Some bad experiences, some good (OK! Mostly Bad)
Photo by Edwin Hooper on Unsplash
I talked with a friend the other day, and they mentioned they only knew of one person who contracted COVID. I thought to myself, “How could this be?”. Were they so reclusive and anti-social they didn’t know many people? It was like they had decided the pandemic didn’t exist, given, so few people they knew had contracted the disease. I quickly guided the conversation to another topic as I already had a bad taste for the discussion.
I know there is a pandemic as I have seen countless effects from it. I have read articles describing the positive and negative things people have taken from their experiences over the last few years. Some have revolved around death, and some have been about job changes. Depression and suicidal thoughts have been ongoing side effects.
Photo by Sammy Williams on Unsplash
The one thing we can all agree on is this was/is an “experience.” Something of which we will never forget and ultimately will be feeling the repercussions from for many years to come.
To say things will never be the same would be an understatement. How could they be the same? A few years ago, we viewed wearing face coverings as a little outside the norm! I recall seeing people in the airport wearing these masks and thinking they were a little “off their rocker.” Now it is just the opposite.
We have also brought new awareness to what “Clean” truly means. We now know to follow the 20-second rule when washing our hands. I certainly did not adhere to this before the pandemic. In many ways, the pandemic drove us to be cleaner as a society, at least until our complacency sets back in. I remember saying a few months prior things would never be as clean as they are today. You can see this standard is starting to slip as we begin to drift to pre-pandemic levels.
2022 has got to be an improvement over 2021 as we shift into an endemic disease we can all live with. By no means are we out of the woods yet with infection rates up, but overall death rates are declining. Hospital admission rates have declined in 34 states giving hope things are starting to shift. After all, don’t we all want some type of outcome to make our lives better in some way?
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