Covid. The big shift

[Anonymous]

I’m a nurse who worked during Covid in the hospital. I think the weirdest thing I see is that sometimes it feels like people went through it but came out with different realities? Like when I read someone say “I can’t believe how much we overreacted, etc etc” and my memory of it is still lots of people dying and/or getting really sick. Including co-workers. Like yes, it involved. But it was surreal in 2020 and even parts of 2021. So yes, it changed me. It also made me aware how the US is so politically divided and the days of uniting over something big (pandemic or something else) are gone.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:A lot of stuff just never restarted because of laziness. At my kids' ES alone, many field trips are not back yet, many of the assemblies/all-school gatherings are still not back, several grade-level musical performances are not back, field day and holiday celebrations are shadows of their former selves. None of this is due to fear of Covid. Its just shear laziness. Nobody can be bothered and its sad.

Same is true with neighborhood potlucks, wine clubs, poker clubs, book clubs, etc. Many aren't happening any more and the ones that are have a fraction of their former attendance. Again, not fear of Covid, just laziness and people's preference to just sit at home in their sweat pants. I'm not sure we will ever fully recover from that.

I have noticed the same and I agree. It seems like a fair number of people just don’t want to do anything anymore. It took the public libraries until literally LAST MONTH (September of 2023!) to get back to normal hours. I still don’t see as many preschool/little kid events there as I used to. There used to be a book club in my neighborhood, it stopped during Covid and never returned. The HOA used to put on a Christmas/holiday party - nothing big, just an indoor/outdoor thing at the clubhouse and in the parking lot, during the day for the kids to enjoy. Cancelled in 2020 and never returned.

It’s like we spent so long cooped up that we eventually came to prefer it + people are so burnt out after working and taking care of kids at the same time since schools and sometimes even day cares were closed, that no one has the energy to organize anything anymore.

Yes to all of this. I think this is one reason why it can really vary by person as to whether they feel everything has shifted post-Covid. I think some communities/schools have recovered and gone back to normal, but not all. Mine definitely isn't. I am one of the people who used to plan and participate more pre-Covid and I struggle so much more now. I'm so tired and my mental health isn't as good as it used to be, so I've just dropped the ball on more things because I don't have the energy or mental bandwidth. I think many others are the same. I don't blame anyone. I think Covid hit some communities a lot harder in terms of what we went through, and that has impacted it. The communities where everything is "back to normal" I think probably were less scathed in terms of not just death and illness, but also probably didn't deal with as much of the stress of being in frontline jobs, having kids home for extended periods, maybe had fewer dual income families where both parents had to work, etc. We have friends who have SAHPs, were able to spend much of Covid at second houses, or have kids in privates that reopened quickly, etc., and they are, I think, more over Covid and don't feel the same aftereffects.

Also some communities (including ours) were more impacted by a lot of the conversation around police violence, racism, etc. Those conversations needed to happen but haven't always been handled well or made things better (there is a level of "open wound" that we can't seem to heal) and it all adds to more stress. More homogeneous or privileged communities might not deal with as much of that.

Yeah the George Floyd stuff happening at the same time as Covid was so rough. I had a social group implode because of it. not because of difficulties/disagreements between people in the group, but because the group’s parent org didn’t handle the overall situation in the best way and people knee-jerk reacted by disbanding their own chapters of the larger group. We used to raise money for charitable orgs in the area and do donation drives - not anymore since the group disbanded.

That was the beginning of the end. Social gatherings were wrong and deadly, unless it was a BLM march. How stupid did they think everyone was? Life went back to normal after that.

No, it didn't.
School didn't fully open in person for another year after that.
Masks were still mandatory everywhere for almost a full year after that.
Large events, like college/pro sports, plays, concerts, movie theaters, etc. didn't start happening for quite a while after that.

Speak for yourself. My kids were back in school in Sept 2020. In person. Like many places in the US. We moved from a stifling bubble that stay closed well into 2021, which was insane, but we made the right decision. Everywhere isn't like your corner of the woods. Large events were also ongoing. Remember Super Bowl 2021? Some of you have amnesia about how much was actually going on around you.

Around here it did not go back in September 2020 for public schools.
Superbowl 2021 was at more than SEVEN MONTHS after George Floyd was killed. You have trouble understanding a basic calendar.

Hmmm the World Series happened in 2020, college football went on in 2020... a lot happened. Just because your school district and neighborhood locked down hard doesn't mean everywhere did. But, you stayed inside afraid to go out so you have no idea what was happening everywhere else. There is no collective, nationwide trauma over this, which is why you're struggling to find acknowledgment.

I think the overall point is that a lot of us were ready to be more relaxed about Covid by September 2020 and certainly by early spring 2021, but restrictions were still being forced on us even at that point. I’m glad you could move away from all the craziness but some of us couldn’t.

Also agree with others that it really did start when Trump got elected. I’m no fan of his and I didn’t vote for him and absolutely would not in the future. BUT, you can’t deny that some reactions - both from policymakers and individuals - were knee jerk against Trump. When he came out in summer 2020 and said schools should be open for the fall, I knew right then and there it wasn’t happening in liberal areas.

I feel bad for the people living under the draconian and senseless rules that dragged on for far too long, and yes, seemed very political more than sensible. But I don't feel sorry for the people complaining about their trauma, who insisted on living that way, and don't want to talk about the mistakes that were made, but demand empathy and understanding for their (self inflicted) troubles. There will never be a reckoning, but that also means the sympathy well has dried up.

The resistance was entirely political . The guidance was based upon the best science available to public health professionals at the time.

This is not true - public health professional

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A lot of stuff just never restarted because of laziness. At my kids' ES alone, many field trips are not back yet, many of the assemblies/all-school gatherings are still not back, several grade-level musical performances are not back, field day and holiday celebrations are shadows of their former selves. None of this is due to fear of Covid. Its just shear laziness. Nobody can be bothered and its sad.

Same is true with neighborhood potlucks, wine clubs, poker clubs, book clubs, etc. Many aren't happening any more and the ones that are have a fraction of their former attendance. Again, not fear of Covid, just laziness and people's preference to just sit at home in their sweat pants. I'm not sure we will ever fully recover from that.

I have noticed the same and I agree. It seems like a fair number of people just don’t want to do anything anymore. It took the public libraries until literally LAST MONTH (September of 2023!) to get back to normal hours. I still don’t see as many preschool/little kid events there as I used to. There used to be a book club in my neighborhood, it stopped during Covid and never returned. The HOA used to put on a Christmas/holiday party - nothing big, just an indoor/outdoor thing at the clubhouse and in the parking lot, during the day for the kids to enjoy. Cancelled in 2020 and never returned.

It’s like we spent so long cooped up that we eventually came to prefer it + people are so burnt out after working and taking care of kids at the same time since schools and sometimes even day cares were closed, that no one has the energy to organize anything anymore.

Yes to all of this. I think this is one reason why it can really vary by person as to whether they feel everything has shifted post-Covid. I think some communities/schools have recovered and gone back to normal, but not all. Mine definitely isn't. I am one of the people who used to plan and participate more pre-Covid and I struggle so much more now. I'm so tired and my mental health isn't as good as it used to be, so I've just dropped the ball on more things because I don't have the energy or mental bandwidth. I think many others are the same. I don't blame anyone. I think Covid hit some communities a lot harder in terms of what we went through, and that has impacted it. The communities where everything is "back to normal" I think probably were less scathed in terms of not just death and illness, but also probably didn't deal with as much of the stress of being in frontline jobs, having kids home for extended periods, maybe had fewer dual income families where both parents had to work, etc. We have friends who have SAHPs, were able to spend much of Covid at second houses, or have kids in privates that reopened quickly, etc., and they are, I think, more over Covid and don't feel the same aftereffects.

Also some communities (including ours) were more impacted by a lot of the conversation around police violence, racism, etc. Those conversations needed to happen but haven't always been handled well or made things better (there is a level of "open wound" that we can't seem to heal) and it all adds to more stress. More homogeneous or privileged communities might not deal with as much of that.

Yeah the George Floyd stuff happening at the same time as Covid was so rough. I had a social group implode because of it. not because of difficulties/disagreements between people in the group, but because the group’s parent org didn’t handle the overall situation in the best way and people knee-jerk reacted by disbanding their own chapters of the larger group. We used to raise money for charitable orgs in the area and do donation drives - not anymore since the group disbanded.

That was the beginning of the end. Social gatherings were wrong and deadly, unless it was a BLM march. How stupid did they think everyone was? Life went back to normal after that.

No, it didn't.
School didn't fully open in person for another year after that.
Masks were still mandatory everywhere for almost a full year after that.
Large events, like college/pro sports, plays, concerts, movie theaters, etc. didn't start happening for quite a while after that.

Speak for yourself. My kids were back in school in Sept 2020. In person. Like many places in the US. We moved from a stifling bubble that stay closed well into 2021, which was insane, but we made the right decision. Everywhere isn't like your corner of the woods. Large events were also ongoing. Remember Super Bowl 2021? Some of you have amnesia about how much was actually going on around you.

Around here it did not go back in September 2020 for public schools.
Superbowl 2021 was at more than SEVEN MONTHS after George Floyd was killed. You have trouble understanding a basic calendar.

Hmmm the World Series happened in 2020, college football went on in 2020... a lot happened. Just because your school district and neighborhood locked down hard doesn't mean everywhere did. But, you stayed inside afraid to go out so you have no idea what was happening everywhere else. There is no collective, nationwide trauma over this, which is why you're struggling to find acknowledgment.

I think the overall point is that a lot of us were ready to be more relaxed about Covid by September 2020 and certainly by early spring 2021, but restrictions were still being forced on us even at that point. I’m glad you could move away from all the craziness but some of us couldn’t.

Also agree with others that it really did start when Trump got elected. I’m no fan of his and I didn’t vote for him and absolutely would not in the future. BUT, you can’t deny that some reactions - both from policymakers and individuals - were knee jerk against Trump. When he came out in summer 2020 and said schools should be open for the fall, I knew right then and there it wasn’t happening in liberal areas.

I feel bad for the people living under the draconian and senseless rules that dragged on for far too long, and yes, seemed very political more than sensible. But I don't feel sorry for the people complaining about their trauma, who insisted on living that way, and don't want to talk about the mistakes that were made, but demand empathy and understanding for their (self inflicted) troubles. There will never be a reckoning, but that also means the sympathy well has dried up.

The resistance was entirely political . The guidance was based upon the best science available to public health professionals at the time.

This is not true - public health professional

If you’re real - thank you for admitting it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A lot of stuff just never restarted because of laziness. At my kids' ES alone, many field trips are not back yet, many of the assemblies/all-school gatherings are still not back, several grade-level musical performances are not back, field day and holiday celebrations are shadows of their former selves. None of this is due to fear of Covid. Its just shear laziness. Nobody can be bothered and its sad.

Same is true with neighborhood potlucks, wine clubs, poker clubs, book clubs, etc. Many aren't happening any more and the ones that are have a fraction of their former attendance. Again, not fear of Covid, just laziness and people's preference to just sit at home in their sweat pants. I'm not sure we will ever fully recover from that.

I have noticed the same and I agree. It seems like a fair number of people just don’t want to do anything anymore. It took the public libraries until literally LAST MONTH (September of 2023!) to get back to normal hours. I still don’t see as many preschool/little kid events there as I used to. There used to be a book club in my neighborhood, it stopped during Covid and never returned. The HOA used to put on a Christmas/holiday party - nothing big, just an indoor/outdoor thing at the clubhouse and in the parking lot, during the day for the kids to enjoy. Cancelled in 2020 and never returned.

It’s like we spent so long cooped up that we eventually came to prefer it + people are so burnt out after working and taking care of kids at the same time since schools and sometimes even day cares were closed, that no one has the energy to organize anything anymore.

Yes to all of this. I think this is one reason why it can really vary by person as to whether they feel everything has shifted post-Covid. I think some communities/schools have recovered and gone back to normal, but not all. Mine definitely isn't. I am one of the people who used to plan and participate more pre-Covid and I struggle so much more now. I'm so tired and my mental health isn't as good as it used to be, so I've just dropped the ball on more things because I don't have the energy or mental bandwidth. I think many others are the same. I don't blame anyone. I think Covid hit some communities a lot harder in terms of what we went through, and that has impacted it. The communities where everything is "back to normal" I think probably were less scathed in terms of not just death and illness, but also probably didn't deal with as much of the stress of being in frontline jobs, having kids home for extended periods, maybe had fewer dual income families where both parents had to work, etc. We have friends who have SAHPs, were able to spend much of Covid at second houses, or have kids in privates that reopened quickly, etc., and they are, I think, more over Covid and don't feel the same aftereffects.

Also some communities (including ours) were more impacted by a lot of the conversation around police violence, racism, etc. Those conversations needed to happen but haven't always been handled well or made things better (there is a level of "open wound" that we can't seem to heal) and it all adds to more stress. More homogeneous or privileged communities might not deal with as much of that.

Yeah the George Floyd stuff happening at the same time as Covid was so rough. I had a social group implode because of it. not because of difficulties/disagreements between people in the group, but because the group’s parent org didn’t handle the overall situation in the best way and people knee-jerk reacted by disbanding their own chapters of the larger group. We used to raise money for charitable orgs in the area and do donation drives - not anymore since the group disbanded.

That was the beginning of the end. Social gatherings were wrong and deadly, unless it was a BLM march. How stupid did they think everyone was? Life went back to normal after that.

No, it didn't.
School didn't fully open in person for another year after that.
Masks were still mandatory everywhere for almost a full year after that.
Large events, like college/pro sports, plays, concerts, movie theaters, etc. didn't start happening for quite a while after that.

Speak for yourself. My kids were back in school in Sept 2020. In person. Like many places in the US. We moved from a stifling bubble that stay closed well into 2021, which was insane, but we made the right decision. Everywhere isn't like your corner of the woods. Large events were also ongoing. Remember Super Bowl 2021? Some of you have amnesia about how much was actually going on around you.

Around here it did not go back in September 2020 for public schools.
Superbowl 2021 was at more than SEVEN MONTHS after George Floyd was killed. You have trouble understanding a basic calendar.

Hmmm the World Series happened in 2020, college football went on in 2020... a lot happened. Just because your school district and neighborhood locked down hard doesn't mean everywhere did. But, you stayed inside afraid to go out so you have no idea what was happening everywhere else. There is no collective, nationwide trauma over this, which is why you're struggling to find acknowledgment.

I think the overall point is that a lot of us were ready to be more relaxed about Covid by September 2020 and certainly by early spring 2021, but restrictions were still being forced on us even at that point. I’m glad you could move away from all the craziness but some of us couldn’t.

Also agree with others that it really did start when Trump got elected. I’m no fan of his and I didn’t vote for him and absolutely would not in the future. BUT, you can’t deny that some reactions - both from policymakers and individuals - were knee jerk against Trump. When he came out in summer 2020 and said schools should be open for the fall, I knew right then and there it wasn’t happening in liberal areas.

I feel bad for the people living under the draconian and senseless rules that dragged on for far too long, and yes, seemed very political more than sensible. But I don't feel sorry for the people complaining about their trauma, who insisted on living that way, and don't want to talk about the mistakes that were made, but demand empathy and understanding for their (self inflicted) troubles. There will never be a reckoning, but that also means the sympathy well has dried up.

The resistance was entirely political . The guidance was based upon the best science available to public health professionals at the time.

This is not true - public health professional

If you’re real - thank you for admitting it.

And I would love to hear more on this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have to stop and wonder what it's like at home if kids are so miserable being at home. We had our kids in virtual for 3+ years. It worked out well. I lost a parent to covid. Stop acting like covid is no big deal. Its still impacting many.

Stop acting like it affected everyone and society will never be the same. It's not either/or. Some people were affected. Many weren't. Society as a whole has not dramatically changed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m a nurse who worked during Covid in the hospital. I think the weirdest thing I see is that sometimes it feels like people went through it but came out with different realities? Like when I read someone say “I can’t believe how much we overreacted, etc etc” and my memory of it is still lots of people dying and/or getting really sick. Including co-workers. Like yes, it involved. But it was surreal in 2020 and even parts of 2021. So yes, it changed me. It also made me aware how the US is so politically divided and the days of uniting over something big (pandemic or something else) are gone.

You worked in a hospital. The vast majority didn't. You saw the worst case scenarios but you have to realize those were the anomalies. The vast majority came out of this unscathed.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I work in education and people who came of age and were still in K-12 or college during COVID are developmentally stunted. They don't seem to have coping or problem solving skills and ignore deadlines and have trouble taking initiative.

We’re moving school districts next summer and are holding our daughter back - she’s young for her class and has diagnosed learning disabilities, and covid was a huge challenge to her learning.

I don’t know why it’s so difficult for people to acknowledge the intense trauma we all experienced. Just because some of us coped better or were less materially affected does not invalidate other people’s experiences. I guess that’s another fun legacy of covid: a notable decrease in empathy and compassion. Ironically.

But so much if it was self inflicted. That doesn’t make everyone a victim. People went way overboard and now have to suffer the consequences.

NP. You highlight what has caused is shift in my worldview from which I am having trouble recovering. You think that people went "overboard" by following public health advice, taking COVID seriously as a health risk, and trying to do their part to avoid spreading it when certain members of the community were at greater risk. Your "overboard" was my trying to be a decent human being. The new narrative is that any fallout from restricted activities or isolation was self-inflicted and, therefore, not worth acknowledging or addressing.

I'll say that my view of "experts" in various realms has become increasingly distrustful. This is particularly true with those in public health and education, where experts offered assurances that were solely focused on maintaining desired outcomes without honest acknowledgment or discussion of potential long-term consequences.

At some point common sense should have been restored. Some of the measures and actions were ridiculous and should have been obvious. Children never needed to be banned from playgrounds, masks weren’t needed on solo runs in suburban neighborhoods. I lived in a place where police were called on kids playing at a park. So we moved. A whole lot of this never made much sense and shockingly a lot of people blindly followed along and gleefully shamed their neighbors who weren’t in lock step. It’s hard to muster sympathy now.

I agree with both of these sentiments. I feel duped for trying to be a good human and follow the public health rules. Only to have the goal posts constantly moved, get strangely more restrictive post-vaccine, but executed in an inconsistent manner. Example: Bars and restaurants? We’re opening those $$. Schools? Nope. Too dangerous.

Huh?

Protests for COVID restrictions? Super spreader event. Protests because of racial inequity? Those are ok because racial inequity is a bigger public health problem.

Huh? But it’s still a protest!? (Look it up, the public health experts actually said this)

And I’m no conservative. Not even close.

So… where this leads me is my current state. I also don’t trust “experts” at the moment. Experts are just humans with opinions that are based on current knowledge of a particular field, but they aren’t smarter and they certainly aren’t clairvoyant. In fact, many of the public health foot soldiers are young and inexperienced and just repeating what was in their text books.

I also don’t trust teacher’s unions, school boards nor any politician of any stripes from any party. All of these people are also just regular old humans. No special edge, vision or insight. In fact, many of them seem quite dumb in retrospect.

Jaded. Someone else said that. That’s what it is for me. Jaded.

Schools WERE open.

If schools were open is the learning loss real or imagined?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m a nurse who worked during Covid in the hospital. I think the weirdest thing I see is that sometimes it feels like people went through it but came out with different realities? Like when I read someone say “I can’t believe how much we overreacted, etc etc” and my memory of it is still lots of people dying and/or getting really sick. Including co-workers. Like yes, it involved. But it was surreal in 2020 and even parts of 2021. So yes, it changed me. It also made me aware how the US is so politically divided and the days of uniting over something big (pandemic or something else) are gone.

I think there is nuance here, though, and that part of the problem is that people seem to think there are just two Covid camps, but there aren't.

I am totally with you on 2020 and the idea that Covid was absolutely a big, scary deal, and the initial reaction to shut everything down, start masking up and isolating, was correct and probably the least we could do. I have issues with the initial response but they are entirely about the government's lack of preparedness and proper messaging.

Like it's dumb that people were making their own cloth masks or trying to procure their own masks online. That's part of why masking became so politicized, because there was this idea that if you took Covid seriously, you'd be ready to sew your own mask or spend hundreds of dollars trying to buy masks online. But not everyone can do that. The government should have just handed out masks in public spaces and said "please wear this, it's a pandemic." If instead of special ordering or making a mask in order to go the grocery store, you'd just been handed a surgical mask on your way into the store, I think you would have gotten high compliance with some of this stuff very early on because it would have been seen as just normal public health precautions and not a political statement.

And then there were a bunch of other things where people divided into two, nonsensical camps instead of coming together to find a reasonable solution. Like school closures. I think it was a good idea to close schools in March 2020 and a good idea to be cautious about reopening, making every effort to limit Covid spread and exploring hybrid school, outdoor options, maybe shifting the school calendar up to have more school in the summer when Covid rates were lower, etc. But we had one group of people who were like "who cares, kids don't get Covid, teachers are wimps, schools never should have closed." And another group who was like "virtual school is amazing, there's no learning loss and if there is it doesn't matter, there's no way to have in person school without killing people." And I'm sorry, but they were all wrong, and the upshot is that we screwed over a lot of kids. It's frustrating how unwilling people are to find middle ground, everything is either/or.

It just sometimes feels like we had one group who decided Covid wasn't really, and obviously I wasn't going to join that group. But then we had another group that just sort of lost all ability to evaluate risk and was unwilling to consider ANY issues outside of Covid when it came to how we were going to behave as a society. Like I know people personally who stopped talking to me when I decided to stop masking in most outdoor settings after it became clear that outdoor transmission was rare, and when it happened required prolonged exposure. I literally had a neighbor who screamed at me for not masking my 3 year old on a sidewalk. I also have Trumpy family members who thought wearing a mask meant you were a fascist. Navigating between those two groups SUCKS.

And I think that's par to the Covid shift. It's not really even about Covid. It's about how it's just become impossible to function in a world where people have adopted such extreme viewpoints on absolutely everything. It's exhausting. I think a lot of people who talk about the "overreaction" to Covid are really talking about this polarization, and the heightened emotions around everything and not necessarily saying "oh Covid was a blip, who cares."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m a nurse who worked during Covid in the hospital. I think the weirdest thing I see is that sometimes it feels like people went through it but came out with different realities? Like when I read someone say “I can’t believe how much we overreacted, etc etc” and my memory of it is still lots of people dying and/or getting really sick. Including co-workers. Like yes, it involved. But it was surreal in 2020 and even parts of 2021. So yes, it changed me. It also made me aware how the US is so politically divided and the days of uniting over something big (pandemic or something else) are gone.

I think there is nuance here, though, and that part of the problem is that people seem to think there are just two Covid camps, but there aren't.

I am totally with you on 2020 and the idea that Covid was absolutely a big, scary deal, and the initial reaction to shut everything down, start masking up and isolating, was correct and probably the least we could do. I have issues with the initial response but they are entirely about the government's lack of preparedness and proper messaging.

Like it's dumb that people were making their own cloth masks or trying to procure their own masks online. That's part of why masking became so politicized, because there was this idea that if you took Covid seriously, you'd be ready to sew your own mask or spend hundreds of dollars trying to buy masks online. But not everyone can do that. The government should have just handed out masks in public spaces and said "please wear this, it's a pandemic." If instead of special ordering or making a mask in order to go the grocery store, you'd just been handed a surgical mask on your way into the store, I think you would have gotten high compliance with some of this stuff very early on because it would have been seen as just normal public health precautions and not a political statement.

And then there were a bunch of other things where people divided into two, nonsensical camps instead of coming together to find a reasonable solution. Like school closures. I think it was a good idea to close schools in March 2020 and a good idea to be cautious about reopening, making every effort to limit Covid spread and exploring hybrid school, outdoor options, maybe shifting the school calendar up to have more school in the summer when Covid rates were lower, etc. But we had one group of people who were like "who cares, kids don't get Covid, teachers are wimps, schools never should have closed." And another group who was like "virtual school is amazing, there's no learning loss and if there is it doesn't matter, there's no way to have in person school without killing people." And I'm sorry, but they were all wrong, and the upshot is that we screwed over a lot of kids. It's frustrating how unwilling people are to find middle ground, everything is either/or.

It just sometimes feels like we had one group who decided Covid wasn't really, and obviously I wasn't going to join that group. But then we had another group that just sort of lost all ability to evaluate risk and was unwilling to consider ANY issues outside of Covid when it came to how we were going to behave as a society. Like I know people personally who stopped talking to me when I decided to stop masking in most outdoor settings after it became clear that outdoor transmission was rare, and when it happened required prolonged exposure. I literally had a neighbor who screamed at me for not masking my 3 year old on a sidewalk. I also have Trumpy family members who thought wearing a mask meant you were a fascist. Navigating between those two groups SUCKS.

And I think that's par to the Covid shift. It's not really even about Covid. It's about how it's just become impossible to function in a world where people have adopted such extreme viewpoints on absolutely everything. It's exhausting. I think a lot of people who talk about the "overreaction" to Covid are really talking about this polarization, and the heightened emotions around everything and not necessarily saying "oh Covid was a blip, who cares."

Amen. The bolded resonates with me so much. If you weren't predisposed to favor one group over the other, you found yourself either cutting off contact with the most extreme viewpoints or viewing all interactions with uncertainty.

What strikes me most now is that the two extremes have come together to deny the lasting impact of COVID in equally disingenuous ways. The "COVID is nothing" people claim that everyone overreacted and that they were out living their lives freely within months. At the same time, they are furious about prolonged and what they believe were unwarranted and burdensome COVID restrictions. However, if you took COVID seriously, followed any of these unreasonable public health directives, and struggled due to the restrictions, any negative consequences were a matter of individual choice and totally your fault.

On the other hand, there are the "avoid disease above all else people" who made demands for COVID sacrifices a matter of public health and social justice. These people are so convinced that unending sacrifice was necessary and right that they refuse to acknowledge the harms caused by the mitigation measures. "Public health" does not, in their view, include acknowledgment of social, educational, or other needs. The consequences of COVID sacrifice for the greater good are the responsibility of each individual and wouldn't exist if individuals had done a better job adapting, parenting, or whatever. Again, it's all individual choice.

It's like both sides are saying that COVID and COVID policies were of paramount importance while simultaneously denying the ongoing effects of the policies and blaming individuals if they struggled.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A lot of stuff just never restarted because of laziness. At my kids' ES alone, many field trips are not back yet, many of the assemblies/all-school gatherings are still not back, several grade-level musical performances are not back, field day and holiday celebrations are shadows of their former selves. None of this is due to fear of Covid. Its just shear laziness. Nobody can be bothered and its sad.

Same is true with neighborhood potlucks, wine clubs, poker clubs, book clubs, etc. Many aren't happening any more and the ones that are have a fraction of their former attendance. Again, not fear of Covid, just laziness and people's preference to just sit at home in their sweat pants. I'm not sure we will ever fully recover from that.

I have noticed the same and I agree. It seems like a fair number of people just don’t want to do anything anymore. It took the public libraries until literally LAST MONTH (September of 2023!) to get back to normal hours. I still don’t see as many preschool/little kid events there as I used to. There used to be a book club in my neighborhood, it stopped during Covid and never returned. The HOA used to put on a Christmas/holiday party - nothing big, just an indoor/outdoor thing at the clubhouse and in the parking lot, during the day for the kids to enjoy. Cancelled in 2020 and never returned.

It’s like we spent so long cooped up that we eventually came to prefer it + people are so burnt out after working and taking care of kids at the same time since schools and sometimes even day cares were closed, that no one has the energy to organize anything anymore.

Maybe people realized they were doing too much. Too much nonsense. Too much filling their lives with meaningless people and activities that kept you busy but didn’t really enrich your life. I don’t have room, time or patience for low value people in my life anymore. Covid helped me realize who and what was really important to me.

So, what do you do all the time? Stay home and only interact with your nuclear family? Sounds boring, but I’m guessing that you were always like this, so COVID didn’t change anything.

I read. I write. I make art. I am learning an instrument. I get together regularly with the people I love and who enrich my life. I don’t go to coffee with a bunch of random women from the office because I’m afraid of being alone or because I don’t know how to fill my own time. I’m polite and friendly with the people at my children’s activities but I don’t give them my free time just to “be social”. I’m selective and treat my time like the valuable commodity it is.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m a nurse who worked during Covid in the hospital. I think the weirdest thing I see is that sometimes it feels like people went through it but came out with different realities? Like when I read someone say “I can’t believe how much we overreacted, etc etc” and my memory of it is still lots of people dying and/or getting really sick. Including co-workers. Like yes, it involved. But it was surreal in 2020 and even parts of 2021. So yes, it changed me. It also made me aware how the US is so politically divided and the days of uniting over something big (pandemic or something else) are gone.

I think there is nuance here, though, and that part of the problem is that people seem to think there are just two Covid camps, but there aren't.

I am totally with you on 2020 and the idea that Covid was absolutely a big, scary deal, and the initial reaction to shut everything down, start masking up and isolating, was correct and probably the least we could do. I have issues with the initial response but they are entirely about the government's lack of preparedness and proper messaging.

Like it's dumb that people were making their own cloth masks or trying to procure their own masks online. That's part of why masking became so politicized, because there was this idea that if you took Covid seriously, you'd be ready to sew your own mask or spend hundreds of dollars trying to buy masks online. But not everyone can do that. The government should have just handed out masks in public spaces and said "please wear this, it's a pandemic." If instead of special ordering or making a mask in order to go the grocery store, you'd just been handed a surgical mask on your way into the store, I think you would have gotten high compliance with some of this stuff very early on because it would have been seen as just normal public health precautions and not a political statement.

And then there were a bunch of other things where people divided into two, nonsensical camps instead of coming together to find a reasonable solution. Like school closures. I think it was a good idea to close schools in March 2020 and a good idea to be cautious about reopening, making every effort to limit Covid spread and exploring hybrid school, outdoor options, maybe shifting the school calendar up to have more school in the summer when Covid rates were lower, etc. But we had one group of people who were like "who cares, kids don't get Covid, teachers are wimps, schools never should have closed." And another group who was like "virtual school is amazing, there's no learning loss and if there is it doesn't matter, there's no way to have in person school without killing people." And I'm sorry, but they were all wrong, and the upshot is that we screwed over a lot of kids. It's frustrating how unwilling people are to find middle ground, everything is either/or.

It just sometimes feels like we had one group who decided Covid wasn't really, and obviously I wasn't going to join that group. But then we had another group that just sort of lost all ability to evaluate risk and was unwilling to consider ANY issues outside of Covid when it came to how we were going to behave as a society. Like I know people personally who stopped talking to me when I decided to stop masking in most outdoor settings after it became clear that outdoor transmission was rare, and when it happened required prolonged exposure. I literally had a neighbor who screamed at me for not masking my 3 year old on a sidewalk. I also have Trumpy family members who thought wearing a mask meant you were a fascist. Navigating between those two groups SUCKS.

And I think that's par to the Covid shift. It's not really even about Covid. It's about how it's just become impossible to function in a world where people have adopted such extreme viewpoints on absolutely everything. It's exhausting. I think a lot of people who talk about the "overreaction" to Covid are really talking about this polarization, and the heightened emotions around everything and not necessarily saying "oh Covid was a blip, who cares."

Amen. The bolded resonates with me so much. If you weren't predisposed to favor one group over the other, you found yourself either cutting off contact with the most extreme viewpoints or viewing all interactions with uncertainty.

What strikes me most now is that the two extremes have come together to deny the lasting impact of COVID in equally disingenuous ways. The "COVID is nothing" people claim that everyone overreacted and that they were out living their lives freely within months. At the same time, they are furious about prolonged and what they believe were unwarranted and burdensome COVID restrictions. However, if you took COVID seriously, followed any of these unreasonable public health directives, and struggled due to the restrictions, any negative consequences were a matter of individual choice and totally your fault.

On the other hand, there are the "avoid disease above all else people" who made demands for COVID sacrifices a matter of public health and social justice. These people are so convinced that unending sacrifice was necessary and right that they refuse to acknowledge the harms caused by the mitigation measures. "Public health" does not, in their view, include acknowledgment of social, educational, or other needs. The consequences of COVID sacrifice for the greater good are the responsibility of each individual and wouldn't exist if individuals had done a better job adapting, parenting, or whatever. Again, it's all individual choice.

It's like both sides are saying that COVID and COVID policies were of paramount importance while simultaneously denying the ongoing effects of the policies and blaming individuals if they struggled.

PP here and YES. The people I know who never isolate or masked, who socialized the entire time, and who didn't live places with long school closures think I'm a complainer if I talk about struggling with social fall out from isolation or talk about difficulties with school due to closures. Their attitude is that I did that to myself by following Covid protocols and living in an area with school closures.

But it I say the exact same thing to some of our progressive friends, they interpret it as me complaining about Covid precautions and equate it to being anti-mask or anti-vaccine. Or if I suggest that we come up with an approach on school that would allow us to keep schools open if this happens again, that's me not caring about teachers lives.

And you are so right, what both groups have in common is this extremely strong belief that everything is a matter of personal choice and it's all within your control. Which, when I think about it, seems like such an obvious reaction to the fact that Covid is not something you can control on a personal level. It's a virus. So it's like people on both extremes are having the same reaction, which is just to refuse to accept that there are forces outside our control and that sometimes we just need to adapt and hope for the best. They have so much more in common than they are ever going to admit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I got Covid for the first time, a month or so ago.

It bruised my ego. I thought I was one of the special few who would never get covid. Then I got it.

I recovered, and it's been fine. But my ego has never been the same.

I think you know it is silly to assign moral value to having Covid or the lack of it, so I will not flame you on this.

I'm not assigning moral value - I've lived my life 100% normally for the last 2.5 years, and probably did some "risky" things in the first year pre-vax (regular gym use, for example).

After a while, I thought I might have been genetically gifted or something! Nope, turns out I just hadn't met the right covid+ person to get infected by

These are the weirdest stories to me. Because I do think those of us who have never had it (myself included) start feeling like we must be immune. I know several people who slept in the same bed as their spouse all the way through spouse's covid illness (because they figured isolation was futile in the same house) and never got it. Testing the whole time. But then some of those people eventually have gotten it. So weird. If not some natural born immunity, how did they (we) avoid it in so many "high risk" situations?!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m a nurse who worked during Covid in the hospital. I think the weirdest thing I see is that sometimes it feels like people went through it but came out with different realities? Like when I read someone say “I can’t believe how much we overreacted, etc etc” and my memory of it is still lots of people dying and/or getting really sick. Including co-workers. Like yes, it involved. But it was surreal in 2020 and even parts of 2021. So yes, it changed me. It also made me aware how the US is so politically divided and the days of uniting over something big (pandemic or something else) are gone.

I think there is nuance here, though, and that part of the problem is that people seem to think there are just two Covid camps, but there aren't.

I am totally with you on 2020 and the idea that Covid was absolutely a big, scary deal, and the initial reaction to shut everything down, start masking up and isolating, was correct and probably the least we could do. I have issues with the initial response but they are entirely about the government's lack of preparedness and proper messaging.

Like it's dumb that people were making their own cloth masks or trying to procure their own masks online. That's part of why masking became so politicized, because there was this idea that if you took Covid seriously, you'd be ready to sew your own mask or spend hundreds of dollars trying to buy masks online. But not everyone can do that. The government should have just handed out masks in public spaces and said "please wear this, it's a pandemic." If instead of special ordering or making a mask in order to go the grocery store, you'd just been handed a surgical mask on your way into the store, I think you would have gotten high compliance with some of this stuff very early on because it would have been seen as just normal public health precautions and not a political statement.

And then there were a bunch of other things where people divided into two, nonsensical camps instead of coming together to find a reasonable solution. Like school closures. I think it was a good idea to close schools in March 2020 and a good idea to be cautious about reopening, making every effort to limit Covid spread and exploring hybrid school, outdoor options, maybe shifting the school calendar up to have more school in the summer when Covid rates were lower, etc. But we had one group of people who were like "who cares, kids don't get Covid, teachers are wimps, schools never should have closed." And another group who was like "virtual school is amazing, there's no learning loss and if there is it doesn't matter, there's no way to have in person school without killing people." And I'm sorry, but they were all wrong, and the upshot is that we screwed over a lot of kids. It's frustrating how unwilling people are to find middle ground, everything is either/or.

It just sometimes feels like we had one group who decided Covid wasn't really, and obviously I wasn't going to join that group. But then we had another group that just sort of lost all ability to evaluate risk and was unwilling to consider ANY issues outside of Covid when it came to how we were going to behave as a society. Like I know people personally who stopped talking to me when I decided to stop masking in most outdoor settings after it became clear that outdoor transmission was rare, and when it happened required prolonged exposure. I literally had a neighbor who screamed at me for not masking my 3 year old on a sidewalk. I also have Trumpy family members who thought wearing a mask meant you were a fascist. Navigating between those two groups SUCKS.

And I think that's par to the Covid shift. It's not really even about Covid. It's about how it's just become impossible to function in a world where people have adopted such extreme viewpoints on absolutely everything. It's exhausting. I think a lot of people who talk about the "overreaction" to Covid are really talking about this polarization, and the heightened emotions around everything and not necessarily saying "oh Covid was a blip, who cares."

Amen. The bolded resonates with me so much. If you weren't predisposed to favor one group over the other, you found yourself either cutting off contact with the most extreme viewpoints or viewing all interactions with uncertainty.

What strikes me most now is that the two extremes have come together to deny the lasting impact of COVID in equally disingenuous ways. The "COVID is nothing" people claim that everyone overreacted and that they were out living their lives freely within months. At the same time, they are furious about prolonged and what they believe were unwarranted and burdensome COVID restrictions. However, if you took COVID seriously, followed any of these unreasonable public health directives, and struggled due to the restrictions, any negative consequences were a matter of individual choice and totally your fault.

On the other hand, there are the "avoid disease above all else people" who made demands for COVID sacrifices a matter of public health and social justice. These people are so convinced that unending sacrifice was necessary and right that they refuse to acknowledge the harms caused by the mitigation measures. "Public health" does not, in their view, include acknowledgment of social, educational, or other needs. The consequences of COVID sacrifice for the greater good are the responsibility of each individual and wouldn't exist if individuals had done a better job adapting, parenting, or whatever. Again, it's all individual choice.

It's like both sides are saying that COVID and COVID policies were of paramount importance while simultaneously denying the ongoing effects of the policies and blaming individuals if they struggled.

I'm not denying people struggled. I'm saying there is no large societal "Big Shift". In what ways has all of society been changed forever? Individuals? Yes. Society? No.

[Anonymous]

Two of my young adult family members have long COVID. I am still burnt out by the stress of parenting young children whose daycare was closed for six months and who weren't eligible for the vaccine until far too late. Relationships broke due to differences in risk tolerance. It still doesn't feel "over" for me, as we recently got sick with it again.

[Anonymous]

Adding: I think it is crazy that masks aren't required in doctor's offices while COVID is still going around.