I can imagine in the year 2040, those who are too young to remember the COVID-19 pandemic, or those who are not yet born, will probably look at the photos from 2020 and ask: “Why are these people so strangely distant from each other? Why are they wearing masks? “
The term “socially distanced” may not be in your vocabulary. And they may not know what it is like to see a shortage of cleaning products and hand sanitizers. Or even what it is for businesses and restaurants to temporarily close due to the possibilities of spreading the virus.
I don’t think I’m alone when I say this: I certainly expect COVID-19 to be a thing of the past well before 2040.
The virus has had – and continues to have – a major impact on education. One of the main questions I remember hearing more after schools were forced to close abruptly: what should working parents do with their children who cannot go to school?
I will never forget the March morning when I learned that Horry County had its first case of the virus. For weeks, it felt like something that was only happening in other parts of our world. But it was only a matter of time before it became a reality on our edge of the country.
And now, the virus has killed more than infected more than 16,000 people, including me, while killing more than 250 in Horry County.
Many of us thought that everything would pass quickly. I certainly expected it to happen when the first cases came up on the Grand Strand and I was planning my own wedding for May, which ended up being the priest, my husband and me – a very different environment from the 200-person wedding we had planned.
The year brought many unknowns and changes. Some of us had to learn to work from home and focus on the chores of the day, instead of being distracted by the laundry washed in the dryer that needs to be folded and the dishes that need to be washed in the sink. And others had to physically enter the workplace, including thousands of teachers here in Horry and Georgetown counties, and face the chance of catching the virus.
Horry County schools and the Georgetown County school district maintain online dashboards to let staff, students, parents and guardians know how many active and historic cases exist in schools. The GCSD maintains a count of students and staff in quarantine, although HCS only lets the public know of staff in quarantine.
And even before these panels were made last fall, the two counties faced the need to make a plan for students to return to school – GCSD decided to start the academic year remotely and HCS immediately entered hybrid education – which involves face-to-face teaching twice a week.
Even before that, schools were essentially closed overnight in March, forcing district staff and students to figure out how to learn remotely for the rest of the school year – and parents and guardians in the area had to figure out how their children would be cared for. during the day if they were still expected to report to work.
It started to become increasingly obvious this fall that school districts were pushing and suggesting bringing students to classrooms 5 days a week, especially when HCS resumed its plan to move to remote if the county was considered too widespread by the Department South Carolina Health and Environmental Control. When the municipality went from a medium to high spread, HCS continued to make students and teachers come to school in person two days a week. Installing the plexiglass was another attempt to bring students back to the classroom full time.
Although there was chaos and the leaders were forced into unknown waters, the year was not a total washout. Hundreds of students were able to graduate from Coastal Carolina University, Horry-Georgetown Technical College and high schools along the Grand Strand. The CCU football team had an incredible and record season. And the university was able to terminate the second half of the licenses because student enrollment fell by about 3%, although the university had planned a decline of up to 15% due to the pandemic.
In a year of ups and downs, unknowns, loss of jobs and lives, it is something that we will probably always remember and learn. And although the pandemic is likely to follow us in a new year, we are equipped with the lessons learned and a vaccine that, hopefully, will help us see the light at the end of the tunnel.
As for young people in 2040 who did not experience the pandemic like us, adults or schoolchildren, I am sure that we at Post and Courier have recorded the year as accurately as possible so that those who look back will remember 2020 across the its rawness, the emotions that the year brought, sadness and, hopefully, at least some happy moments.
That’s why we do what we do.
That’s why we’re here for you now, telling stories that go down in history.
Happy New Year.
Talk to Hannah Strong at 843-277-4687. Follow her on Twitter @HannahLStrong.