We are almost a year away from the global pandemic of COVID-2 – Ars’ initial explainer of the virus first published on March 8, the World Health Organization declared a pandemic on March 11 and the US declared a national emergency. on March 13th. While we all struggle with achievement, 12 months have passed, several birthdays are being scheduled. has lots important milestones to be marked; moments that made the severity and global scale of the pandemic clear, or were the first signs of the new reality of social isolation, remote schooling and offices created from any available free space.
For many of us at Ars, the big milestones were abstract – things that happened to other people or to society as a whole as we continued to work from home. But as we talked about the experience of last March, each of us seemed to have come up with a different moment when the severity of the pandemic really clicked.
What follows is a collection of experiences that showed the seriousness of COVID-19 to each of us – the times when we knew things would not be the same. Feel free to add your own comments.
Kate Cox
Expelled
From where we were sitting, the world ended on Friday, March 13th. That was the last time that my daughter, then in the first grade, set foot inside a school the following year.
We had a feeling it was coming. The first COVID-19 case was identified in Virginia, in the county closest to where we live, on March 7. My husband and I took the kids out for brunch that morning, and you could already feel a strange unease in the air. Brunch at one of our regular locations does not to feel unsure, exactly – but what if it was?
My daughter’s school had its annual International Night (one of the highlights of the year) on March 11, and during every Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, discussions were intense at PTA and parent groups on Facebook. No one could decide whether it was safe to go, whether the event should be canceled or whether the homemade food served by the volunteer parents would make someone sick.
In the end, I went with my daughter, while my husband and our young son stayed at home. The photos and videos I have on my phone of her and her best friend participating in a huge and joyful Guatemalan folk dance in the school gym that night are the last photos I have of “before”.
“Please keep your music”
The set of woodwinds I played on Tuesday night, as usual, and our spring show was scheduled for Thursday, March 12. At lunchtime on Thursday, the conductor sent us an email promising that the show was still running. But just before 5 pm, he sent another one: the rumors we heard were true and schools were about to close for “maybe four weeks”. This included the school where we were scheduled to perform and the school where we rehearsed. The show was canceled.
“Please save your music until we meet again,” he wrote. “I’m not sure when that will happen.”
Within half an hour, the district notified parents that all after school activities and uses outside school hours for the rest of the week were being canceled immediately. After March 13, the school buildings would be closed for the next three weeks, and the administration would reevaluate after spring break.
Spring break has come and gone. April, May, June and the rest of the first series came and went. Summer came and went, with parks and pools closed and fields closed. Autumn came again – but the school did not.
There is at least one hopeful postscript. Our daughter returned to the classroom just under a year after the day she left – on March 3, 2021.
—Kate Cox, technical policy reporter
The show will not continue
I really realized that SARS-CoV-2 would be big business at the end of February last year. My first suspicion was on February 26th. I had flown to Vancouver for an event, and as I made my way through the non-Euclidean immigration queue at YVR, I realized that an excessive proportion of travelers from Asia wore masks.
Things really started to sink a few days later, just before returning to DC. At breakfast on February 28, the buzz was whether the Geneva Motor Show would happen or not, after the first reports of deaths in Lombardy, Italy. Later that morning, Volkswagen made the decision to cancel the planned trip to Geneva for the show. Within a week, the remaining trips on my schedule were canceled one after the other.
I haven’t set foot on a plane since February 28, 2020.
—Jonathan Gitlin, Automotive Editor
Hearing from a friend
In general, I am very knowledgeable about news and I have been following the history of COVID-19 in general development since the beginning of 2020. When my spouse returned from an Australian speaking tour on March 1, he mentioned that the concern about the coronavirus Down Under was much larger than in the US, and he thought the bug could become serious. “We should probably start stocking up on some basic needs, just in case.” So we did. But somehow we were not yet mentally prepared for how quickly things were about to change.
In the next 10 days, I visited the set of The Orville, where everyone joked about what the new greeting protocol might be in place of hugs and handshakes, usually opting for a shy touch of the elbows. We had brunch with friends, had some evening meetings, started planning a weekend trip to Las Vegas … and at the same time, the number of cases in the USA was starting to increase dramatically and spreading beyond the hot spots initials. Conversations about impending roadblocks spun.
But the harsh reality of what that meant didn’t hit me until I went to two matinee sessions on Friday (The hunt) it’s Saturday (Bloodshot), 13 and 14 March, respectively. The pending closure of LA was officially announced when I left the American theater in Glendale on Friday afternoon. When I showed up at Americana for my Saturday afternoon showing – usually the most popular time – it was almost completely deserted, like a ghost mall. I was one of only three people on the show. Of course, other angelenos understood the message more quickly than I did. I just wish I had taken the opportunity to watch better movies
“We are not going to do everything right”
We obediently stayed at home and followed all best practice guidelines for the next two weeks. But anyway –EVEN THEN– I hope it will be eternal. I mean, it can’t last more than a month or more, right? RIGHT? Then my husband had a sober podcast interview with a friend of ours, an epidemiologist, who explained in detail what the world was up against. “If we do everything right, we can win this in June,” she said. “But we are not going to do everything right. You must be prepared for it to last a year, maybe a year and a half.”
I still check with her Twitter feed every now and then, because all the predictions she made last year were accurate, even the patchwork nature of the devastating outbreaks of COVID-19 in midwestern states and in more rural areas.
It was a long and difficult year of social distance, of wearing masks to run errands or strolling, without traveling, without dining out, without dentistry and without meeting with friends and family. Humans are an adaptable species, and we all adapt to the best of our ability. We made good use of Zoom, various streaming platforms and food delivery services, and expanded our repertoire of homemade meals on weekends. We even set up a makeshift exercise area at home in our bonus room. Even so, the year took a big emotional toll.
Adding to this tribute is the frustration of watching something that should have united the country and further distancing everyone – because certain factions without principles thought they could benefit from the politicization of the situation and the spread of rampant disinformation. A large proportion of Americans decided to believe them and behave selfishly. We are suffering not only for the half million (and counting) of lives lost, but also for the loss of a shared sense of sacrifice to achieve a common good.
—Jennifer Ouellette, senior writer