Editorial: Looking past two years of COVID to road forward
March 20, 2020 was the day everything changed.
Gov. Tom Wolf imposed a statewide shutdown of all non-essential businesses effective 8 p.m. on March 19, closing schools, offices, hairdressers, restaurants and most stores.
The unprecedented lockdown in response to a virus of unknown origin moving uncontrolled through the world was like something from a science-fiction novel, the kind of potent public threat that global health officials had warned of for years but that hadn’t materialized in more than a century.
The only historical precedent for this sudden and terrifying coronavirus disease we named COVID-19 was the Spanish flu of 1918 that is believed to have killed 50 million people worldwide and 675,000 in the U.S. COVID-19 has killed more than 6 million worldwide and 969,000 in the U.S. The numbers would be much higher but for the rapid development of a vaccine to protect against the disease, a breakthrough that created its own divisions and concerns.
Two years later, we ask ourselves if we’ve changed, for better or worse, and what will we take with us on the road forward. Will this pandemic follow in the pattern of 1918 and lead to a prosperous Roaring ‘20s-style decade? Will the changes we made and ways we adapted make our lives better?
Even now, we can see and feel ways in which we interact differently with others.
“We know now that touching things, being with other people and breathing the air in an enclosed space can be risky. How quickly that awareness recedes will be different for different people, but it can never vanish completely for anyone who lived through this. It could become second nature to recoil from shaking hands or touching our faces — and we might all find we can’t stop washing our hands,” Deborah Tannen, a professor of linguistics at Georgetown University and author on relationships, told Politico.
“The comfort of being in the presence of others might be replaced by a greater comfort with absence, especially with those we don’t know intimately. Instead of asking, ‘Is there a reason to do this online?’ we’ll be asking, ‘Is there any good reason to do this in person?’ — and might need to be reminded and convinced that there is.”
Few would dispute that COVID-19 has redefined the nature of work for millions of Americans and businesses. At some workplaces, familiar routines, such as the daily commute and face-to-face meetings, are gone forever.
Gallup recently reported that 45% of full-time U.S. employees are working from home all or part of the time — down from a peak of 83% in April 2020 — based on the polling organization’s nationally representative surveys. That’s up from just 17% before the pandemic. In addition:
— Two thirds of white-collar workers (67%) are working from home exclusively (41%) or some of the time (26%).
— 91% hope to continue working remotely because it eliminates a daily commute and office distractions, affords flexibility in balancing work and personal obligations, and improves their “overall well-being.
— Three in 10 say they will seek another job if their company eliminates remote work. Nearly 50% said they would take a pay cut to continue working from home, according to a survey by Owl Labs and Global Workplace Analytics.
The ability to work from home and focus on work-life balance can be a positive trend for families and children, whose parents may not as stressed by an exhausting daily comute. On the other hand, many agree that children suffered most from the shutdowns of their schools, and educators are just beginning to understand the effects of the learning loss.
Two years in a health crisis that many expected would last only a few weeks has taught us many things — how we interact with others, how we deal with isolation, how we can benefit from being outdoors, how we communicate with health care providers and with our fellow employees. Entertainment is different; diniing out is different; even how we exercise — more emphasis on outdoors and less on gym memberships — is different.
Some may call the pandemic of 2020 a great awakening, a reset, and a much-needed wakeup call around theeconomically and socially fragile nature of our existence. Others will say it’s a process that began two years ago and continues today to figure out what works best economically and socially for ourselves and our families.
What we carry forward is the unanswered question. We’ve changed, created new ways of working and learning, and that’s a good thing. What we do with it now is up to us.
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