next day I decided to cut my trip short and rented a car to drive home. 

While the pandemic is not over and people are still getting COVID, the World Health Organization declared in May 2023 that the COVID-19 pandemic is no longer a global health emergency. Most people seem to have decided that the pandemic is over long before that. 

I hardly ever wear a mask anymore, although I do still see people wearing masks on occasion. It doesn’t feel weird these days like it would have before March 2020, at least here in the US. Or at least it doesn’t seem weird to me: maybe people are sick and don’t want to infect others, maybe they’re immune compromised, maybe they’re just careful… all good reasons if you ask me. 

As far as I know, I only actually got COVID once in the summer of 2022. But I still worry every time I cough or sneeze, and I feel terrible coughing or sneezing in public, like I’m violating the public trust. I use a home test if I feel sick, but so far have only ever tested positive that one time. I did wear a mask to class once last semester when I had a cold. I stay up to date on my booster shots. 

So, when will the pandemic be over? Have we really learned anything? How have the last four years changed all of us? 

I can’t answer any of those questions. COVID itself seems like it will be with us for some time, even if it doesn’t kill as many people as it once did. And lots of people are experiencing long COVID effects. 

I suspect it may take years or decades to fully understand what this upheaval in human history has done to all of us individually and as a species. Maybe we’ll never completely understand. The news locally, nationally, and globally isn’t giving me a lot of hope these days that we’ve learned much of anything. And if we humans somehow survive bigotry, nationalism, and pandemics, there’s climate change. 

But at least Dune Part Two finally came out, and it was great! Maybe this pandemic will really be over by the time Denis Villeneuve’s Dune Messiah is in theaters.