The Coronavirus Diaries: The Second Anniversary Edition
Me commemorating the second anniversary of COVID-19 in Europe in the park… with my mask. Lausanne, Switzerland. March 14, 2022.
Honestly, I’d have preferred to completely ignore the second anniversary of COVID-19 in the western world. The mere mention or thought of it so completely wearies me.
The urge to drop the subject has only gotten stronger with the advent of a war between Russia and the Ukraine in February. War and violence and mayhem—and an ongoing pandemic, with its continuing fallout of global unrest and exhaustion—are more than enough to make any of us want to stick our heads under a pillow. And stay there.
However, COVID-19 persists, as does its role as a major international event, even if the world has rightly turned its focus to the potential outbreak of what everyone fears will turn into a third world war.
Further, I do want to honor my rationale for starting the coronavirus diaries project (which you can read about in this essay I wrote for my undergraduate university’s alumni magazine). Someday, someone—and perhaps even us—will want to remember what we thought about what happened in this ceaselessly crazy period.
An Overview of Year Two
Between my one-year COVID anniversary post and this two-year mark, I have a lot of news to summarize as concisely as possible.
In early 2021, several manufacturers developed viable and groundbreaking vaccines for COVID-19. Though funding and politics and supply chains, among other concerns and questions, meant that some people had access to the vaccine far in advance of others—some of whom still do not have access—many people I knew in the United States had received their vaccine doses by late spring 2021. Here in Switzerland, we had received our vaccines and could count ourselves as fully vaccinated as of late June 2021. (We had booster shots, as the government here recommended, six months later.)
With the vaccine came proof of vaccination and the possibilities it offered. In most European countries, people could keep their vaccination passes on their smartphones via governmentally approved app that scanned a QR code provided by the local health authorities. With what people called your “COVID pass,” fully vaccinated people, people recently recovered from COVID, and people with a recent negative COVID test could—even if still fully masked, as required in different locations—enter certain places and undertake certain activities. The possibilities that COVID passes provided helped a lot of cultural sites, restaurants and bars, sports and fitness facilities, and other types of businesses to reopen.
However, the advent of the vaccine brought the advent of very vocal people in the west who protested it as “experimental” or who argued that vaccine requirements limit individual freedoms. The “antivaxxer” protests and demonstrations have caused months of continued unrest and ongoing uncertainty.
As I write this, the virus persists; new variants of it continue to crop up. Some of these variants seem able to break through to vaccinated people, even though vaccinated people get less severe cases of COVID than unvaccinated people do.
Despite the persistence of COVID-19 and its crafty variants, governments have started to lighten COVID-related restrictions—not always to the great joy of health workers and health systems or schools and teachers. I have the impression that populations have grown simply too recalcitrant when it comes to compliance, local authorities have grown fearful about continuing to enforce restrictions on a weary and grumpy populace, and politicians edging toward elections want to make their electorate as happy as they can—and the restrictions make a lot of very vocal people unhappy.
The loosening of restrictions that began in Europe in February has meant a sharp uptick in people out sick from work due to contracting COVID-19. Many work-disruption and supply-chain issues now stem from people unable to work due to illness, rather than unable to work due to stay-at-home and vaccine requirements.
Despite these challenges, at midnight on February 17, Switzerland dropped all mask requirements other than on public transportation and in medical facilities; all crowd-size limitations on events (private and public); and all COVID-pass requirements. At the end of March, it plans to drop the remaining mask requirements.
I would have predicted that some people would continue to wear a mask even if not required to wear one, but the day after Switzerland dropped the restrictions, I saw almost no one wearing a mask. (I continued to wear mine.) I saw a restaurant in a large department store inviting people to come in via a large sign in front of the building that read, “No COVID Pass Needed!” I went to a pottery class the weekend after the change and no one wore a mask despite it happening in a confined space without ventilation.
Last year, I posed myself three questions at the anniversary mark:
What have we kept since the beginning of the crisis?
At a fundamental level, what has changed in our lives due to the pandemic?
What do we believe has changed permanently due to the coronavirus crisis?
To keep to the same format, I’ve crafted responses to the same questions now that we’ve reached the end of year two.
To keep myself honest and clearheaded, I didn’t read my first anniversary post or its responses ahead of drafting my thoughts.
What We’ve Kept
In terms of what changes cropped up at the start of the coronavirus crisis, we’ve kept the following at the close of the year-two mark:
People pretty immediately eliminated greeting people with kisses, hugs, and handshakes, opting either for a polite and distanced wave or an elbow or fist bump. Though I’ve seen occasional instances of kisses, hugs, and handshakes since the vaccine arrived and since the restrictions lifted, I still haven’t seen them return with the default regularity they had before the crisis.
People almost immediately shifted to working from home at the start of the COVID crisis. Many people continue to work from home if they can, either most days of the week or some of the week. Though corporate leadership—and governments, even—have pushed hard for a return to the traditional corporate office in recent months, employees have pushed back. The increase in gas prices in response to the Russia-Ukraine war, among other factors, will only give more reason for employees to refuse to return to an in-office work environment, given the significant increase in commuting costs for drivers.
Videoconferencing has stayed. Skype, Zoom, Teams, and other providers boomed at the start of the COVID pandemic and have continued to thrive. Today, people use these platforms on a weekly or even daily basis for work and personal purposes.
The ongoing waves of variants that caused governments to impose confinements may have abated in recent months, yet I know many people (including us) who have set self-imposed confinements as a response to case spikes. For example, the Omicron variant’s sweep at the end of 2021 and early 2022 pushed us to decide to stay inside and away from everyone throughout the holiday season and through January.
And finally: COVID-19. The virus is still with us. That it will ever go away seems increasingly unlikely.
What Has Changed
On a more fundamental level, what in life has changed from the advent of the COVID pandemic to its two-year anniversary?
After two years of the pandemic and its unrelenting waves and stresses and side dramas, people in general and globally suffer extreme mental fatigue at a level I haven’t seen in the past. People seem on edge and unwilling to endure even the most minor hassles and inconveniences and to comply with any demand that doesn’t fully align with their wants and wishes.
In the United States and in many parts of the west, we’ve seen an epidemic of people quitting their jobs—even without another job already in hand. (For the who and the why within the United States, read this research and analysis from Pew Research Center on “The Great Resignation.”)
In addition to desiring distributed work—work that takes place outside a central office environment—people want the option to do more in general via the internet and screens, including social and cultural activities. Even activities heavy on interaction, like one of my book clubs, have decided to continue meeting via videoconference even when people could meet in person. Personally, I’ve preferred to attend certain presentations and panel discussions via streaming video rather than to traverse town to sit in an audience in person. (Further, streaming events allows me to attend events no matter where they take place—another bonus.)
Together with this preference for more distribution in interaction and attendance, people have grown incredibly comfortable and adept at videoconferencing across all age groups. This ease extends beyond using the technology to managing events and interactions, adapting conversational styles, and reducing the strain and fatigue everyone felt by the shift to videoconferencing at the beginning of COVID. I haven’t heard anyone complain of “Zoom fatigue” in months.
What I Predict has Permanently Changed
After yet another year of the coronavirus crisis, what COVID-inspired changes do I think we’ll keep permanently?
In many—if not all—cases, the world has irrevocably shifted to a work-from-wherever set-up for people who do not need to be in a central office. Perhaps people will not work from wherever all the time—and, of course, some people cannot work from anywhere but a certain location—yet the days of almost all people who can work from home going into an office full time, all the time, are gone. People have discovered quality of life improvements that they won’t give up. Further, they’ve proven they can work effectively and efficiently from home, and we now have the technology and the know-how to make it all possible. Companies will have to get ever smarter here about recruiting, training, coaching, and collaborating remotely.
People wearing masks in western societies—especially in certain situations—will come across as a lot less strange or weird than they did in the past, even though no one will wear masks as often and in as many places as they did during the coronavirus crisis. I wouldn’t have worn a mask in public before, but it now doesn’t seem odd that I do. Further, even if I’m the only one, I think I’ll always now wear a mask on public transportation (including airplanes) and in crowded spaces (especially without good ventilation).
Will I Write a Third Anniversary Post?
I hope I won’t need to write a third anniversary post—but I won’t speak too soon. I didn’t think I’d need to write a first anniversary post. The effort of developing this post, of thinking and writing about the COVID-19 crisis yet again, exhausted me.
I’d love to hear your experiences and observations on the coronavirus pandemic experience at this second-anniversary mark. How would you answer the three questions I’ve posed myself for the anniversaries?