Life after Covid?
Life after Covid is a matter of perspective. What started in the United States with just a few cases on the West Coast and New York early in the Spring of 2020, started to quickly mushroom into hundreds, then thousands. Then hundreds of thousands. And finally, millions.
And there were deaths from this plague. It’s hard to believe, but by the end of the summer of 2020, there were over 200,000 fatalities, and that’s just in the United States. Hospitals, clinics, and retirement homes were overwhelmed, and resources running low on just about everything.
What’s worse, statistics available at the time didn’t even remotely begin to include those “unknown” or undiagnosed cases. You know, the “asymptomatic” ones. The “Lurkers” out there were still all too contagious. Not to mention all of those who were unable to receive life-saving treatment from non-Covid emergencies, like accidents, heart attacks, strokes, and delays in cancer treatments and other ailments.
Not everyone affected by the virus would experience significant symptoms, while others risked slipping deeper into the sickness, and often expire alone, only to be silently comforted by brave healthcare workers in the absence of the patient’s own family or friends.
Finally, life-saving vaccines were approved for emergency use, and offered a chance to fight this pestilence and perhaps someday, return to normalcy. The only certainty was that it would be up to future historians, many years from now, to know the true scope of all of this.
What we do know is that in just a few short weeks, everyone’s world has changed. Our schools and businesses closed. Airlines, bars, hotels and restaurants, and theme parks, just about everything closed.
And most of us endured these lock-down conditions, not just to protect ourselves, but also our neighbors and essential workers. One thing was for certain; Our world had changed and would not be the same for years to come.
Now in 2023, although no longer front-page news, the variants of COVID persist. While not as lethal as it was in 2020, people are still dying, only in much smaller numbers. As of September 2023, the death toll from COVID-19 stands at an astonishing 1,127,152 in the United States alone. Globally, the toll stands at an estimated 6,958,341 deaths.
I still mask up when I go to the grocery store, pharmacy, or Costco because I am one of those individuals at risk due to age and pre-existing conditions. I haven’t been to a movie theater since February 2020. My wife and I have stayed healthy, but virtually every member of our respective families has had COVID-19 at least once, and a few have had it up to three times. Every one of them is fully vaccinated. Quite recently, one of our family members was hospitalized for over eight weeks and still faces a long recovery. So, NO it’s not over yet!
My sister, Pat Smith-Wood is a gifted writer and a published author of a series of mystery novels, beginning with “The Easter Egg Murder”.
Be sure to look for her books that are available on our Amazon Affiliate Shop.
She sent me this story, which is from an e-mail that she received, and I want to share it with you. Maybe it will provide you with a “matter of perspective”.
Dave-
“I think this is interesting. Our paternal grandmother was born in December 1899, so that’s close enough to be exactly what this piece describes for her during her lifetime. She was a corker, and never let anything stand in her way.
She gave birth to five boys, and each birth was two years apart. She lived to be 99. I thought of that when I read this email. See what you think. –
Patricia Smith Wood
-Forwarded from unknown-
Today is Saturday, May 9, 2020. It’s a mess out there now. Hard to discern between what’s a real threat and what is just simple panic and hysteria. For a small amount of perspective at this moment, imagine you were born in 1900.
On your 14th birthday, World War I starts and ends on your 18th birthday. 22 million people perish in that war. Later in the year, a Spanish Flu epidemic hits the planet and runs until your 20th birthday.
50 million people die from it in those two years. Yes, 50 million. On your 29th birthday, the Great Depression begins. Unemployment hits 25%, the World GDP drops 27%.
That runs until you are 38. The country nearly collapses along with the world economy. When you turn 39, World War II starts. You aren’t even over the hill yet. And don’t try to catch your breath.
On your 41st birthday, the United States is fully pulled into WWII. Between your 39th and 45th birthday, 75 million people perish in the war. Smallpox was epidemic until you were in your 40’s, as it killed 300 million people during your lifetime.
At 50, the Korean War starts. 5 million perish. From your birth, until you are 55 you dealt with the fear of Polio epidemics each summer. You probably experience friends and family contracting polio and being paralyzed and/or die.
At 55 the Vietnam War begins and doesn’t end for 20 years. 4 million people perish in that conflict. During the Cold War, you lived each day with the fear of nuclear annihilation.
On your 62nd birthday, you have the Cuban Missile Crisis, a tipping point in the Cold War. Life on our planet, as we know it, almost ended.
When you turn 75, the Vietnam War finally ends. Think of everyone on the planet born in 1900.
How did they endure all of that? When you were a kid in 1985 and didn’t think your 85-year-old grandparent understood how hard school was. And how mean that kid in your class was to you.
Yet they survived through everything listed above.
Perspective is an amazing art. Refined and enlightening as time goes on. Let’s try and keep things in perspective.
Your parents and/or grandparents were called to endure all of the above – you are called upon to stay home and sit on your couch.
It could be worse.”
