essay on how covid changed my life

How COVID-19 pandemic changed my life

Table of Contents

Introduction

The COVID-19 pandemic is one of the biggest challenges that our world has ever faced. People around the globe were affected in some way by this terrible disease, whether personally or not. Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, many people felt isolated and in a state of panic. They often found themselves lacking a sense of community, confidence, and trust. The health systems in many countries were able to successfully prevent and treat people with COVID-19-related diseases while providing early intervention services to those who may not be fully aware that they are infected (Rume & Islam, 2020). Personally, this pandemic has brought numerous changes and challenges to my life. The COVID-19 pandemic affected my social, academic, and economic lifestyle positively and negatively.

Social and Academic Changes

One of the changes brought by the pandemic was economic changes that occurred very drastically (Haleem, Javaid, & Vaishya, 2020). During the pandemic, food prices started to rise, affecting the amount of money my parents could spend on goods and services. We had to reduce the food we bought as our budgets were stretched. My family also had to eliminate unhealthy food bought in bulk, such as crisps and chocolate bars. Furthermore, the pandemic made us more aware of the importance of keeping our homes clean, especially regarding cooking food. Lastly, it also made us more aware of how we talked to other people when they were ill and stayed home with them rather than being out and getting on with other things.

Furthermore, COVID-19 had a significant effect on my academic life. Immediately, measures to curb the pandemic were announced, such as closing all learning institutions in the country; my school life changed. The change began when our school implemented the online education system to ensure that we continued with our education during the lockdown period. At first, this affected me negatively because when learning was not happening in a formal environment, I struggled academically since I was not getting the face-to-face interaction with the teachers I needed. Furthermore, forcing us to attend online caused my classmates and me to feel disconnected from the knowledge being taught because we were unable to have peer participation in class. However, as the pandemic subsided, we grew accustomed to this learning mode. We realized the effects on our performance and learning satisfaction were positive, as it seemed to promote emotional and behavioral changes necessary to function in a virtual world. Students who participated in e-learning during the pandemic developed more ownership of the course requirement, increased their emotional intelligence and self-awareness, improved their communication skills, and learned to work together as a community.

If there is an area that the pandemic affected was the mental health of my family and myself. The COVID-19 pandemic caused increased anxiety, depression, and other mental health concerns that were difficult for my family and me to manage alone. Our ability to learn social resilience skills, such as self-management, was tested numerous times. One of the most visible challenges we faced was social isolation and loneliness. The multiple lockdowns made it difficult to interact with my friends and family, leading to loneliness. The changes in communication exacerbated the problem as interactions moved from face-to-face to online communication using social media and text messages. Furthermore, having family members and loved ones separated from us due to distance, unavailability of phones, and the internet created a situation of fear among us, as we did not know whether they were all right. Moreover, some people within my circle found it more challenging to communicate with friends, family, and co-workers due to poor communication skills. This was mainly attributed to anxiety or a higher risk of spreading the disease. It was also related to a poor understanding of creating and maintaining relationships during this period.

Positive Changes

In addition, this pandemic has brought some positive changes with it. First, it had been a significant catalyst for strengthening relationships and neighborhood ties. It has encouraged a sense of community because family members, neighbors, friends, and community members within my area were all working together to help each other out. Before the pandemic, everybody focused on their business, the children going to school while the older people went to work. There was not enough time to bond with each other. Well, the pandemic changed that, something that has continued until now that everything is returning to normal. In our home, it strengthened the relationship between myself and my siblings and parents. This is because we started spending more time together as a family, which enhanced our sense of understanding of ourselves.

The pandemic has been a challenging time for many people. I can confidently state that it was a significant and potentially unprecedented change in our daily life. By changing how we do things and relate with our family and friends, the pandemic has shaped our future life experiences and shown that during crises, we can come together and make a difference in each other’s lives. Therefore, I embrace wholesomely the changes brought by the COVID-19 pandemic in my life.

• Haleem, A., Javaid, M., & Vaishya, R. (2020). Effects of COVID-19 pandemic in daily life.  Current medicine research and practice ,  10 (2), 78.
• Rume, T., & Islam, S. D. U. (2020). Environmental effects of COVID-19 pandemic and potential strategies of sustainability.  Heliyon ,  6 (9), e04965.
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Two Years In: How the Pandemic Changed Our Lives

From remote work to major life developments, the COVID-19 era left its mark on Duke staff and faculty

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Two years ago this week, the novel coronavirus fully took hold in the United States. While it had been in the country earlier, the second week of March 2020 was when cases spiked, and soon after, Duke University President Vincent E. Price announced in an “urgent message” that faculty and staff who could work from home should do so. 

Masking and social distancing policies became the norm while businesses, schools and offices went quiet.

As some  safety measures ease , COVID-19 has infected nearly 80 million Americans and left nearly 970,000 dead. As the pandemic raged with variants, education, research and health care continued across Duke University and Duke University Health System at a high level. 

And many of us are forever changed.

“I think we, as a people, are different,” said Duke Associate Professor of Medicine Jon Bae, a co-convener for the mental and emotional well-being portion of Healthy Duke. “In the last two years, people have learned different ways of working, different ways of living and different ways to take appreciation for things.”

Jon Boylan is one of those. 

The past two years have drawn Boylan closer to his wife, Katie, a steadying influence during uncertain times. But starting a family against the backdrop of a global pandemic has given him a deeper respect for how forces outside of our control can alter plans.

“I wasn’t one of those people who had time to learn how to bake bread or anything,” Boylan said. “But I think in terms of personal growth, a lot happened.”

We caught up with some Duke colleagues to hear how their lives are different two years into the pandemic.

Committing to Self-Care

“For me, I thought, ‘How do I have a rich, full life amid all of this and keep a positive attitude?’” Thomas said.

She decided that she needed a goal that she could work toward until the world opened up. Already with a long list of outdoors adventures under her belt, Thomas decided to plan a summer 2021 trip to Nepal to hike the summit of the 21,247-foot Mera Peak.

For the next several months, Thomas began running, working out at a socially distanced gym, and incorporating as many walks as possible into her day. While the trip to Nepal was the goal, the exercise to prepare for it became a central piece of her self-care routine.

“I just love being outside, it’s very restorative,” Thomas said. “And I like physical challenges, I get the rush of endorphins from that. So putting those two things together just helps me out mentally. Even just a short walk can help me focus.”

Eventually, travel complications required Thomas to postpone the trip to Nepal. Instead, she flew to Spain and, over three weeks in September and October of 2021, she hiked 335 miles on the Camino de Santiago pilgrim trail.

“It was basically like a walking meditation for three weeks,” said Thomas, who is now exercising with an eye toward a 2023 Nepal trip. “It’s really an incredible experience.”

Defining Your Purpose

But she said COVID-19 tested everyone’s resolve.

“You just don’t know how you’re going to react to something until you’re in it,” Casey said.

In March 2020, Casey was the clinical team lead for Duke Raleigh’s ICU, a managerial role with less hands-on patient care. But it wasn’t far into the pandemic before Casey’s desire to help patients led her to return to a clinical nurse role.

There, she saw the virus’ danger up close. At one point in the summer of 2020, 13 of the 15 beds in the ICU were occupied by COVID-19 patients on ventilators. With no visitors allowed for COVID-19 patients, Casey witnessed several wrenching goodbyes said over cellphone.

Her challenges didn’t end when she left work. With four children and a husband who’s a police officer in Durham, at home, Casey faced stress from home schooling and a spouse also on COVID-19’s front lines.

While many ICU nurses ask to be transferred to different units due to the emotional strain, Casey was inspired by seeing colleagues bravely push forward, giving comfort and dignity to patients facing dire situations. She also said that, as the pandemic wore on, the bond between ICU nurses grew stronger. 

As hard as these past two years have been, Casey, who still serves in the ICU and recently began working toward an Acute Care Nurse Practitioner certificate through the Duke University School of Nursing , said the pandemic experience has only deepened her connection to her work.

“We all faced this as a challenge, personally, emotionally and professionally, and hopefully learned to grow through it and be better if this ever happens again,” Casey said.

Taking Charge of Physical Health

After the pandemic required many Duke staff and faculty members to work remotely , sending Carbuccia from working in the bustling Smith Warehouse to his Mebane home, the IT Analyst with  Duke’s Office of Information Technology  found himself making healthier choices without even thinking. 

Instead of eating lunch out or grabbing meals from events in his on-campus workspace, Carbuccia found himself eating homemade breakfasts, lunches and dinners. Scrambled eggs with vegetables, or simply prepared salmon filets are some of current favorites.

And without a commute, he has time for walks around his neighborhood before and after work.

Carbuccia saw the result of these changes a few months into the pandemic when he stepped on the scale and saw that he’d lost 26 pounds.

“When I stepped on the scale, I said, ‘Holy Moses! I lost a lot of weight, and I wasn’t even planning to!’” Carbuccia said.

A Better Mental Space

And each day also involved a roughly 30-minute commute along I-85 to her home in Graham, where the heavy traffic made her feel especially anxious, leaving her tense when she arrived at work or home.

But the past two years saw her work go fully remote, and now a move to a hybrid arrangement featuring one day of on-site each week. She cherishes the time she can spend working from home, often with her two dogs – Marx, a Boston Terrier, and Duke, a rescue – lounging at her feet.

“Working at home, I feel like my mental health is in a better place,” said Herrera, a wife and mother of three.

Herrera isn’t alone in her appreciation of remote work.  According to a Pew Research Center  report  from February 2022, approximately six in 10 workers who can do their jobs from home are working remotely most or all of the time.  

Herrera said her hybrid schedule leaves her feeling mentally fresh when she begins her workday and better able to transition between work and personal life. 

“I’m happier,” Herrera said. “I’m more at ease.”

Learning on the Fly

“Even though some of us had experience working remotely, it was still new,” said Roberts, who’s worked at Duke for nearly a decade. “Regardless of how much experience you had, I don’t think we were mentally or technologically ready for that quick of a transition.”

Roberts recalls PRMO leaders moving quickly to get desktops, monitors, laptops, cameras and headsets in the hands of team members. She also recalls many of her colleagues working diligently to familiarize themselves with new tools and programs, such as the collaboration platform Jabber, that were different from what was used in the PRMO offices on South Alston Avenue in Durham. 

Roberts and her colleagues also had to learn how to collaborate with one another when communication came by email and chat messages instead of a quick face-to-face conversation.

Working each day from her home in Franklinton, Roberts continues to help Duke Health patients with billing concerns. She’s part of a large team that gelled amid the pandemic and kept the pace of customer support high.

With PRMO keeping colleagues connected with department meetings and team-building Zoom events, Roberts said these past two years have given her a new appreciation of the resilience of her colleagues.

“It made me proud because nobody skipped a beat,” Roberts said. “Everybody took accountability. While some of our thinking and the logic behind how we normally do things had to change, I’m proud that it was still a really seamless transition for us.”

Finding Flexibility

“This is something that would have never happened before the pandemic,” said Atkinson, a regulatory coordinator with the  Duke Department of Surgery .

Like many administrators in Duke’s research areas, Atkinson has been working fully remote since the pandemic began, trading in her fourth-floor workspace in Erwin Terrace for a spot at home. The change reshaped Atkinson’s day-to-day routine in a drastic way, ridding her of a commute that ate up two hours each day.

Now, with more time to spend with her son, West, born before the pandemic, and her 10-month-old daughter, Iris, Atkinson, who has worked for Duke for nearly seven years, has the flexibility that allows her to feel rooted. And with more balance, she hopes to let the roots of her family, as well as the cucumbers, tomatoes and peppers that will be in the ground soon, grow strong.

“I’ve attempted a very small garden each year, but we have a very shady lot,” Atkinson said. “But this year, we’re putting it in the front, where we get a lot of sun, and West is helping me, so it’s going to work.”

A World of Change

In late 2019, she met Neil Gallagher at a party and hit it off. The pair dated for the next few months and, when the pandemic forced everyone to limit contact with others, they decided to keep each other in their quarantine bubble.

“It was one of those easy connections where we were really comfortable with each other,” said Meyer, who shared the  story of her mental health journey  with Working@Duke just before the coronavirus outbreak.

Over the next several months, the pair grew closer and, by the end of 2020, they’d begun talking about getting engaged and starting a family. Those plans hit warp speed when they found out Meyer was pregnant in early 2021. Not long after, they were engaged and later married in a small ceremony in Raleigh in July of last year.

And over a few hectic days in early October, the pair closed on a house together in Raleigh and Meyer gave birth to a healthy baby girl named Maggie.

Now in a very different spot in life from where she was when the pandemic began, Meyer said she greets each day with a new feeling of purpose and strong sense of gratitude.

“I think my husband and I have been keenly aware of how odd it’s been and how many blessing we’ve had at a time when life has been really hard for a lot of people,” Meyer said.

How has the pandemic changed your life? Send us your story and photographs through  our story idea form  or write  [email protected] .

Follow Working@Duke on  Twitter  and  Facebook .

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Read these 12 moving essays about life during coronavirus

Artists, novelists, critics, and essayists are writing the first draft of history.

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The world is grappling with an invisible, deadly enemy, trying to understand how to live with the threat posed by a virus . For some writers, the only way forward is to put pen to paper, trying to conceptualize and document what it feels like to continue living as countries are under lockdown and regular life seems to have ground to a halt.

So as the coronavirus pandemic has stretched around the world, it’s sparked a crop of diary entries and essays that describe how life has changed. Novelists, critics, artists, and journalists have put words to the feelings many are experiencing. The result is a first draft of how we’ll someday remember this time, filled with uncertainty and pain and fear as well as small moments of hope and humanity.

At the New York Review of Books, Ali Bhutto writes that in Karachi, Pakistan, the government-imposed curfew due to the virus is “eerily reminiscent of past military clampdowns”:

Beneath the quiet calm lies a sense that society has been unhinged and that the usual rules no longer apply. Small groups of pedestrians look on from the shadows, like an audience watching a spectacle slowly unfolding. People pause on street corners and in the shade of trees, under the watchful gaze of the paramilitary forces and the police.

His essay concludes with the sobering note that “in the minds of many, Covid-19 is just another life-threatening hazard in a city that stumbles from one crisis to another.”

Writing from Chattanooga, novelist Jamie Quatro documents the mixed ways her neighbors have been responding to the threat, and the frustration of conflicting direction, or no direction at all, from local, state, and federal leaders:

Whiplash, trying to keep up with who’s ordering what. We’re already experiencing enough chaos without this back-and-forth. Why didn’t the federal government issue a nationwide shelter-in-place at the get-go, the way other countries did? What happens when one state’s shelter-in-place ends, while others continue? Do states still under quarantine close their borders? We are still one nation, not fifty individual countries. Right?

Award-winning photojournalist Alessio Mamo, quarantined with his partner Marta in Sicily after she tested positive for the virus, accompanies his photographs in the Guardian of their confinement with a reflection on being confined :

The doctors asked me to take a second test, but again I tested negative. Perhaps I’m immune? The days dragged on in my apartment, in black and white, like my photos. Sometimes we tried to smile, imagining that I was asymptomatic, because I was the virus. Our smiles seemed to bring good news. My mother left hospital, but I won’t be able to see her for weeks. Marta started breathing well again, and so did I. I would have liked to photograph my country in the midst of this emergency, the battles that the doctors wage on the frontline, the hospitals pushed to their limits, Italy on its knees fighting an invisible enemy. That enemy, a day in March, knocked on my door instead.

In the New York Times Magazine, deputy editor Jessica Lustig writes with devastating clarity about her family’s life in Brooklyn while her husband battled the virus, weeks before most people began taking the threat seriously:

At the door of the clinic, we stand looking out at two older women chatting outside the doorway, oblivious. Do I wave them away? Call out that they should get far away, go home, wash their hands, stay inside? Instead we just stand there, awkwardly, until they move on. Only then do we step outside to begin the long three-block walk home. I point out the early magnolia, the forsythia. T says he is cold. The untrimmed hairs on his neck, under his beard, are white. The few people walking past us on the sidewalk don’t know that we are visitors from the future. A vision, a premonition, a walking visitation. This will be them: Either T, in the mask, or — if they’re lucky — me, tending to him.

Essayist Leslie Jamison writes in the New York Review of Books about being shut away alone in her New York City apartment with her 2-year-old daughter since she became sick:

The virus. Its sinewy, intimate name. What does it feel like in my body today? Shivering under blankets. A hot itch behind the eyes. Three sweatshirts in the middle of the day. My daughter trying to pull another blanket over my body with her tiny arms. An ache in the muscles that somehow makes it hard to lie still. This loss of taste has become a kind of sensory quarantine. It’s as if the quarantine keeps inching closer and closer to my insides. First I lost the touch of other bodies; then I lost the air; now I’ve lost the taste of bananas. Nothing about any of these losses is particularly unique. I’ve made a schedule so I won’t go insane with the toddler. Five days ago, I wrote Walk/Adventure! on it, next to a cut-out illustration of a tiger—as if we’d see tigers on our walks. It was good to keep possibility alive.

At Literary Hub, novelist Heidi Pitlor writes about the elastic nature of time during her family’s quarantine in Massachusetts:

During a shutdown, the things that mark our days—commuting to work, sending our kids to school, having a drink with friends—vanish and time takes on a flat, seamless quality. Without some self-imposed structure, it’s easy to feel a little untethered. A friend recently posted on Facebook: “For those who have lost track, today is Blursday the fortyteenth of Maprilay.” ... Giving shape to time is especially important now, when the future is so shapeless. We do not know whether the virus will continue to rage for weeks or months or, lord help us, on and off for years. We do not know when we will feel safe again. And so many of us, minus those who are gifted at compartmentalization or denial, remain largely captive to fear. We may stay this way if we do not create at least the illusion of movement in our lives, our long days spent with ourselves or partners or families.

Novelist Lauren Groff writes at the New York Review of Books about trying to escape the prison of her fears while sequestered at home in Gainesville, Florida:

Some people have imaginations sparked only by what they can see; I blame this blinkered empiricism for the parks overwhelmed with people, the bars, until a few nights ago, thickly thronged. My imagination is the opposite. I fear everything invisible to me. From the enclosure of my house, I am afraid of the suffering that isn’t present before me, the people running out of money and food or drowning in the fluid in their lungs, the deaths of health-care workers now growing ill while performing their duties. I fear the federal government, which the right wing has so—intentionally—weakened that not only is it insufficient to help its people, it is actively standing in help’s way. I fear we won’t sufficiently punish the right. I fear leaving the house and spreading the disease. I fear what this time of fear is doing to my children, their imaginations, and their souls.

At ArtForum , Berlin-based critic and writer Kristian Vistrup Madsen reflects on martinis, melancholia, and Finnish artist Jaakko Pallasvuo’s 2018 graphic novel Retreat , in which three young people exile themselves in the woods:

In melancholia, the shape of what is ending, and its temporality, is sprawling and incomprehensible. The ambivalence makes it hard to bear. The world of Retreat is rendered in lush pink and purple watercolors, which dissolve into wild and messy abstractions. In apocalypse, the divisions established in genesis bleed back out. My own Corona-retreat is similarly soft, color-field like, each day a blurred succession of quarantinis, YouTube–yoga, and televized press conferences. As restrictions mount, so does abstraction. For now, I’m still rooting for love to save the world.

At the Paris Review , Matt Levin writes about reading Virginia Woolf’s novel The Waves during quarantine:

A retreat, a quarantine, a sickness—they simultaneously distort and clarify, curtail and expand. It is an ideal state in which to read literature with a reputation for difficulty and inaccessibility, those hermetic books shorn of the handholds of conventional plot or characterization or description. A novel like Virginia Woolf’s The Waves is perfect for the state of interiority induced by quarantine—a story of three men and three women, meeting after the death of a mutual friend, told entirely in the overlapping internal monologues of the six, interspersed only with sections of pure, achingly beautiful descriptions of the natural world, a day’s procession and recession of light and waves. The novel is, in my mind’s eye, a perfectly spherical object. It is translucent and shimmering and infinitely fragile, prone to shatter at the slightest disturbance. It is not a book that can be read in snatches on the subway—it demands total absorption. Though it revels in a stark emotional nakedness, the book remains aloof, remote in its own deep self-absorption.

In an essay for the Financial Times, novelist Arundhati Roy writes with anger about Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s anemic response to the threat, but also offers a glimmer of hope for the future:

Historically, pandemics have forced humans to break with the past and imagine their world anew. This one is no different. It is a portal, a gateway between one world and the next. We can choose to walk through it, dragging the carcasses of our prejudice and hatred, our avarice, our data banks and dead ideas, our dead rivers and smoky skies behind us. Or we can walk through lightly, with little luggage, ready to imagine another world. And ready to fight for it.

From Boston, Nora Caplan-Bricker writes in The Point about the strange contraction of space under quarantine, in which a friend in Beirut is as close as the one around the corner in the same city:

It’s a nice illusion—nice to feel like we’re in it together, even if my real world has shrunk to one person, my husband, who sits with his laptop in the other room. It’s nice in the same way as reading those essays that reframe social distancing as solidarity. “We must begin to see the negative space as clearly as the positive, to know what we don’t do is also brilliant and full of love,” the poet Anne Boyer wrote on March 10th, the day that Massachusetts declared a state of emergency. If you squint, you could almost make sense of this quarantine as an effort to flatten, along with the curve, the distinctions we make between our bonds with others. Right now, I care for my neighbor in the same way I demonstrate love for my mother: in all instances, I stay away. And in moments this month, I have loved strangers with an intensity that is new to me. On March 14th, the Saturday night after the end of life as we knew it, I went out with my dog and found the street silent: no lines for restaurants, no children on bicycles, no couples strolling with little cups of ice cream. It had taken the combined will of thousands of people to deliver such a sudden and complete emptiness. I felt so grateful, and so bereft.

And on his own website, musician and artist David Byrne writes about rediscovering the value of working for collective good , saying that “what is happening now is an opportunity to learn how to change our behavior”:

In emergencies, citizens can suddenly cooperate and collaborate. Change can happen. We’re going to need to work together as the effects of climate change ramp up. In order for capitalism to survive in any form, we will have to be a little more socialist. Here is an opportunity for us to see things differently — to see that we really are all connected — and adjust our behavior accordingly. Are we willing to do this? Is this moment an opportunity to see how truly interdependent we all are? To live in a world that is different and better than the one we live in now? We might be too far down the road to test every asymptomatic person, but a change in our mindsets, in how we view our neighbors, could lay the groundwork for the collective action we’ll need to deal with other global crises. The time to see how connected we all are is now.

The portrait these writers paint of a world under quarantine is multifaceted. Our worlds have contracted to the confines of our homes, and yet in some ways we’re more connected than ever to one another. We feel fear and boredom, anger and gratitude, frustration and strange peace. Uncertainty drives us to find metaphors and images that will let us wrap our minds around what is happening.

Yet there’s no single “what” that is happening. Everyone is contending with the pandemic and its effects from different places and in different ways. Reading others’ experiences — even the most frightening ones — can help alleviate the loneliness and dread, a little, and remind us that what we’re going through is both unique and shared by all.

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Regions & Countries

In Their Own Words, Americans Describe the Struggles and Silver Linings of the COVID-19 Pandemic

The outbreak has dramatically changed americans’ lives and relationships over the past year. we asked people to tell us about their experiences – good and bad – in living through this moment in history..

Pew Research Center has been asking survey questions over the past year about Americans’ views and reactions to the COVID-19 pandemic. In August, we gave the public a chance to tell us in their own words how the pandemic has affected them in their personal lives. We wanted to let them tell us how their lives have become more difficult or challenging, and we also asked about any unexpectedly positive events that might have happened during that time.

The vast majority of Americans (89%) mentioned at least one negative change in their own lives, while a smaller share (though still a 73% majority) mentioned at least one unexpected upside. Most have experienced these negative impacts and silver linings simultaneously: Two-thirds (67%) of Americans mentioned at least one negative and at least one positive change since the pandemic began.

For this analysis, we surveyed 9,220 U.S. adults between Aug. 31-Sept. 7, 2020. Everyone who completed the survey is a member of Pew Research Center’s American Trends Panel (ATP), an online survey panel that is recruited through national, random sampling of residential addresses. This way nearly all U.S. adults have a chance of selection. The survey is weighted to be representative of the U.S. adult population by gender, race, ethnicity, partisan affiliation, education and other categories.  Read more about the ATP’s methodology . 

Respondents to the survey were asked to describe in their own words how their lives have been difficult or challenging since the beginning of the coronavirus outbreak, and to describe any positive aspects of the situation they have personally experienced as well. Overall, 84% of respondents provided an answer to one or both of the questions. The Center then categorized a random sample of 4,071 of their answers using a combination of in-house human coders, Amazon’s Mechanical Turk service and keyword-based pattern matching. The full methodology  and questions used in this analysis can be found here.

In many ways, the negatives clearly outweigh the positives – an unsurprising reaction to a pandemic that had killed  more than 180,000 Americans  at the time the survey was conducted. Across every major aspect of life mentioned in these responses, a larger share mentioned a negative impact than mentioned an unexpected upside. Americans also described the negative aspects of the pandemic in greater detail: On average, negative responses were longer than positive ones (27 vs. 19 words). But for all the difficulties and challenges of the pandemic, a majority of Americans were able to think of at least one silver lining. 

Both the negative and positive impacts described in these responses cover many aspects of life, none of which were mentioned by a majority of Americans. Instead, the responses reveal a pandemic that has affected Americans’ lives in a variety of ways, of which there is no “typical” experience. Indeed, not all groups seem to have experienced the pandemic equally. For instance, younger and more educated Americans were more likely to mention silver linings, while women were more likely than men to mention challenges or difficulties.

Here are some direct quotes that reveal how Americans are processing the new reality that has upended life across the country.

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About Pew Research Center Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping the world. It conducts public opinion polling, demographic research, media content analysis and other empirical social science research. Pew Research Center does not take policy positions. It is a subsidiary of The Pew Charitable Trusts .

4 Ways That the Pandemic Changed How We See Ourselves

A fter more than two years of pandemic life , it seems like we’ve changed as people. But how? In the beginning, many wished for a return to normal, only to realize that this might never be possible—and that could be a good thing. Although we experienced the same global crisis, it has impacted people in extremely different ways and encouraged us to think more deeply about who we are and what we’re looking for.

Isolation tested our sense of identity because it limited our access to in-person social feedback. For decades, scientists have explored how “the self is a social product.” We interpret the world through social observation. In 1902, Charles Cooley invented the concept “the looking glass self.” It explains how we develop our identity based on how we believe other people see us, but also try to influence their perceptions , so they see us in the way we’d like to be seen. If we understand who we are based on social feedback, what happened to our sense of self under isolation?

Here are four ways that the pandemic changed how we see ourselves.

When lockdown started, our identities felt less stable, but we adjusted back over time

In crisis, our self-concept was challenged. A December 2020 study by Guido Alessandri and colleagues, which was published in Identity: An International Journal of Theory and Research , measured how Italians reacted to the first week of the COVID-19 lockdown in March 2020 by evaluating how their self-concept clarity—the extent to which they have a consistent sense of self—affected their negative emotional response to the sudden lockdown.

Self-concept clarity represents “how much you have [clearly defined who you are] in your mind … not in this moment but in general,” explains Alessandri, a psychology professor at the Sapienza University of Rome. While generally people have high self-concept clarity, those with depression or personality disorders usually experience lower levels. “The lockdown threatened people’s self-concept. The very surprising result was that people with higher self-concept clarity [were] more reactive” and experienced a greater increase in negative affect than those with lower self-concept clarity.

In Alessandri’s study, people eventually returned to their initial stages of self-concept clarity, but it took longer than expected due to the shock and distress of the pandemic. This reflects a concept called emotional inertia , where emotional states are “resistant to change” and take some time to return to a baseline level. At the beginning of the pandemic, we questioned what we believed to be true about ourselves, but since then, we’ve adjusted to this new world.

Many people were forced to adopt new social roles, but the discomfort they felt depends on how important that role is to them

Our identities are not fixed; we hold several different social roles within our family, workplace, and friend groups, which naturally change over time. But in isolation, many of our social roles had to involuntarily change , from “parents homeschooling children [to] friends socializing online and employees working from home.”

As we adapted to a new way of life, a study published in September 2021 in PLOS One found that people who experienced involuntary social role disruptions because of COVID-19 reported increased feelings of inauthenticity—which could mean feeling disconnected from their true self because of their current situation. It was challenging for people to suddenly change their routines and feel like themselves in the midst of a crisis.

But the study also uncovered that “this social role interruption affects people’s sense of authenticity only to the extent that the role is important to you,” says co-author Jingshi (Joyce) Liu, a lecturer in marketing at the City campus of the University of London. If being a musician is central to your identity, for example, it’s more likely that you would feel inauthentic playing virtual shows on Zoom, but if your job isn’t a big part of who you are, you may not be as affected.

To feel more comfortable in their new identity, people can start accepting their new sense of self without trying to go back to who they once were

Over the last two years, our mindset and control over the roles we occupy in many facets of life helped determine how virtual learning and remote work affected us. “We are very sensitive to our environment,” Liu says. “[The] disruption of who we are will nonetheless feed into how we feel about our own authenticity.” But we can do our best to accept these changes and even form a new sense of self. “[If] I incorporated virtual teaching as a part of my self-identity, I [may not] need to change my behavior to go back to classroom teaching for me to feel authentic. I simply just adapt or expand the definition of what it means to be a teacher,” she adds. Similarly, if you’re a therapist, you can expand your understanding of what consulting with patients looks like to include video and phone calls.

During the pandemic, many people have made voluntary role changes, like choosing to become parents, move to a new city or country, or accept a new job. Previous research by Ibarra and Barbulescu (2010) shows that although these voluntary role changes may temporarily cause a sense of inauthenticity, they eventually tend to result in a feeling of authenticity because people are taking steps to be true to themselves or start a new chapter. “The authenticity will be restored as people adapt to their new identity,” Liu says.

Our identities have changed, so it’s important to be authentic with how we present ourselves online and offline

We have more power than we may realize to navigate a crisis by accepting that it’s OK to change. But it’s important to act in a way that’s true to ourselves. “People have a perception of the true self … They have some idea of who they truly are,” Liu says. “When you lend that to the [looking glass self], I think people would feel most inauthentic when they are performing to others in a way that is inconsistent with how they are [thinking and feeling internally],” which can happen on social media.

In isolation , when we didn’t have access to the same level of social feedback as normal, social media in some cases became a lifeline and a substitute for our self-presentation. The pandemic inspired people to take space away from the Internet and others to become increasingly dependent on it for their social wellbeing. “[Our unpublished data shows] that time spent on social media increased people’s sense of inauthenticity, perhaps because social media entails a lot of impression management [and] people are heavily editing themselves on these platforms,” Liu says.

With all that we’ve experienced, many of us have fundamentally changed as people. “In the same way which the first lockdown required us to [self-regulate] and adhere to new social norms, these changes that we’re experiencing now require another self-regulation effort to understand what is happening,” Alessandri says. “We don’t expect that people will simply get back to their previous [lives]—I don’t think this is possible. I think we have to negotiate a new kind of reality.”

The more we accept that we are no longer the same people after this crisis, the easier it will be for us to reconcile who we are now and who we want to become.

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One year later: 15 ways life has changed since the onset of the COVID pandemic

This week marks the first anniversary of Fortune’ s decision to ask all U.S.- and Europe-based staffers to work from home. Looking back on the email announcement is like looking at a time capsule. There was a strong focus on cleaning and sanitization, which we now know isn’t a good use of time and resources in fighting the battle against COVID-19 . Business travel was canceled. Training sessions on working from home were offered. But most notable is that initially the office shutdown was scheduled for just one week: “We will reevaluate the need to extend this temporary policy next week and will communicate updates accordingly.” 

I haven’t been back in the office since. 

The past year has transformed nearly every aspect of our world. Seemingly overnight, the quirky (wearing leggings during a Zoom call with clients!) became mundane. Meanwhile, our friends, family, colleagues, and communities have had their lives changed in critical ways that promise to have much longer-lasting effects. Living through a global pandemic has driven dramatic shifts in our jobs, eating habits, childcare, and even our collective sense of time.

Fifteen Fortune staffers reported on some of the most significant ways in which our lives have been altered, and one lesson rings true: Virtually no one has been left untouched after 12 months of such dramatic disruption. A generous dose of empathy and understanding of that truth will make us all stronger as we rebuild and remake our world in the year ahead.

Work from home

In a year of Zoom burnout , mask profiteering, and virtual yoga , perhaps no COVID-19 phenomenon will have a more lasting impact than WFH, or work from home. The pandemic drove companies worldwide to shut their offices, sometimes at a day’s notice. By June of last year, 42% of the U.S. labor force, largely from the ranks of white-collar employees and professionals, were working from home, many shutting their apartments and logging in from cheaper or more serene locations. Similar retreats to home offices happened around the world.

For a while it seemed like a respite from daily stresses. Traffic jams vanished in cities like Los Angeles, San Jose, and Bengaluru. Companies reported saving countless millions on utilities and operating costs, and started eyeing their high-priced offices as unnecessary, since their businesses seemed to tick along fine without them. 

Now, a year on, it seems possible that office life might never be the same again. For millions, working from home has come to signify higher-end employment. Indeed, the gulf is now starkly visible on the streets between those able to perform their jobs remotely, and lower-paid transport, health, or retail workers who have no WFH option. With offices shut, large numbers of canteen and lunch-hour restaurant workers, janitors, and others have lost their jobs altogether. It is a “ ticking time bomb for inequality,” says Stanford economist Nicholas Bloom.

Despite such wrenching dislocations, most remote employees say that when the pandemic finally ends, they will want the choice of where they work , with many preferring a flexible mix of office and home. That is a profound shift, with which companies will need to grapple for years. Yes, businesses will save millions on utilities and office rent. And there is also saved productivity, lost before to hours spent in needless meetings or on long commutes. 

But the loss from making WFH permanent could be just as big. Those only beginning their careers have struggled to be productive while working from home. And studies show that face-to-face contact is crucial for generating new ideas. Gmail, Google News, and Street View all grew out of chitchat over free gourmet lunches at Google HQ. 

Even as offices begin reopening for partial in-person work, many are finding that they need a drastic redesign , with touchless elevators and distanced pods. But in the end, that may be the easiest part, as companies adjust to the WFH age. —Vivienne Walt

A distorted sense of time

When the U.K. locked down owing to the emerging coronavirus last March, Ruth Ogden, an assistant professor of psychology at Liverpool John Moores University, was on maternity leave, at home with her infant daughter and two other young children. Confined to those quarters and conditions, each day felt like a fresh eternity to her.

Ogden’s research focuses on human perception of time, and she wondered: Is everyone feeling this way? So she did an academic study . They didn’t all feel like Ogden, but the vast majority of the 604 participants reported experiencing a distorted sense of time during the country’s lockdown. 

That time has been playing tricks on us during the pandemic will surprise no one who, over the course of the past year, has forgotten what day it is, or who in describing daily life has invoked Groundhog Day. There are reasons for that.

When COVID-19 abruptly upended our lives last year, it separated us, almost completely, from the routine and events that usually root our lives in time (and help us commit it to memory)—work, school, dates, social outings, sports events, ceremonies, travel, the things we plan for and look forward to. Life tends to be a blur without those anchors, explains Ogden. 

For people who have been able to work from home during the pandemic, that disorienting effect is compounded by the collapsed boundary between work and home, and the now more fluid workday: When does the day begin and end when you can never really leave the virtual pandemic office?

Technology, of course, began eroding the wall between work and home decades ago—dividing employees into boundary-loving “segmenters” and more flexible “integrators”—but experts, like Nancy Rothbard, a professor of management at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, say the pandemic has supercharged that trend. Studies show remote workers are working more. A team with Harvard Business School, using meeting and email metadata of roughly 3.1 million employees around the world, found the pandemic workday was, on average, 48.5 minutes longer. In a sample of its employees, Microsoft found they were more often working at night, through lunch, and over the weekends.

How we’ve experienced the passage of time during the pandemic, though, is more personal, says Ogden. In her study, which she repeated with similar results during the U.K.’s second lockdown this winter, roughly 40% of respondents sensed that time was passing more slowly than usual. Another 40% felt it was moving faster. (And 20%, perhaps essential workers, experienced no change.) The difference, Ogden found, came down to a few factors. For people who were busy, who were satisfied with their social interactions, and who were not stressed, time sped along. For those who were lonely, bored, and experiencing anxiety and depression, it moved slowly. 

Will a year on pandemic time, however we experienced it, have long-term implications? Experts expect the workday will remain more flexible and fluid than it was in the before-times, and that—for a while, at least—people may be a bit more appreciative and thoughtful about the time they have and how they use it. 

“We’ve realized that a year is quite important,” says Simon Grondin, a psychology professor at Laval University and the author of The Perception of Time: Your Questions Answered. But as the months roll on, ironically enough, he believes that sensitivity to the preciousness of time will disappear. —Erika Fry

The way we work out

Toilet paper wasn’t the only hard-to-find item in the early days of the pandemic. For gym rats, dumbbell shortages and lengthy waits for delivery of Peloton bikes and treadmills became symbols of just how dramatically COVID-19 altered workout culture. 

City- and statewide lockdowns shuttered fitness center chains and boutique spin, barre, and yoga studios. In some places, even outdoor exercise was restricted . Like nearly all other aspects of pandemic-era life, exercise too was suddenly an at-home activity, and amateur athletes scrambled to turn a basement or garage or corner of a studio apartment into a personal workout space. 

The shift was bad news for brick-and-mortar gyms, with once-buzzy purveyors of in-person fitness struggling to survive. Spin studio Flywheel, for one, filed for bankruptcy in September .

Meanwhile, the pandemic was an enormous boon for makers of in-home workout equipment. Peloton’s sales doubled in its most recent fiscal year to $1.8 billion, as consumers clamored for the company’s connected gear and on-demand app. The company ended its latest quarter with 1.67 million subscribers to its equipment-connected classes and 625,000 subscribers to its app, increases of 134% and 472%, respectively, from the prior year. Hydrow, which sells a $2,200 rowing machine, says its sales jumped 500% in 2020 from the year earlier; it raised a fresh round of $25 million in funding in June to expand its direct-to-consumer distribution. And workout apparel retailer Lululemon paid $500 million to acquire Mirror, maker of wall-mounted screens that offer on-demand workouts, in a bet that the at-home fitness trend will remain hot even if COVID-19 eases.

But for every piece of high-end exercise equipment sold to meet the demands of pandemic-era exercise, there was a low-tech alternative: live yoga classes with a beloved instructor on Zoom, squats with a backpack full of books, a marathon-distance race, run alone in a 20-foot backyard . 

The world is eager for the pandemic to subside and for life to return to “normal.” But the at-home fitness trend might just outlast the days of occupancy limits and social distancing. A survey by The New Consumer and Coefficient Capital, published in December, found that 76% of consumers have switched to exercising more at home during COVID-19, and 66% say they prefer it. Technology can re-create some of the camaraderie that exercise classes and crowded weight rooms used to foster—and the convenience of working out at home means there are fewer reasons to not show up. —Claire Zillman

Renewed gratitude for essential workers

In a world that came to rely on restaurant workers and delivery people to survive quarantine, a new study from the University of California at San Francisco offered a surprising insight into the lives of these anonymous workers. Turns out that line cooks, not health care workers, may face the highest risk of death in the pandemic. The study aligns with what reams of data now affirm: To perform essential, in-person work in the U.S. is to be both a hostage and in enormous jeopardy, even without a pandemic raging. The line cooks, the warehouse workers, the bus drivers, the custodial staff, the store clerks, and anyone doing the kind of work that makes other work possible are often living in crowded and inadequate housing. Tools for their well-being, like access to capital markets, education, and health care, are typically out of reach. They’re also primarily Black, brown, rural dwellers, or immigrants. Many of these jobs were on track to be replaced by automation in the coming years; now, as entire neighborhoods reel from economic loss, their post-COVID future is fraught. Many African American families, already laboring under an enormous wealth gap—the median white family in the U.S holds more than 10 times the wealth of the median Black family, according to research from McKinsey —may never recover.

What would gratitude for essential workers look like? The new practice of acknowledging in-person workers—there is an entire Pinterest category just for signs thanking delivery drivers, for example—is a terrific start. But letting them return to anonymity is a mistake society cannot afford to make. Nothing short of a system reboot is called for, of which the vital work of job retraining or “upskilling” to prepare the workforce for a digitized and automated future can be only one part. Gratitude means a sober look at the true barriers essential workers often face; conversations about wages, immigration reform, childcare, affordable credit, unemployment insurance, police and bail reform, even union protections. It’s time to make sure essential workers stay visible. After all, what would we do without them? —Ellen McGirt

A chronology of pandemic-fueled shortages

For American consumers, the past year has been marked by one shortage after another. In March, as government lockdowns spread across the country, consumers feared penury, and in their pandemic-fueled panic, stocked up on essentials, notably toilet paper. (That later led to a paucity of bidets.) 

At the same time, as people were being told to disinfect all surfaces before touching them (remember being told not to touch a delivery package for 24 hours?), Clorox’s namesake wipes became the hottest item imaginable in early spring, and in early 2021, the company thinks the wipes’ availability will be normalized only by midyear.

After the initial chaos, as people realized grocery and big-box stores would not run out of essentials, they focused on how to pass the time. By May, American bike shops were running out of lower-end brands, and barbells proved impossible to find: The Sports & Fitness Industry Association says that 14% more Americans rode a road bike at least once in 2020 than in the previous year.

Once summer arrived in June, outdoor furniture became scarce. The following month, shoppers had to contend with yet another problem: Coins were hard to come by, and many stores were requiring exact change or electronic payments.

But consumers weren’t yet done with hassles. In August, many stores were out of charcoal as Americans barbecued their hearts out. Once summer ended, consumers had to deal with the effect of orders canceled in March by panicked retailers and apparel makers fearful of being saddled with merchandise they might not be able to unload months later. Stores ran low on everything from Crocs to Under Armour clothing.

By October, the home-gym craze was such that Peloton’s order backlog reached alarming levels, prompting the stationary-bike maker to buy a manufacturer to increase production. In November, restaurants and homeowners were buying up every patio heater in sight. And a month later, as the outdoor sports boom continued, skis and snowshoes went flying off the shelves. (In January, it was cross-country skis that were selling out.)

In February, the 12th month of the pandemic, a shortage of a product consumers don’t buy directly but is a key component in much of what they do had reared its head: an insufficient supply of silicon chips. The shortage has closed U.S. car factories and delayed shipments of consumer electronics among many repercussions, proving how long-lasting the impact of this pandemic could be even after the virus is curbed. —Phil Wahba

The many, many considerations working parents juggle

For decades, the challenges for working parents were straightforward: How do I find affordable childcare ? How do I transport my kids to and from school? What’s a good balance between the time I spend on work versus home life? 

But a year into the coronavirus pandemic, nothing about working parenthood is as clear-cut anymore. The number of considerations has ballooned to include weighing whether day care is a health risk and how to juggle working at home while children do online schooling . For parents who must still commute to work, the situation is even more complicated. The only constant these days about working parenthood—and especially working motherhood, as moms shoulder these pandemic burdens disproportionately —is that it’s harder than ever.

There has been some help. Some companies have relaxed their policies to make it easier for working parents, or now offer extra benefits , such as free backup childcare or reskilling so that employees who normally work in person can stay at home because of childcare obligations. Meanwhile, the latest COVID relief package making its way to President Biden’s desk includes $40 million for childcare providers and an expansion of the child tax credit to $3,000 per child, with slightly more for kids under six.

Whatever the case, working parents, and especially mothers forced out of the workforce , will feel the impact of the pandemic on their families and careers for months to come—and possibly for years. —Emma Hinchliffe

A change of appetite

As the virus swept the globe last spring, one of the more remarkable trends was manifest in how much of the world reacted roughly the same way when it came to food. From Colombia to Bulgaria, restaurants and hotels closed—taking high-priced specialties with them—and many people stockpiled beans and other staples. People who had previously relied on takeout and restaurants started cooking at home almost exclusively (especially when it came to baking bread) and loading up on affordable comfort foods that provide sustenance and familiarity alike, according to reports from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Foreign Agricultural Service. 

Some of those changes of habit were fueled by fears of food shortages and stockpiling owing to COVID-19. One year later, those fears have largely dissipated; in most places, logistical delays to transporting food proved to be short-lived. But the way we eat has changed regardless—and likely for the long term.

The first change is the deepening of food insecurity worldwide, as the economic effects of the pandemic have widened already existing divides between those who can and can’t access, and afford, nutritious food. The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimates that the economic impact of the pandemic added between 83 million and 132 million people to the world’s undernourished in 2020 alone. 

Meanwhile, for those who can afford to make the move, processed comfort foods are out—and healthy eating is in. From Thailand to Russia to El Salvador, recent USDA reports point to a surge in demand for healthy, whole foods—especially ones seen as immune-system boosting—driven by the sudden shift into home cooking and the hope that good food will ward off disease. In wealthier countries, this includes sharp increases in demand for organic food. But in many households it’s driven by the economic strains of the pandemic: Budget-friendly meal planning means fewer impulse-bought treats. 

And finally, there’s one trend that food giants may find is here to stay: Online grocery shopping—and delivery—is surging as never before, finding avid customers from Jordan to Greece to, yes, the U.S. We may never eat—or shop—the same way again. —Katherine Dunn

Shining a light on inequality

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a devastating impact on human life and the economy over the past year. But that impact has been uneven and inequitable, as the disease ravaged some communities more than others, sparing or even boosting the fortunes of some demographic groups while others withered. Women, minorities, and the poor have suffered disproportionately, as the pandemic exposed and exacerbated pre-existing gaps in health, economic security, and well-being, bringing America’s structurally embedded inequality into sharp relief.

This uneven impact can be seen most starkly in divergent death rates in different communities. While 1.2 out of every 1,000 white people in the United States have perished from the disease, the death toll reached 1.5 out of every 1,000 Hispanics, and 1.7 per 1,000 Black people and Native Americans. Those disparities reflect the nation’s wide gulf in access to health care, as well as the fact that people of color are more likely to have frontline jobs and less likely to be able to take sick leave.

There has also been a racial and gender disparity in jobs lost, as more women and people of color worked in the service industries that were hit harder by the pandemic. Service jobs are often the best or only option for workers who haven’t had access to higher education, or whose child- or eldercare duties preclude a more routine nine-to-five schedule. And the pandemic exposed just how insecure those jobs are compared with white-collar, salaried positions.

About 60% of the jobs eliminated after COVID-19 struck were held by women. More women also had to stay home and forgo working in order to care for kids whose schools have been closed, costing the economy an estimated $341 billion.

The unemployment rate for Black workers more than doubled from January to June of last year, rising to 15% versus a peak of just 9% for white workers. By the end of 2020, the unemployment rate for Black people remained at 10%, compared with less than 6% for white people, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. In part, that’s because just 20% of Black workers can work from home, versus 30% of white workers and 37% of Asian workers, according to the Economic Policy Institute.

That has led to many follow-on economic effects. One out of five Black households reported not having enough food in February, compared with 18% of Latino households, and 8% of white households. In another survey of those behind on rent payments as of February, 29% of Black renters, 22% of Latino renters, and 13% of white renters said they were not current.

School closures owing to the pandemic have also delivered a harder blow among people of color, though all students have been harmed by reduced hours and the lack of in-person learning. Based on assessments done in 25 states last year, students learned only 67% of the math and 87% of the reading they would have in a normal year, according to an analysis by McKinsey . But at schools with a majority of students of color, scores were 59% of a normal year for math and 77% for reading. Those data points, like so many others, underscore how COVID-19 exposed our society’s underinvestment in its less privileged members. —Aaron Pressman

Remote learning

The shift to remote learning has been a disaster for traditional schooling, the most vulnerable students, and the careers and mental health of parents. But there’s also evidence that staying home has benefited many children, raising questions about how we educate and care for them during normal times.

Both pre- and post-pandemic , a variety of studies have found that online remote learning simply cannot replace the classroom experience. The lack of personal interaction and social engagement appears to impair knowledge retention, with younger children least able to adapt.

Like many aspects of the pandemic, this burden has fallen hardest on the poor, members of minority groups, and women. Twenty percent of all U.S. students, primarily from lower-income families, lack a computer or even an Internet connection for remote schooling, while those with more resources can turn to solutions like private tutoring or small-group “pods.” Yale economists estimated that ninth graders in the poorest U.S. communities could lose 25% of their future earning potential as a result of a one-year school closure, while those in the top 20% will experience no significant loss.

Owing in part to the same lack of resources and public support, students of color stand to lose twice as much learning progress as white students during shutdowns. Children with mental health challenges and other special needs have been largely robbed of the structured, hands-on support provided by the school system. And more than half a million working mothers have left the workforce altogether because of increased childcare duties—far higher than the number of fathers making the same choice.

However, pandemic schooling may have a silver lining, and not just for the children of the well-off. In recent decades, levels of anxiety, depression, and suicide have surged among children and teenagers. While much attention has been paid to the role of social media in these trends, the spike long predates Instagram, and many experts instead think the main culprit is children’s and adolescents’ increasingly regimented and hectic lives. One deeply disturbing indicator: Suicidal thoughts and attempted suicides among youth surge when school is in session , according to a 2018 Vanderbilt University analysis of children’s hospital admissions.

That may help explain why cross-sectional surveys conducted by one NGO early on in school shutdowns found that without the constraints of traditional school, children self-reported increased levels of calm, independence, and responsibility, and parents overwhelmingly reported their children were happy without school. An ongoing Oxford study found heightened levels of loneliness over the same period, though, and data from later lockdowns is scarce, so the full impact on kids remains unclear.

But if the positive side of the equation holds up, it could be fresh fuel for a long-running movement, under banners like “unschooling” and “free-range parenting,” aimed at giving kids more time for unsupervised play and self-directed learning. Advocates say such an approach helps children develop greater self-reliance and creativity—attributes that the pandemic itself has shown are vital to lifelong success. —David Z. Morris

A renewed relationship with nature

Sometimes it takes a global pandemic to get us to appreciate our own backyard.

In 2020, a year in which the coronavirus decimated international travel and brought terms like “quarantine” and “social distancing” into the vernacular, millions of Americans turned to the great outdoors for refuge.

People flocked to parks and public lands. Although, technically, visitation declined 28% countrywide , according to the National Park Service, that dip was mostly the result of pandemic-related closures and restrictions. The total numbers fail to reflect the surge in guests that parks that remained open experienced.

Many local officials—ranging from those in Pennsylvania to the Pacific Northwest—reported dramatic upticks in park visitors, according to a recent report from the Trust for Public Land, a nonprofit environmental conservation group. The summer months were particularly busy. Visits to Grand Teton National Park reached near-record levels in August 2020. Even visits to Yellowstone National Park rose 2% in July versus the same period a year prior, despite not operating at full capacity.

“As movie theaters, restaurants, bars, and stores have closed across the country, parks have emerged as the one safe space for scratching the itch to get out of the house,” wrote Linda Hwang, the trust’s strategy and innovation lead, in its report.

America’s renewed relationship with nature during times of crisis is not a new phenomenon. The trend matches how the country reacted to the last serious pandemic. 

In 1920, as the Spanish flu’s deadly impact was subsiding in the U.S., Americans swarmed Yellowstone. The park recorded a 42% increase in visitors by rail and a 21% increase in visitors by automobile that year versus the year prior, as Quartz has noted .

Studies over the years have shown the advantages of spending more time outdoors. According to a recent study in medical journal The Lancet, researchers noted that access to green spaces is “associated with more physical activity, better mental health, sounder sleep, lower stress levels, improved cognition, and faster hospital recovery.” 

Parks bear some relation to good health, in other words. As Shawn Benge, deputy director of the National Park Service, put it in a press release , these protected lands “provide close-to-home opportunities” for people to improve their “physical and psychological” well-being.

Thus, months of isolation make the fresh air that much sweeter. —Andrew Marquardt

The decimation of women in the workplace

It took less than a year to erase more than three decades of progress for America’s working women. More than 2.3 million women have left the U.S. labor force since February 2020, sending us back to participation levels last seen in 1988. And women—especially women of color , who are already the most economically vulnerable —have borne the brunt of the pandemic-era job losses, accounting for more than 53% of net U.S. jobs shed in the past year. Now President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris have recognized the ongoing employment crisis for working women as “a national emergency.”

COVID-19, which closed schools and day cares and the service-oriented businesses that rely on majority-female workforces, was the spark that ignited this crisis. But its underlying causes—including the country’s sweeping lack of affordable childcare or paid leave for working parents; employers’ persistent failures to close the gender and racial gaps in what they pay workers ; and men’s general unwillingness to shoulder an equal burden of unpaid caregiving and other domestic labor—have been accumulating for much longer. “Bringing everyone back into the house exposed the wound of gender inequality,” says Misty Heggeness, a principal economist with the U.S. Census Bureau.

Healing that wound will require sweeping policy changes , some of which Biden’s proposed stimulus package includes. But it also demands sustained efforts by employers to change how they recruit, promote, pay—and hire back —women, now and once the pandemic is over. 

“COVID highlighted a lot of things that we knew were right under the surface,” says Christy Pambianchi, Verizon’s chief HR officer. “Adding a couple of days a year to the company PTO bank is not going to solve a problem of this size and scale.” —Maria Aspan

A mental health crisis

There was a line in, of all things, a show about superheroes that managed to capture the tragedy of our collective moment: “But what is grief, if not love persevering?”

It’s no revolutionary concept. This is, after all, the nature of grief—that sense of loss for the things we love. But that simple piece of dialogue from the Disney show WandaVision really gets to what we’ve been feeling in our bones over the course of this pandemic.

Americans have been isolated, stressed out, and generally thrown for a loop in the past year: “9/11 was traumatic, but it was over after a while. This is just ongoing, and it’s turned our lives upside down,” says Dr. Katherine Shear, the founding director of Columbia University’s Center for Complicated Grief . And that’s had wide-ranging implications for the country’s reckoning with a mental health crisis and what industries can do to address it.

The biggest change over the past year comes in the growth of the telehealth industry focused on mental health. By the end of 2020, some nine months after the pandemic began in earnest, usage of virtual and text-based mental health services soared.

Startups such as Ginger saw astronomical growth in utilization rates relative to the pre-COVID era—ranging from 150% to 300% depending on the type of virtual psychiatric care visit. A study conducted by think tank Rand Corporation found 54% of those seeking access to virtual medical care, a necessity when going to a hospital in person may not be safe, were looking for psychiatric services rather than physical health treatment.

Those are just some small examples. Other businesses, such as IBM’s software arm Red Hat , have rushed to appoint chief people officers and deploy measures to address their employees’ anxiety and depression in this era.

Mental health has typically been put on the back burner of American maladies despite its omnipresence. The pandemic laid it bare, offering an opportunity for innovative companies to take a stand. And while that business, and the demand for it, may be growing under the specter of the pandemic, underserved communities and those without the savvy or privilege of a fast Internet connection are still being left behind. For a virtual space for mental health care to be truly sustainable, it must rely not just on the tearing down of stigma but of structural roadblocks that prevent people from getting the care they need in the first place. —Sy Mukherjee

A diminished college experience

Ask any college graduate to identify the most valuable parts of their college experience, and the answer is almost never about course content. It’s usually about relationships—with classmates who become lifelong friends, professors, teammates, coaches, advisers—and about experiences that happen only in person, some of which one neglects to mention to parents. The answer is mostly about stuff that has been eliminated or throttled way back in the pandemic. North Carolina Central University senior Precious Davis spoke for millions when she told the school’s Campus Echo Online : “It just isn’t the same.”

Many schools are trying hard to offer in-person classes this spring, but the result is far from the traditional college experience. Restrictions are severe. The University of Virginia, for example, has barred students from leaving their rooms except to attend class, get food, exercise alone, or get tested for COVID-19. Some colleges’ dining halls are open only for takeout. Several schools—the University of New Hampshire, the University of Michigan, Clarkson University, many others—have gone online-only for days or weeks this semester as cases have surged. A Penn State junior told Time, “You simply feel like you’re watching videos and you’re not part of the class.”

Sports seasons have been shortened or canceled. The Big 10 football championship game in December—Ohio State vs. Northwestern—was a surreal and pathetic scene : The only attendees were family members of the players and staff in a stadium that seats 70,000.

For the FOMO generation, this is about the worst thing that could happen. Their fear of missing out is justified; they really are missing out on the best parts of college. Many of them, and their parents, are angry. They’ve filed 257 class-action lawsuits against schools, says the law firm Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner, which defends universities in some of these suits. While the schools had to do what they did, the students insist they deserve a partial refund. In some cases, the schools have an effective defense in the niceties of contract law, but the truth is, the students are right. They aren’t getting what they paid for, and there isn’t any silver lining. It’s just lousy. —Geoff Colvin

TikTok’s big moment

TikTok was both a hero and a beneficiary of the pandemic, providing hundreds of millions of people worldwide with much-needed connection and entertainment during lockdowns, while gaining immensely in users and revenue. In 2020 alone, the app raked in an estimated 181 million users , making it the most-downloaded app of the year, hitting its peak during Q1, when the pandemic’s first lockdowns spread across the globe. The most popular videos on TikTok last year ranged in topic from a parody of your worst work-from-home colleague , to the type of positive, calming vibes sorely missing during the pandemic, to the endlessly catchy yet utterly inexplicable . 

Aside from a brief bump in the road, when Gen Z—and just about every other generation with them—had to confront the terrifying possibility that then-President Trump might ban their beloved TikTok , the app had a stellar year. While nearly every app experienced an uptick in time spent per user, TikTok saw 325% year-over-year growth in the U.S. to surpass even Facebook , according to App Annie. The average American TikTok user spent 21.5 hours per month on the platform last year, compared with the average Facebooker’s 17.7 hours monthly. 

As COVID vaccines are rolled out and herd immunity (hopefully) ensues, people may emerge from their quarantine caves and spend less time on social media, but TikTok is still expected to grow in 2021. In 2020, TikTok was the most-downloaded app in the world, and ranked second-highest, behind Tinder, for consumer spending worldwide. Hootsuite’s Social Trends 2021 Report showed that only 14% of marketers plan to up their ad spending on TikTok this year, though, showing that even as the app’s cultural cachet continues to grow, monetizing the platform remains a challenge. —McKenna Moore

The COVID class markers

When last spring’s first lockdowns began, many became quarantined in their homes—save for those the federal government labeled “essential workers.” Health care workers, grocery clerks, delivery drivers, mass transit workers, and others could not move their lives fully indoors and became disproportionately vulnerable to the spread of the coronavirus . Communities became split between those working from home and those working outside the home, and that split ran glaringly along the lines of class (as well as race and gender), illuminating that divide.  

Class markers have become starkly visible during the pandemic. There is the remote-work class and the in-person–work class; even among remote workers, there are those who have reliable Internet access and a stable home environment and those who don’t. Zoom and other video calls have exposed the insides of Americans’ homes, whether they live in enormous condos or cramped apartments, to the judgment of their peers. Early in the pandemic, when COVID-19 tests were especially scarce, there was the tested class, among whom the wealthy and famous could access tests , and the untested class, who couldn’t. Last April, there were those able to pay rent and the third of Americans who weren’t ; then the employed and the historic number of unemployed , most of whom are women . 

On a global scale, the wealth disparities are even greater: Wealthy nations have been snapping up shipments of vaccines, leaving developing nations at risk of lagging behind in terms of vaccination . Some experts say the last in line may not get the vaccine until 2024. —Karen Yuan

This story has been updated to reflect Hydrow’s full-year sales increase in 2020.

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Home > History Community Special Collections > Remembering COVID-19 Community Archive > Community Reflections > 21

Community Reflections

My life experience during the covid-19 pandemic.

Melissa Blanco Follow

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Undergraduate, Class of 2024

My content explains what my life was like during the last seven months of the Covid-19 pandemic and how it affected my life both positively and negatively. It also explains what it was like when I graduated from High School and how I want the future generations to remember the Class of 2020.

Class assignment, Western Civilization (Dr. Marino).

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Blanco, Melissa, "My Life Experience During the Covid-19 Pandemic" (2020). Community Reflections . 21. https://digitalcommons.sacredheart.edu/covid19-reflections/21

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• http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1512-4471 Emily Long 1 ,
• Susan Patterson 1 ,
• Karen Maxwell 1 ,
• Carolyn Blake 1 ,
• http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7342-4566 Raquel Bosó Pérez 1 ,
• Ruth Lewis 1 ,
• Mark McCann 1 ,
• Julie Riddell 1 ,
• Kathryn Skivington 1 ,
• Rachel Wilson-Lowe 1 ,
• http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4409-6601 Kirstin R Mitchell 2
• 1 MRC/CSO Social and Public Health Sciences Unit , University of Glasgow , Glasgow , UK
• 2 MRC/CSO Social and Public Health Sciences Unit, Institute of Health & Wellbeing , University of Glasgow , Glasgow , UK
• Correspondence to Dr Emily Long, MRC/CSO Social and Public Health Sciences Unit, University of Glasgow, Glasgow G3 7HR, UK; emily.long{at}glasgow.ac.uk

This essay examines key aspects of social relationships that were disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic. It focuses explicitly on relational mechanisms of health and brings together theory and emerging evidence on the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic to make recommendations for future public health policy and recovery. We first provide an overview of the pandemic in the UK context, outlining the nature of the public health response. We then introduce four distinct domains of social relationships: social networks, social support, social interaction and intimacy, highlighting the mechanisms through which the pandemic and associated public health response drastically altered social interactions in each domain. Throughout the essay, the lens of health inequalities, and perspective of relationships as interconnecting elements in a broader system, is used to explore the varying impact of these disruptions. The essay concludes by providing recommendations for longer term recovery ensuring that the social relational cost of COVID-19 is adequately considered in efforts to rebuild.

• inequalities

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Data sharing not applicable as no data sets generated and/or analysed for this study. Data sharing not applicable as no data sets generated or analysed for this essay.

This is an open access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Unported (CC BY 4.0) license, which permits others to copy, redistribute, remix, transform and build upon this work for any purpose, provided the original work is properly cited, a link to the licence is given, and indication of whether changes were made. See: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ .

https://doi.org/10.1136/jech-2021-216690

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Introduction

Infectious disease pandemics, including SARS and COVID-19, demand intrapersonal behaviour change and present highly complex challenges for public health. 1 A pandemic of an airborne infection, spread easily through social contact, assails human relationships by drastically altering the ways through which humans interact. In this essay, we draw on theories of social relationships to examine specific ways in which relational mechanisms key to health and well-being were disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Relational mechanisms refer to the processes between people that lead to change in health outcomes.

At the time of writing, the future surrounding COVID-19 was uncertain. Vaccine programmes were being rolled out in countries that could afford them, but new and more contagious variants of the virus were also being discovered. The recovery journey looked long, with continued disruption to social relationships. The social cost of COVID-19 was only just beginning to emerge, but the mental health impact was already considerable, 2 3 and the inequality of the health burden stark. 4 Knowledge of the epidemiology of COVID-19 accrued rapidly, but evidence of the most effective policy responses remained uncertain.

The initial response to COVID-19 in the UK was reactive and aimed at reducing mortality, with little time to consider the social implications, including for interpersonal and community relationships. The terminology of ‘social distancing’ quickly became entrenched both in public and policy discourse. This equation of physical distance with social distance was regrettable, since only physical proximity causes viral transmission, whereas many forms of social proximity (eg, conversations while walking outdoors) are minimal risk, and are crucial to maintaining relationships supportive of health and well-being.

The aim of this essay is to explore four key relational mechanisms that were impacted by the pandemic and associated restrictions: social networks, social support, social interaction and intimacy. We use relational theories and emerging research on the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic response to make three key recommendations: one regarding public health responses; and two regarding social recovery. Our understanding of these mechanisms stems from a ‘systems’ perspective which casts social relationships as interdependent elements within a connected whole. 5

Social networks

Social networks characterise the individuals and social connections that compose a system (such as a workplace, community or society). Social relationships range from spouses and partners, to coworkers, friends and acquaintances. They vary across many dimensions, including, for example, frequency of contact and emotional closeness. Social networks can be understood both in terms of the individuals and relationships that compose the network, as well as the overall network structure (eg, how many of your friends know each other).

Social networks show a tendency towards homophily, or a phenomenon of associating with individuals who are similar to self. 6 This is particularly true for ‘core’ network ties (eg, close friends), while more distant, sometimes called ‘weak’ ties tend to show more diversity. During the height of COVID-19 restrictions, face-to-face interactions were often reduced to core network members, such as partners, family members or, potentially, live-in roommates; some ‘weak’ ties were lost, and interactions became more limited to those closest. Given that peripheral, weaker social ties provide a diversity of resources, opinions and support, 7 COVID-19 likely resulted in networks that were smaller and more homogenous.

Such changes were not inevitable nor necessarily enduring, since social networks are also adaptive and responsive to change, in that a disruption to usual ways of interacting can be replaced by new ways of engaging (eg, Zoom). Yet, important inequalities exist, wherein networks and individual relationships within networks are not equally able to adapt to such changes. For example, individuals with a large number of newly established relationships (eg, university students) may have struggled to transfer these relationships online, resulting in lost contacts and a heightened risk of social isolation. This is consistent with research suggesting that young adults were the most likely to report a worsening of relationships during COVID-19, whereas older adults were the least likely to report a change. 8

Lastly, social connections give rise to emergent properties of social systems, 9 where a community-level phenomenon develops that cannot be attributed to any one member or portion of the network. For example, local area-based networks emerged due to geographic restrictions (eg, stay-at-home orders), resulting in increases in neighbourly support and local volunteering. 10 In fact, research suggests that relationships with neighbours displayed the largest net gain in ratings of relationship quality compared with a range of relationship types (eg, partner, colleague, friend). 8 Much of this was built from spontaneous individual interactions within local communities, which together contributed to the ‘community spirit’ that many experienced. 11 COVID-19 restrictions thus impacted the personal social networks and the structure of the larger networks within the society.

Social support

Social support, referring to the psychological and material resources provided through social interaction, is a critical mechanism through which social relationships benefit health. In fact, social support has been shown to be one of the most important resilience factors in the aftermath of stressful events. 12 In the context of COVID-19, the usual ways in which individuals interact and obtain social support have been severely disrupted.

One such disruption has been to opportunities for spontaneous social interactions. For example, conversations with colleagues in a break room offer an opportunity for socialising beyond one’s core social network, and these peripheral conversations can provide a form of social support. 13 14 A chance conversation may lead to advice helpful to coping with situations or seeking formal help. Thus, the absence of these spontaneous interactions may mean the reduction of indirect support-seeking opportunities. While direct support-seeking behaviour is more effective at eliciting support, it also requires significantly more effort and may be perceived as forceful and burdensome. 15 The shift to homeworking and closure of community venues reduced the number of opportunities for these spontaneous interactions to occur, and has, second, focused them locally. Consequently, individuals whose core networks are located elsewhere, or who live in communities where spontaneous interaction is less likely, have less opportunity to benefit from spontaneous in-person supportive interactions.

However, alongside this disruption, new opportunities to interact and obtain social support have arisen. The surge in community social support during the initial lockdown mirrored that often seen in response to adverse events (eg, natural disasters 16 ). COVID-19 restrictions that confined individuals to their local area also compelled them to focus their in-person efforts locally. Commentators on the initial lockdown in the UK remarked on extraordinary acts of generosity between individuals who belonged to the same community but were unknown to each other. However, research on adverse events also tells us that such community support is not necessarily maintained in the longer term. 16

Meanwhile, online forms of social support are not bound by geography, thus enabling interactions and social support to be received from a wider network of people. Formal online social support spaces (eg, support groups) existed well before COVID-19, but have vastly increased since. While online interactions can increase perceived social support, it is unclear whether remote communication technologies provide an effective substitute from in-person interaction during periods of social distancing. 17 18 It makes intuitive sense that the usefulness of online social support will vary by the type of support offered, degree of social interaction and ‘online communication skills’ of those taking part. Youth workers, for instance, have struggled to keep vulnerable youth engaged in online youth clubs, 19 despite others finding a positive association between amount of digital technology used by individuals during lockdown and perceived social support. 20 Other research has found that more frequent face-to-face contact and phone/video contact both related to lower levels of depression during the time period of March to August 2020, but the negative effect of a lack of contact was greater for those with higher levels of usual sociability. 21 Relatedly, important inequalities in social support exist, such that individuals who occupy more socially disadvantaged positions in society (eg, low socioeconomic status, older people) tend to have less access to social support, 22 potentially exacerbated by COVID-19.

Social and interactional norms

Interactional norms are key relational mechanisms which build trust, belonging and identity within and across groups in a system. Individuals in groups and societies apply meaning by ‘approving, arranging and redefining’ symbols of interaction. 23 A handshake, for instance, is a powerful symbol of trust and equality. Depending on context, not shaking hands may symbolise a failure to extend friendship, or a failure to reach agreement. The norms governing these symbols represent shared values and identity; and mutual understanding of these symbols enables individuals to achieve orderly interactions, establish supportive relationship accountability and connect socially. 24 25

Physical distancing measures to contain the spread of COVID-19 radically altered these norms of interaction, particularly those used to convey trust, affinity, empathy and respect (eg, hugging, physical comforting). 26 As epidemic waves rose and fell, the work to negotiate these norms required intense cognitive effort; previously taken-for-granted interactions were re-examined, factoring in current restriction levels, own and (assumed) others’ vulnerability and tolerance of risk. This created awkwardness, and uncertainty, for example, around how to bring closure to an in-person interaction or convey warmth. The instability in scripted ways of interacting created particular strain for individuals who already struggled to encode and decode interactions with others (eg, those who are deaf or have autism spectrum disorder); difficulties often intensified by mask wearing. 27

Large social gatherings—for example, weddings, school assemblies, sporting events—also present key opportunities for affirming and assimilating interactional norms, building cohesion and shared identity and facilitating cooperation across social groups. 28 Online ‘equivalents’ do not easily support ‘social-bonding’ activities such as singing and dancing, and rarely enable chance/spontaneous one-on-one conversations with peripheral/weaker network ties (see the Social networks section) which can help strengthen bonds across a larger network. The loss of large gatherings to celebrate rites of passage (eg, bar mitzvah, weddings) has additional relational costs since these events are performed by and for communities to reinforce belonging, and to assist in transitioning to new phases of life. 29 The loss of interaction with diverse others via community and large group gatherings also reduces intergroup contact, which may then tend towards more prejudiced outgroup attitudes. While online interaction can go some way to mimicking these interaction norms, there are key differences. A sense of anonymity, and lack of in-person emotional cues, tends to support norms of polarisation and aggression in expressing differences of opinion online. And while online platforms have potential to provide intergroup contact, the tendency of much social media to form homogeneous ‘echo chambers’ can serve to further reduce intergroup contact. 30 31

Intimacy relates to the feeling of emotional connection and closeness with other human beings. Emotional connection, through romantic, friendship or familial relationships, fulfils a basic human need 32 and strongly benefits health, including reduced stress levels, improved mental health, lowered blood pressure and reduced risk of heart disease. 32 33 Intimacy can be fostered through familiarity, feeling understood and feeling accepted by close others. 34

Intimacy via companionship and closeness is fundamental to mental well-being. Positively, the COVID-19 pandemic has offered opportunities for individuals to (re)connect and (re)strengthen close relationships within their household via quality time together, following closure of many usual external social activities. Research suggests that the first full UK lockdown period led to a net gain in the quality of steady relationships at a population level, 35 but amplified existing inequalities in relationship quality. 35 36 For some in single-person households, the absence of a companion became more conspicuous, leading to feelings of loneliness and lower mental well-being. 37 38 Additional pandemic-related relational strain 39 40 resulted, for some, in the initiation or intensification of domestic abuse. 41 42

Physical touch is another key aspect of intimacy, a fundamental human need crucial in maintaining and developing intimacy within close relationships. 34 Restrictions on social interactions severely restricted the number and range of people with whom physical affection was possible. The reduction in opportunity to give and receive affectionate physical touch was not experienced equally. Many of those living alone found themselves completely without physical contact for extended periods. The deprivation of physical touch is evidenced to take a heavy emotional toll. 43 Even in future, once physical expressions of affection can resume, new levels of anxiety over germs may introduce hesitancy into previously fluent blending of physical and verbal intimate social connections. 44

The pandemic also led to shifts in practices and norms around sexual relationship building and maintenance, as individuals adapted and sought alternative ways of enacting sexual intimacy. This too is important, given that intimate sexual activity has known benefits for health. 45 46 Given that social restrictions hinged on reducing household mixing, possibilities for partnered sexual activity were primarily guided by living arrangements. While those in cohabiting relationships could potentially continue as before, those who were single or in non-cohabiting relationships generally had restricted opportunities to maintain their sexual relationships. Pornography consumption and digital partners were reported to increase since lockdown. 47 However, online interactions are qualitatively different from in-person interactions and do not provide the same opportunities for physical intimacy.

Recommendations and conclusions

In the sections above we have outlined the ways in which COVID-19 has impacted social relationships, showing how relational mechanisms key to health have been undermined. While some of the damage might well self-repair after the pandemic, there are opportunities inherent in deliberative efforts to build back in ways that facilitate greater resilience in social and community relationships. We conclude by making three recommendations: one regarding public health responses to the pandemic; and two regarding social recovery.

Recommendation 1: explicitly count the relational cost of public health policies to control the pandemic

Effective handling of a pandemic recognises that social, economic and health concerns are intricately interwoven. It is clear that future research and policy attention must focus on the social consequences. As described above, policies which restrict physical mixing across households carry heavy and unequal relational costs. These include for individuals (eg, loss of intimate touch), dyads (eg, loss of warmth, comfort), networks (eg, restricted access to support) and communities (eg, loss of cohesion and identity). Such costs—and their unequal impact—should not be ignored in short-term efforts to control an epidemic. Some public health responses—restrictions on international holiday travel and highly efficient test and trace systems—have relatively small relational costs and should be prioritised. At a national level, an earlier move to proportionate restrictions, and investment in effective test and trace systems, may help prevent escalation of spread to the point where a national lockdown or tight restrictions became an inevitability. Where policies with relational costs are unavoidable, close attention should be paid to the unequal relational impact for those whose personal circumstances differ from normative assumptions of two adult families. This includes consideration of whether expectations are fair (eg, for those who live alone), whether restrictions on social events are equitable across age group, religious/ethnic groupings and social class, and also to ensure that the language promoted by such policies (eg, households; families) is not exclusionary. 48 49 Forethought to unequal impacts on social relationships should thus be integral to the work of epidemic preparedness teams.

Recommendation 2: intelligently balance online and offline ways of relating

A key ingredient for well-being is ‘getting together’ in a physical sense. This is fundamental to a human need for intimate touch, physical comfort, reinforcing interactional norms and providing practical support. Emerging evidence suggests that online ways of relating cannot simply replace physical interactions. But online interaction has many benefits and for some it offers connections that did not exist previously. In particular, online platforms provide new forms of support for those unable to access offline services because of mobility issues (eg, older people) or because they are geographically isolated from their support community (eg, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) youth). Ultimately, multiple forms of online and offline social interactions are required to meet the needs of varying groups of people (eg, LGBTQ, older people). Future research and practice should aim to establish ways of using offline and online support in complementary and even synergistic ways, rather than veering between them as social restrictions expand and contract. Intelligent balancing of online and offline ways of relating also pertains to future policies on home and flexible working. A decision to switch to wholesale or obligatory homeworking should consider the risk to relational ‘group properties’ of the workplace community and their impact on employees’ well-being, focusing in particular on unequal impacts (eg, new vs established employees). Intelligent blending of online and in-person working is required to achieve flexibility while also nurturing supportive networks at work. Intelligent balance also implies strategies to build digital literacy and minimise digital exclusion, as well as coproducing solutions with intended beneficiaries.

Recommendation 3: build stronger and sustainable localised communities

In balancing offline and online ways of interacting, there is opportunity to capitalise on the potential for more localised, coherent communities due to scaled-down travel, homeworking and local focus that will ideally continue after restrictions end. There are potential economic benefits after the pandemic, such as increased trade as home workers use local resources (eg, coffee shops), but also relational benefits from stronger relationships around the orbit of the home and neighbourhood. Experience from previous crises shows that community volunteer efforts generated early on will wane over time in the absence of deliberate work to maintain them. Adequately funded partnerships between local government, third sector and community groups are required to sustain community assets that began as a direct response to the pandemic. Such partnerships could work to secure green spaces and indoor (non-commercial) meeting spaces that promote community interaction. Green spaces in particular provide a triple benefit in encouraging physical activity and mental health, as well as facilitating social bonding. 50 In building local communities, small community networks—that allow for diversity and break down ingroup/outgroup views—may be more helpful than the concept of ‘support bubbles’, which are exclusionary and less sustainable in the longer term. Rigorously designed intervention and evaluation—taking a systems approach—will be crucial in ensuring scale-up and sustainability.

The dramatic change to social interaction necessitated by efforts to control the spread of COVID-19 created stark challenges but also opportunities. Our essay highlights opportunities for learning, both to ensure the equity and humanity of physical restrictions, and to sustain the salutogenic effects of social relationships going forward. The starting point for capitalising on this learning is recognition of the disruption to relational mechanisms as a key part of the socioeconomic and health impact of the pandemic. In recovery planning, a general rule is that what is good for decreasing health inequalities (such as expanding social protection and public services and pursuing green inclusive growth strategies) 4 will also benefit relationships and safeguard relational mechanisms for future generations. Putting this into action will require political will.

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Patient consent for publication.

Not required.

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Twitter @karenmaxSPHSU, @Mark_McCann, @Rwilsonlowe, @KMitchinGlasgow

Contributors EL and KM led on the manuscript conceptualisation, review and editing. SP, KM, CB, RBP, RL, MM, JR, KS and RW-L contributed to drafting and revising the article. All authors assisted in revising the final draft.

Funding The research reported in this publication was supported by the Medical Research Council (MC_UU_00022/1, MC_UU_00022/3) and the Chief Scientist Office (SPHSU11, SPHSU14). EL is also supported by MRC Skills Development Fellowship Award (MR/S015078/1). KS and MM are also supported by a Medical Research Council Strategic Award (MC_PC_13027).

Competing interests None declared.

Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.

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On  March 8 , it's  International Women's Day . This year’s theme is " Women in leadership: Achieving an equal future in a COVID-19 world ", celebrating the tremendous efforts by women around the world in shaping a more equal future and recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. At  UNICEF , we want to celebrate the achievements of women in leadership positions, and also those who display leadership qualities.

Throughout the whole month of March 2021, the Women's Month , we publish the stories of only a few of the many women who make a difference in UNICEF every day. Today, we host the interview of Agnes Barongo , our Communications for Development (C4D) Specialist in  UNICEF U ganda

My life view changed just before Christmas when I got COVID-19. I was utterly shocked and kept asking how I could fail at observing the prevention protocols. Now I truly understand the psychological and physical meaning of living with COVID19. Not everyone is fortunate to have ready access to social services, so I am fortunate. But the experience provided me with further compassion and determination to keep doing the best to ensure less fortunate citizens get access to the right information and services that can save their lives

Agnes Barongo

Communications for Development (C4D) Specialist, Uganda

Who are you and what is your role at UNICEF?

I hail from Hoima District, located in mid-western Uganda. It is one of 135 districts in the Republic of Uganda that has a total population of 45.7 million people. Its capital, Hoima City, has just been converted into a city as part of the development agenda to upgrade Municipal Town Councils around the nation. I work as a Communication for Development Specialist based in Kampala City, the capital of the Republic of Uganda. My main responsibilities centre on ensuring that bottlenecks to the adoption of positive behaviourial and societal practices are addressed at different levels in our society from the household, to the community, to the district and national levels. I work with the Education and Child Protection teams in UNICEF, Government and Civil Society Organizations to have these addressed in the first and second decades of a child’s life. Presently, I work in 30 focus districts and with eight government line ministries to ensure that both at the community and national levels, there are systems running in place to support vulnerable children to have access to education and child protection social services.

How did COVID-19 impact your life, both on professional as well as on personal level?

On a professional level COVID-19 provided me with a revisit to emergency work that I had already been supporting as the alternative focal point in the Communication for Development Unit, under the Communications and Partnerships Section in UNICEF Uganda Country Office. I had already been part of the emergency interventions supporting the Ministry of Health under the Public Health Emergency Operations Centre and National Task Force during the 2017 Marburg outbreak in Eastern Uganda and the 2018 – 2019 Ebola Virus Disease outbreak in Western Uganda. Health emergencies being a cross-sectoral programme I had already experienced what it means to ensure that the all the education and child protection stakeholders convene to discuss and take action on addressing the virulent outbreaks. I also was able to understand in these two outbreaks the vital importance of being vigilant and being the example to demonstrating how to stick to Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) when it came to personal and team safety measures. When COVID-19 broke out, I was on leave, however, my prior experience with emergencies and virulent outbreaks made me more conscious and empathetic to the communities around me. Not everyone responds to directives set out by government or district officials. My job continues to provide me with perspectives on how there needs to be a re-invention each time to see how best to encourage people to keep adhering to positive social and behaviourial practices that would keep them safe from obtaining any deadly virus of epidemic proportions, infecting people and dying a death that could be prevented. I found myself greeting strangers, advising them on the protocols for protecting themselves from COVID-19. I also did get into situations where I would inquire from a service delivery point why there was no sanitizer, washing point or temperature gun present. Of course, in these circumstances, it was imperative to have a demonstrative level of understanding, humility but at the same time determination in getting the safety protocols message across to the people in the communities I interacted in. At a personal level, the COVID-19 situation made me learn to understand my family better. During lockdown, there were various moments of epiphany, living in a household with extended family members. Inadvertently, the proximity helped me to understand and become more empathetic to the individual challenges we as humans face daily. I am less judgmental now when it comes to reviewing cases of violence because I realized that our upbringing colluding with our immediate environment and personal difficulties in attaining a sustainable living, can bring out the worst behaviourial traits. I try not to make excuses but at least I have a more varied approach to making inquiries into trying to understand what drives each human being to perform an act of violence against family or strangers.

My life view changed just before Christmas when I got COVID-19. I was utterly shocked and kept asking how I could fail at observing the prevention protocols. However, it also made me ensure that I paid acute attention to treatment. I reported daily to the UN doctor in charge and took medication and monitored my vitals. When I went for the exit COVID-19 test, I was extremely nervous and did not sleep the night before. The following day when I got my results, there was an explosion of relief. Now I truly understand the psychological and physical meaning of living with COVID19. I am a better person when it comes to vigilance in observing prevention protocols and to the occasional dismay of my family, I keep repeating the SOPs because I understand firsthand how the pandemic has impacted on me.

Not everyone is fortunate to have readily access to social services, so I am fortunate. But it provides me with further compassion and determination to keep doing the best to ensure less fortunate citizens get access to the right information and services that can save their lives.

Do you think that the COVID-19 pandemic disproportionally impacted women, mothers and girls' lives, and how?

To a great extent everyone was impacted negatively by this COVID-19 pandemic. Until adequate research is done on a nationwide survey in Uganda, it would be presumptuous to say that women, mothers and girls lives were disproportionally impacted without actual statistics per household, village, parish, sub-county and district. But based on Uganda Broadcast and Print Media articles, Child Helpline reports and research with a focus on two publications. The Violence Against Children Survey - Ministry of Gender, Labour and Social Development 2018 and the Adolescent Vulnerability Index - Government of Uganda and Population Council 2013, yes women, mothers and girls have suffered the brunt of the COVID-19 pandemic. Girls have dropped out of school now that education was haltered for 12 months since March last year. If a girl child is in a household where the decision maker, felt there was need for her to get married based on her biological maturity, then she was unlawfully sent to cohabit with a man. In return, gifts in form of bride price exchange hands and this union is based on transactional parameters. A number of Mothers spoken to have occasionally stated that their daughters would receive health and protection from the man they have been forced into a union with. For these particular women, their mindset makes them believe that a traditional union with a man is the solution to security and protection. These women unfortunately do not see value in the girl child staying at home, working with her parents to continue learning as a way of protecting her from any harmful traditional practice of child marriage, teenage pregnancy while waiting for schools to reopen. In this dichotomy of the girl child facing violence and their Mothers, Aunties, Grandmothers witnessing this rights abuse, are their voices not being heard or respected by the decision maker in the household who is the perpetuator. There have been reports of an escalation of violence at homes, domestic, sexual and psychological. As candidate and sub-candidate classes have recently resumed schooling, School teachers have already obtained reports from students who are suffering from the aftermath of these various forms of violence they experienced or witness as it was unleashed on the female adults in their families and communities. A recommendation made by the Gender Unit, Ministry of Education and Sports stipulates there is an urgent requirement for psyscho-social support to be provided to students on return to school. In our nation where social services in the field of pyscho-social support is still gaining traction, more would need to be done to strengthen the systems that can provide this to Women, Mothers, Aunties and Grandmothers.

What do you believe are women's strengths, and what are the advantages of female leadership in combatting the COVID-19 pandemic?

The age-old adage is when you educate a girl, you educate a nation is true. Government strategies that focus attention on the girls providing them with opportunities at primary, secondary, tertiary and university levels have clearly demonstrated a rise in young women striving ahead to be leaders in different sectors in the nation. Women are naturals when it comes to nurturing people in their spheres of influence. This has been seen on a regular basis when it comes to the health system at community level. Village Health Teams - are leaders in their own right. They constitute of women that conduct more household visits and are easily better welcomed by families and listened too in the adoption of social and behaviourial practices. Furthermore, when female district officials address communities during rallies or through community radios on the benefits of adoption of positive social and behaviourial practices that focus on education, protection and health, there is usually better reception. This has been seen the uptake of Reproductive, Maternal, Neo-natal, Child, Adolescent Health services at health facilities and Enrollment of girl-child in schools over the last 20 years nationwide. At the national level, in the context of COVID-19, women leaders have further demonstrated that they can make the positive difference in curbing the rapid spread of the pandemic. The two top health officials in the Republic of Uganda are women, the Minister of Health - Dr. Jane Acheng, the Minister of State for Health (Primary Health Care) Dr. Moriku Joyce Kaducu and the Permanent Secretary - Dr. Diana Atwine gain attention during their weekly addresses to the public. They have a special measure of appeal to communities as they provide simple actions that each family unit, organization and district can adopt to ensure they benefit from not getting the COVID-19 virus. They also further illustrate that adoption of Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) has health and economic benefits which is vital in the field of social and behavior change if you want communities to work towards prevention and response in addressing the spread of COVID-19.

What is your advice to women navigating their careers during a health crisis, as well as in a post COVID-19 pandemic world?

Persistence should always prevail. Women should keep focused on doing their best even with the hardship of family responsibilities in the unique environment of closed schools, curfews and partial lockdowns. They should never give up on their dreams to excel and take up opportunities that would provide them with more scope to experience and provide results in the development agenda of their communities and nation. On one level, COVID-19 has demonstrated to women, that they can be caretakers of families at the same be professionals at the workplace to ensure they play a nationalist role, doing their duty and saving lives. At another level, women who have had to stay away from their loved ones in other countries owing to nation lockdowns for a year are further demonstrating as that they are there to offer services in the countries they are working in, sacrificing time otherwise spent with their loved ones because they believe that humanity needs their call to duty. It is an extreme period but post COVID-19, I believe the aftereffects would make our human selves more empathetic because COVID-19 has demonstrated that when everyone works together, they can defeat a common enemy to Life, Development and Prosperity.

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• Methodist Debakey Cardiovasc J
• v.17(5); 2021

The Way Ahead: Life After COVID-19

Mouaz h. al-mallah.

1 Houston Methodist DeBakey Heart & Vascular Center, Houston, TX, US

Much has changed in the 2 years since the start of the coronavirus disease 19 (COVID-19) pandemic. The need for social distancing catalyzed the digitization of healthcare delivery and medical education—from telemedicine and virtual conferences to online residency/fellowship interviews. Vaccine development, particularly in the field of mRNA technology, led to widespread availability of safe and effective vaccines. With improved survival from acute infection, the healthcare system is dealing with the ever-growing cohort of patients with lingering symptoms. In addition, social media platforms have fueled a plethora of misinformation campaigns that have adversely affected prevention and control measures. In this review, we examine how COVID-19 has reshaped the healthcare system, and gauge its potential effects on life after the pandemic.

Introduction

In December 2021, after many months of living with the COVID-19 pandemic, the world is still looking for a way out of this healthcare crisis. As of this writing, more than 250 million people globally have been infected with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes coronavirus disease 19 (COVID-19), and nearly 5 million individuals lost their lives battling the complications of severe acute respiratory syndromes. 1 Many communities experienced multiple surges of the virus, with changes in normal life and restrictions to daily activities. The intensification of vaccination efforts brought about hope for a possible end to the pandemic. However, the continued emergence of variant strains and vaccine hesitancy have been persistent challenges in the US and globally. In this article, we review the long-term effect of COVID-19 on healthcare systems and envision the future of life after the pandemic ( Figure 1 ).

The long-term effects of the coronavirus disease 19 (COVID-19) pandemic on the healthcare system.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, there have been accelerated efforts to sequence the genetic material of the virus and build effective vaccines that decrease the risk of infection, hospitalization, and mortality. 2 At the time of this writing, more than 10 vaccines have been approved by local healthcare authorities in different parts of the world. 3 The pandemic has also driven innovation in the novel field of messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) vaccines. The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved the use of the Pfizer-BioNTech mRNA vaccine and given emergency use authorization to Moderna. 4 The mRNA vaccines have shown excellent efficacy against many of the strains, including the beta and delta strains.

More recently, booster doses have been approved by the FDA for individuals aged 65 years and older as well as individuals with comorbidities, in long-term care facilities, or at increased risk for COVID-19 exposure and transmission due to occupational or institutional settings. 5 Furthermore, the FDA has also given emergency use authorization for the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine in individuals aged 12 to 17 years and, as of October 29, in children aged 5 to 11 years.

Although the fast-tracked vaccine production time led some skeptics to hypothesize safety concerns, the rate of adverse events has been very low. One complication that gained significant attention is myocarditis. 6 , 7 , 8 Emerging data have shown that young men are the most commonly affected demographic. Furthermore, the risk was elevated in the setting of a recent COVID-19 illness and after the second dose of the vaccine. 6 , 7 Although the rate of myocarditis is low and the majority of patients recover, the risk of recurrence in patients who developed myocarditis with the first dose or in patients with recent myocarditis is unclear. Similarly, the rate of recurrence after the second or booster doses also is unclear.

Vaccine Mandates

Multiple state and federal governments have issued vaccine mandates, and they have become a highly contested political issue in the United States. The Biden administration issued an executive order on September 9, 2021, requiring all federal employees to vaccinate. 9 Some state and local governments have also followed. 10

Multiple US healthcare systems have also issued COVID-19 vaccine mandates for employees. On March 31, 2021, Houston Methodist became the first healthcare system to mandate the vaccine for employees, and a wave of other healthcare systems followed suit. 11 As of this writing, more than 2,500 hospitals or health systems have followed Houston Methodist and mandated vaccines for their clinical and nonclinical staff. 12

Combating Misinformation

Since the beginning of the pandemic, misinformation has spread throughout the Internet and on social media platforms. 13 People have questioned the existence of the virus, the strain on healthcare systems, and the benefit of masks as well as emphasized the benefits of unproven therapies, many of which were useless and even harmful. 14 Political agendas have also played into the misinformation campaigns. Studies have shown that these misinformation campaigns have had measurable effects on the intent to vaccinate and created widespread fear and panic, ultimately contributing to the reduced number of people willing to vaccinate. 13 , 15 , 16 Tackling this will require concerted efforts by the government and private sector, particularly social media companies, to implement evidence-based communication strategies. 17 Individuals should also assume responsibility in seeking out accurate, evidence-based information for their own consumption.

Telemedicine

As many states and cities implemented measures to reduce transmission, telehealth emerged as the ideal tool to continue patient care while protecting the health of both patients and providers. Many patients preferred this option, especially when hospitals were dealing with record numbers of COVID-19 infections. In 2020, telemedicine was the main means by which ambulatory care was provided, accounting for 10% to 20% of visits when virus transmissibility was low and as high as 80% of visits during the surges. 18

Accordingly, the US Department of Health and Human Services relaxed enforcement of software-based Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act violations, the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services provided waivers for telehealth reimbursements, and, in many instances, commercial insurances provided the same either directly or through mandates provided by local state governments. 19 , 20 The removal of regulatory and reimbursement barriers led to a dramatic increase in the use of telehealth, with some institutions reporting multifold increase in telehealth visits. 21

The pandemic also served as a catalyst for innovation in the software and hardware necessary for telemedicine. 22 For example, important tools were developed to enable secure connections with physicians and allow remote vital sign and weight monitoring. 23 , 24 Unfortunately, not all have equally benefitted from the expanded use of telehealth. Data indicate that minorities and disadvantaged groups often lack access to telehealth-based care. 25 Although the positive response and uptake by physicians and patients indicates the likelihood of telemedicine continuing past the pandemic, it remains to be seen whether the regulatory and reimbursement aspects will continue.

Post Covid-19 Condition

There is a growing body of evidence that some patients have prolonged recovery and/or residual symptoms after acute infection with COVID-19. The World Health Organization has defined this as “post COVID-19 condition.” Common presentation includes shortness of breath, palpitation, anxiety, and depression lingering for several months after acute infection. 26 , 27 Recent data also suggests that post COVID-19 condition might not be limited to somatic symptoms, with studies showing a 7-fold increased risk of developing depression and mental health issues. 28

Although the cause of these symptoms is not clear, one possible link that partly explains the prolonged shortness of breath experienced by some patients is COVID-19–associated myocarditis and the associated microvascular dysfunction. 26 As the pandemic continues and therapeutics improve survival from acute infection, the number of patients reporting post COVID-19 condition is predicted to grow. Several medical centers have already established clinics to better coordinate care and conduct research on the long-term impact and treatment of COVID-19. 29

Collateral Damage

Many patients delayed regular and preventive care during the pandemic due to fear of contracting COVID-19. 30 , 31 Such change in health-seeking behavior also extended to emergency conditions, with studies showing how some patients did not seek care for new onset chest pain. 32 Indirect indicators of this are the reduced rates of cardiovascular testing globally and within the United States 33 , 34 and the increased rate of myocardial infarctions and other emergencies seen on the trailing end of COVID-19–infection surges. 32 There has also been an increase in late complications of myocardial infarction such as ventricular septal rupture, a rare occurrence in the prepandemic reperfusion era and one partly explained by delayed care and ignored early warning signs. 35

Disparities in Healthcare

The pandemic exposed significant disparities in healthcare delivery, particularly among minorities. They were more likely to be affected by misinformation campaigns and less likely to accept research supporting clinical therapies and vaccines. Understanding the disparities and identifying measures to bridge the gap will be an important area of research for policy.

Globally, the pandemic also exposed significant inequities regarding vaccine access. While many developed countries were able to reach vaccination rates as high as 70%, rates in low-to-middle-income countries have remained low. 35 As the delta variant has clearly shown, no one is safe until everyone is safe. To this end, the World Health Organization and the COVAX (COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access) alliance have been a vital source of affordable vaccines. 36

Changes to Medical Education

The pandemic resulted in significant changes to both graduate and continued medical education. Much like patient-physician encounters, postgraduate training programs limited large face-to-face gatherings and transitioned all teaching to online platforms. 37 Residency and fellowship recruitment interviews also shifted to online settings. Lastly, there has been an exponential increase in the number of continued medical education offerings, with many societal meetings and conferences transitioning to online or hybrid formats. 38

The medical community has, for the most part, been very receptive to these changes, and it has afforded unforeseen advantages to trainees. Residency and fellowship applicants no longer need to bear the logistic and financial burden of in-person interviews. More importantly, virtual meetings and conferences have significantly increased audiences and, by extension, enabled the wider dissemination of medical knowledge.

The COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically changed clinical practice, medical education, and research. Beyond the immediate increase in morbidity and mortality, the healthcare system is having to deal with a growing cohort of patients with lingering symptoms. Misinformation, vaccine hesitancy, and vaccine inequity will be continuing challenges to attaining herd immunity. Clinicians, educators, and healthcare administrators will also have to determine how best to leverage the transition to virtual platforms. Lastly, healthcare leaders and policy makers will have to help the country and world chart a course through the end of the pandemic.

• The coronavirus disease 19 (COVID-19) pandemic has dramatically changed clinical practice, medical education, and research.
• It has brought about new challenges for the healthcare system, such as how best to combat misinformation, address the disproportionate impact on minorities and marginalized groups, and treat the ever-growing population of patients with lingering “long COVID” symptoms.
• The pandemic has also catalyzed much needed change in vaccine development, telemedicine, and medical education.
• Addressing these challenges and charting a way forward will require the concerted effort of clinicians, healthcare leaders, and policy makers.

Competing Interests

Dr. Al-Mallah has completed and submitted the Methodist DeBakey Cardiovascular Journal Conflict of Interest Statement and none were reported.

The COVID emergency is finally over. So, how did the pandemic change you? | Readers’ essays

• Published: May. 11, 2023, 9:44 a.m.

Readers wrote that they were more fearful, more apprehensive. They wrote about losing spouses, friends and patients. A few others said they lost faith in their government.

• Star-Ledger Guest Columnist

As the federal government allows the public health emergency to expire today, May 11, we reveal what dozens of readers wrote in and told us about how the pandemic changed them. Overall, most said they were more apprehensive and fearful now than before.

Many readers said the lockdown in 2020 and 2021 made them closer as a family. They said their children came home, turning empty nests into thriving households filled with adults. But nearly an equal number of writers said they were alienated from the world during those long pandemic months, that they spent them alone.

They wrote about losing spouses, friends and patients. Several wrote that the pandemic redefined their lives, that they’ve changed their goals and now focus more on their family and things they can control. Others wrote that they had lost faith in others and their government during the lockdown.

And as the world moves on from the pandemic, a few said COVID is not yet over for them and their family. The vestiges of the disease still affect their lives every day.

Here’s a sample of some of the most interesting essays, which have been edited for clarity and length:

COVID ended my life as I knew it

By Karen Rudnicki

I lost my husband — my best friend, companion, supporter, father of our only daughter — to COVID-19 on Dec. 8, 2020. So, to answer your question, “How did the Pandemic Affect Me?” — it devastated me. And while life goes on for so many of us, life as I knew it ended on Dec. 8, 2020.

In the days and weeks following my husband’s death, kind words of sympathy and prayers came my way on a regular basis. But just as life must and should go on, life as I knew it will never be the same. Two and a half years later, and I still can’t look at my husband’s picture or speak his name without crying.

I am now the one who has to tend to all the household chores on my own. I’ve taught myself how to use power tools. I’ve trimmed trees, cut and fertilized the lawn, drained the air out of my furnace. It’s not having to do all of those things myself that is bothersome — it’s knowing that my husband, known as Mr. Fix-It by his friends, family and colleagues, is no longer here to tend to them.

It’s coming home to an empty house, it’s missing the one person who understood all my moods and knew how to cheer me up on the darkest of days. It’s grabbing a piece of cheese for dinner rather than cook a meal for myself because sitting alone at the dinner table just makes me too sad. And it’s worrying about the rest of my life without him; worrying about my daughter should something, God forbid, happen to me.

And it’s about all the moments left that will no longer be shared with him. All the things left undone and the words left unspoken. I no longer plan for the future, as those plans shattered on the day my husband died. But life does go on, and I try each day to find a bit of happiness and hope for a peaceful heart.

Karen Rudnicki lives in Linden.

There was selflessness and bravery at our hospital but fear still visits me

By Patricia Brennan

I was the first to contract COVID in my hospital unit in April of 2020. It took from me that day and gave to me that day.

I try to live in “the gave” but find myself visiting “the took” more frequently than I would like.

It took from me my fully functioning lungs, hands and feet as I now live with lung damage and neuropathy. My financial situation has suffered as I am no longer able to work full-time. Most difficult though, is a sense of predictability and control that left in those weeks of 2020 and has not returned.

At work, recommendations for patients changed daily at times, codes were announced frequently, and staff lived with such fright on their faces. That fear and uncertainty still visit me.

I do try most days to stay in “the gave” and remind myself, that like most of the difficulties of life, are lessons. They’ve taught me to have gratitude and appreciation for each day and how to live with an acute awareness of that every day.

I am appreciative that I was able to witness the selflessness and bravery of many of my colleagues, who in the face of many unknowns, chose to be present to humanity to soothe and care for those so frightened.

I will never forget that. I now have gratitude to God for sparing me that April from a more severe illness and attempt to act in ways that show that appreciation.

Patricia Brennan was the social work supervisor on the mental health unit at Capital Health. She lives in Lawrenceville.

Patricia Brennan said of her co-workers in April 2020, "I am appreciative that I was able to witness the selflessness and bravery of many of my colleagues, who in the face of many unknowns, chose to be present to humanity to soothe and care for those so frightened." (Edwin J. Torres for Governor’s Office).

Our decency has vanished

By Thomas Varga

The thing that I can say about myself since coming out of the pandemic, is that I’m noticing that I shy away from engaging with people now. The patience and decency that people possessed before the pandemic has seemed to disappear.

People fly off the handle so fast now, always ready to argue or fight. In the past when two people would have an argument or a physical altercation, people might have tried to step in and try to calm everyone down. Now everybody just reaches for their phone to make sure they can post it.

I look at a stranger now, and I can’t help but wonder how short a fuse they might have. And it’s even scarier on the highway while driving.

Peace and love have been replaced with “I want to see the manager!”

Tom Varga lives in Piscataway.

For me, there’s no such thing as a post-COVID world

By Catherine A. Lugg

COVID redefined my life, both personally and professionally. In March of 2020, I was a professor of education, at the Graduate School of Education, Rutgers University. My late mother was living in a nursing home.

She was always well-cared for, even though she was increasingly debilitated by the vicissitudes of aging. With the outbreak of COVID-19, Mom was mask resistant, but she also was very hard of hearing and had begun to refuse to wear her hearing aids, preferring to lip-read instead. When I last saw her on March 11, 2020, the day that Rutgers closed, I felt that it would be the last time I’d see her in person.

After that meeting, I did have the opportunity to Facetime with Mom, but she couldn’t hear me very well, was frustrated by the technology, and increasingly resented the isolation. While I explained that COVID was as dangerous as polio (actually, worse), she wasn’t having it — and largely refused to “mask up.”

On April 28, I received a call from the nursing home that mom was symptomatic for COVID, and two days later, her test came back positive. Both she and her roommate were moved into the isolation ward. By the weekend, she had developed pneumonia, then small lung bleeds.

On Monday, May 4 at 10 a.m. my wife and I were able to Facetime with Mom one final time. She couldn’t talk but was somewhat responsive. I thanked her for all she did in raising four opinionated and cranky children, told her that we loved her dearly, and would always remember her. After we finished our goodbyes, the doctor immediately called me. Mom was drowning in her own blood. The doctor asked to increase the morphine and I agreed. She died of COVID-19 at 7:30 that night.

The following Wednesday, I taught my last class at Rutgers. After over two decades of service, with COVID running wild and no vaccine in sight, I opted to retire. For me, there is no such thing as a “post-COVID” world. I continue to “mask up” when I stick my nose outside. Basically, if I need to wear shoes, I need a mask, because I have no desire to drown in my own blood.

Catherine Lugg lives in Belle Mead.

Unvaccinated, I was alienated from my loved ones as if I had leprosy

By Elizabeth Moore

The collateral damage caused by the pandemic is a brutal awakening of how easy it is to divide us. The simple fact is, we need each other. We are social beings that cannot live alone or in isolation.

My family was separated and I did not see my grandchildren for over two years because they live in Canada and the borders were closed.

But most disturbing for me was the division between the vaccinated vs. the unvaccinated. I was told I was trying to kill my family members because I was not vaccinated. I was alienated from loved ones as if I had leprosy.

The distress and fear caused by the proclamation COVID was a “pandemic of the unvaccinated” was palpable.

I had COVID in early March 2020. At the time there was a desperate plea for convalescent plasma. I answered the call and regularly donated plasma at the American Red Cross. At that point in time you could not be vaccinated for COVID to donate. I felt I needed to do my part and not live in fear.

I educated myself and was confident I was safe. I had my antibody levels checked regularly with a blood test. Ironically, this blood test is considered the gold standard in medicine for checking immunity. Yet, natural immunity was considered voodoo medicine.

COVID created a complicated time with tons of information, good and bad, opinions, skepticism, and scientific debates. Science and politics collided, voices were stifled and censorship was normalized.

While writing this essay I unwittingly answered the question of how COVID changed my life; I have become cynical. But I will never lose faith.

Betsy Moore lives in Red Bank.

Nearly 34,000 New Jersey residents have died of COVID so far, 9,100 of those deaths were residents or workers at nursing homes. Catherine A. Lugg's mother died in a nursing home on May 4, 2020. "After we finished our goodbyes, the doctor immediately called me. Mom was drowning in her own blood." Lugg says she still wears a mask when she goes out. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig) AP AP

‘The VID’ didn’t change us. Not one little bit.

By Ralph Greco, Jr.

It’s sad to consider, but I feel the pandemic showed the worst of us… and still is showing it.

I had hoped that after “The VID,” we’d have more compassion for one another, that we’d be ever more mindful of our health protocols, and that we could have come together politically, at least even a little.

But we seem to have dug deeper into our political tribes; we are more selfish than ever before, completely fascinated with our cell phones and tweets to the exclusion of all else, and those taking caution with their health are doing so to a degree where they can’t abide anyone not taking those very same protocols.

What has been proven this time, as any other time we have had to endure a significant cultural shift, be the cause man-made or natural, is that man does not change.

Sure, we have surfed some tremendous technological advances of late, and maybe we have come to learn a thing or two about how our health works (or doesn’t), but fundamentally we haven’t evolved all that far from the dumb naked apes we have always been, ever distracted by bright and shiny objects, too easily led by a lemmings-like march of our others, and figuratively throwing our feces up against the wall of social media.

It is pretty much the same old same ‘round about our global these years of what so many people are taking to call ‘the new normal.’ But sadly, it is normal to be suspicious of those who do not look, smell, talk, or think like you. It is normal to be ever more concerned with only ourselves as we mentally masturbate with our machines. And it is normal to just slip back to who and what we were before 2021 even though we experienced an event that shook the world.

Here’s looking forward to another world-shaking event that won’t change us a bit.

Ralph Greco, Jr. lives in Clifton.

COVID changed everything

By Sandra Alworth

The pandemic changed every aspect of my life. Lifelong friends were lost, relatives died, my work life ended after 54 years and my connections to others suffered greatly.

What I did not realize is how important all social connections are to the emotional stability of your life. Although I have always corresponded with people, it was so important during the pandemic when being with people was so restrictive.

It also was so rewarding when I was able to reconnect with people when the worst of the pandemic was over. It seemed for a time that I would never revisit my beloved city of New York again. I so missed the museums, theaters, zoos, and the vitality of the city itself.

Some things changed forever — the loss of restaurants and theaters and the streets themselves. Rampant fear and the loss of control of your life were the most negative impacts of this dreaded disease.

I often wonder what would have happened if this disease occurred decades earlier when widespread use of computers was not the norm and how catastrophic the results would have been. But for the 1 million plus American souls that lost their lives, it was catastrophic.

Hopefully, science will win out over conspiracy theories and doubt and make us more aware of how fragile life is.

Sandra Alworth lives in HoHoKus.

Lines to get a COVID-19 vaccine often snaked around buildings and through auditoriums. But not everyone opted for a vaccine. Elizabeth Moore said the most disturbing part of the pandemic "was the division between the vaccinated vs. the unvaccinated. I was told I was trying to kill my family members because I was not vaccinated." (Lori M. Nichols/ for South Jersey Times) Lori M. Nichols | NJ Advance Med

COVID taught me not to trust, especially the government

By Jeanne Haller

The COVID pandemic had a profound impact on me. It taught me not to trust — not to trust my government, not to trust the CDC, not to trust FDA, not to trust WHO, and not to trust the people who should have been guiding us and telling us the truth.

Early on there was much confusion and fear over the virus, but there were those who had clearer ideas of what was hitting the world and the impact and death it would carry. They played on our fears.

The draconian measures did not work and caused more harm than good. Economies crumbled under the weight of fear and orders to stop work and stay home. Education suffered terribly.

When a vaccine finally was brought forth, honesty about it was lacking. Those who refused the shots were shunned or punished with loss of jobs. The administration changed the guidelines of the discussion every time we blinked. As a U.S. citizen, I did not know whom to trust. That was the basis of my fear.

Yes, I got all the shots. But I too was afraid and did not trust it. I was lucky enough not to experience any major side effects. But for those thousands who did, it would have been nice for them to know the risks beforehand.

Jeanne Haller lives in Mercer County.

The pandemic exacerbated an ongoing teacher shortage but Beth Calamia says the pandemic encouraged her to return to teaching. She says she thought, “'These teachers are making a difference., They inspired me at a time when nothing and no one else did."

Our empty nest filled and we learned to have faith in the inherent goodness of others

By Ellen Coughlin

The work week that ended on Friday, March 13, 2020, had several ominous signs of the future New Jersey residents were about to encounter. Every day that week more warnings came that forced me to realize we were headed to a new reality. The local school district announced they were temporarily transitioning to remote teaching. A Project Graduation Tricky Tray was canceled minutes before doors were to open.

After saying goodbye to co-workers that Friday, my husband and I headed to the airport to pick up our daughter, whose junior year of study abroad ended abruptly. Our general unease continued on the airport drive as we fielded a call from our oldest child. While our firstborn usually brims with confidence, we could hear the fear in her voice as she asked us to pick her up from New York City the next day. In between her call were automatic phone messages from both our town mayor and the county executive, advising of what parks and other facilities were closing.

While we knew we were entering lockdown, we still did not realize the pandemic would upend our lives for over a year. A formally almost empty nester house was now filled with five adults working and going to school remotely. We had family puzzle nights, Netflix binge-watching and weekly Zoom calls with friends. The big excitement of the week became selecting which restaurant to order takeout on Friday night.

During those first few months, amidst bouts of self-pity, our entire family realized how blessed we truly were. We were all healthy, in a secure home with access to food. As a community, we shared in the grief of losing our beloved middle school principal in early April 2020. More than anything, the loss of this vibrant, fit educator respected by both parents and students alike, forced us to realize the deadly, dangerous, and indiscriminate nature of COVID.

I am happy this national nightmare appears to have finally ended. While I never want to return to the days of lockdown, I am grateful for the lessons this COVID era taught me about coping, having faith in the inherent goodness of people, and forcing me to reflect on savoring and celebrating the little moments in my daily life and appreciating my family.

Ellen Coughlin lives in West Caldwell.

The pandemic cured my burnout, so I went back to teaching

By Beth Calamia

What is the best way to cure employment-related burnout? The answer: Go back to teaching middle school during a pandemic.

Years ago, I had been a middle school and high school teacher, but when my son was born and was one of those babies who never slept, I knew I needed a more flexible schedule. I found that in higher ed administration, and that was my mostly-satisfying career for 13 years. Then came the anxiety and sadness of the pandemic, working from home, and feeling like I wasn’t helping anyone.

Meanwhile, in the spring of 2020, my seventh-grade son was learning from home and we set up our workstations in adjoining rooms. I was able to listen in while his amazing and kind and talented teachers pulled out all the stops to keep the kids engaged. I thought, “These teachers are making a difference.” They inspired me at a time when nothing and no one else did.

So in the summer of 2021, I dug through ancient files and found my teaching certificate, which had no expiration date. I found old books and lesson plans that I had stored away for I-don’t-know-what. I started looking online for jobs in my field and in mid-August I found a job. The next thing I knew, I was getting ready to teach middle school again.

In addition to being unsure of how to help the kids adjust to being back full-time in the classroom, I was behind in all of the ways technology has changed teaching and learning. But the baby who never slept? As a teenager, he became my tech coach.

Beth Calamia Scheckel lives in Montclair.

A brain tumor will make you forget about a deadly virus

By Henry Pavlak

I never took the often-used phrase, “We are all connected” seriously until I saw how a virus from one country could impact my life in my small town of Cranford.

My wife and I were both fully vaccinated and received all the recommended boosters. I thought we were doing everything right to survive until my wife began having balance issues. We finally went to the hospital and a cat scan revealed a brain tumor.

Suddenly, the pandemic was no longer important. It did not matter where the virus originated, or what was being injected into my body with the vaccines. I was so focused on the virus that I lost sight of what was truly important in my life.

Luckily, the tumor is now gone, along with the radiation and chemotherapy treatments.

The main COVID impact and lesson to my life is to live for the moment and not worry so much about what could happen. I realized how little control one really has and I try not to become upset over small things.

Instead of a quote from any religion or philosopher, I like to use the words from a Paul Simon song as a reminder.

“We work our jobs

Collect our pay

Believe we’re gliding down the highway

When in fact we’re slip slidin away.”

Henry Pavlak lives in Cranford.

The world is moving on but COVID isn’t over for our family

By Anne Marie Piko

In March 2022, three of the six of us in our house contracted COVID for the first time. Despite being vaccinated, boosted and “young and healthy” Luke, my 14-year-old son and I never fully recovered. He now only does school virtually from either bed or the couch and I struggle to take care of my basic needs. We have both been diagnosed with Long Covid and are shells of the people we were before.

We spend about 90% of our day laying down, not able to have our legs down or our heads up for any period of time. Our biggest issue is debilitating fatigue — A fatigue that makes me struggle to hold my arm up to brush my teeth or wash my hair. It’s watching my once-active teenager crawl up the stairs.

Second is Post Exertional Malaise or PEM. Even if we think we have the energy to do simple tasks we run the risk of having PEM afterward. This is a delayed response to any kind of physical, mental or emotional energy making our 20+ symptoms flare.

As a result, our family has missed out on a lot. We had to cancel our vacation to Disney and don’t know if or when we’ll be able to reschedule. Luke can’t attend school, hang out with friends, play baseball (his No. 1 passion), attend scouts or play his instrument. I try to be present for the other kids’ activities but I end up having to choose between missing out on their events or paying for it later. It’s hard to be the best mom I want to be while constantly being in bed or on the couch.

There’s a fine line between maintaining hope that we’ll be cured and learning how to live with a chronic illness. Our physical therapist has been critical in teaching us ways to improve our quality of life. The biggest thing we’ve learned is the need to rest and pace ourselves.

I basically have 10-15 minutes of being upright before I start to have problems. I have a handicap placard for my car, a shower chair and we wear compression socks. I use noise-canceling ear plugs and Luke wears sunglasses to protect our eyes, which have a heightened sensitivity. I’ve learned how to feel better doing nothing. I’m not yet able to feel better when I do much of anything.

While most of the world has moved on, COVID isn’t over for our family. So if you see our family still wearing masks and preferring outdoor gatherings, please make us feel welcome.

Anne Marie Pikor lives in Denville.

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Young people like me are still feeling the effects of Covid – and they’re not all bad

When it comes to studies, work or social abilities, some fared better than others. But the pandemic left its mark on all of us, whether we realise it or not

I recently came across a folder on my laptop labelled “Covid”. Inside I found screenshots I had taken of the government website, showing daily cases, ICU admissions and deaths from Covid-19. These reports were released every weekday during the first lockdown, and each afternoon I would collect them in this folder and study them, trying to understand what was happening in the wider world – before I began a busy evening of Zoom birthday quizzes, Netflix Party and WhatsApp.

I was shocked – both that I had ever been so macabre in the first place, and also that, four years later, I had forgotten doing it. I don’t remember being anxious or depressed during lockdown, but I have 60 image files suggesting otherwise.

In general, studies since 2020 have displayed a widespread decline in young people’s mental health , often linked to the experience of the pandemic. According to the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, 75% of mental health difficulties start before the age of 24; so young people are more vulnerable, as adolescence involves crucial milestones in emotional and social development. Some experts claim that my generation may have to suffer the consequences of social distancing and cessation of work for the rest of our lives, that on top of economic difficulties we also face a unique experience of social disintegration.

And yet, despite what my folder of screenshots may suggest, I don’t feel too badly affected by the pandemic. I was 21 and studying at university when Covid hit, and was able to move home for my final exams. I was lucky to have a quiet room to myself, with no financial concerns or specific health issues. Those a couple of years younger than me – starting their studies, rather than finishing them – fared worse, continuing a larger stretch of their university period under the doomscape of 2020 and 2021.

A friend, who is now 22, thinks her peers rely more on “internet speak”, having been immersed in social media over Covid, and thus developed the lexicon and mannerisms from TikTok et al without intention. They also are “much less inclined to go out and drink” and don’t know how to behave in front of “new people”. She told me that, in comparison, 25-year-olds have “more real-life personalities”, which we forged away from our smartphones, before the pandemic.

My darkest point was when I got Covid, just before Christmas 2020. I spent the next fortnight alone, trying to recover, not once leaving the house, or taking a shower. On Christmas Day, I watched 10 episodes of Bridgerton just so I wouldn’t have to sit for a second with my own thoughts. I was struggling. But after I recovered, I was grateful for tiny things, like getting to walk on the grass and have dinner with my family. For a few days, I felt simply happy.

Everyone’s experience was different. Some had worse experiences with the virus itself. Some contracted long Covid , or lost a loved one to it. But such things aren’t restricted to one age group. And so the generational lens may be a blunt tool by which to make assessments; it could be damning to label a whole cohort as psychologically and economically scarred. It is perhaps another way of underestimating young people. After all, those who were most affected across all generations were those who were already at risk of unemployment, mental health issues and poverty. All the stats say that Gen Z has been wounded by the pandemic , but many of my peers are more resilient than people may think.

It’s true that I was affected in terms of personal life and employment, especially in my struggle to get a job after university. I also blame Covid-19 for the breakdown of a past relationship. My then-boyfriend and I both did our best to make it work, but in the first lockdown our relationship moved on to WhatsApp, and ultimately it forced us apart. But for all the reports of an entire generation permanently blighted by the pandemic, we didn’t have the same experience across the board. My flatmate, aged 24, is nostalgic about the first lockdown, remembering it as a time of sunshine and spring and finishing his dissertation in peace. Another friend said she grew closer with her sister over that time.

It may be that the people I know had the support network and financial prospects to be able to bounce back. But it wasn’t just the lucky ones among us who, looking back now, can see the positives of the pandemic. My friend was living with his elderly father and his brother, who had mental health difficulties at the time. He says it was a “very stressful” time – and yet also “character-building”. During the pandemic he had to be extremely careful about public transport, walking across London instead of taking the tube, even if it took hours.

The subsequent alleviation of risk after the vaccine offered a perspective shift, which had a positive, long-lasting effect on his mental health; he had the realisation of “everything’s fragility”, which he says has helped him. The studies that back this up are in the minority, but they do exist, for example, a systematic review by the BMJ suggests that Covid has had little significant impact on mental health across the population, including in young people. One study from Italy goes even further, reporting that 14- to 20-year-olds had more time for self-discovery and personal growth.

But it’s telling that most of my friends seem to have decided not to mention the pandemic again. For me, that is sufficient proof that it did do some damage. My friends and I don’t reminisce about shared experiences from this time because we don’t have any; it feels like a hole in time. Even the positive reflections are couched in conflicted terms, or apologetic for seeing the good in a traumatic experience. Covid-19 might have stolen a chunk of our adolescence but my peersseem keen to make the best of a bad situation, and a lot of them talk of going through a “second youth” now.

Isabel Brooks is a freelance writer

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Women with long Covid describe years of struggle

Two women living with long Covid have told the BBC how the illness has left them struggling to do ordinary tasks.

Amy Smith, 47, and Christina Bachini, 77, both from Berkshire, were diagnosed with the condition in 2021 and 2022 respectively.

They have described trying to cope with ongoing symptoms, including extreme fatigue, brain fog, pain, breathlessness and muscle damage.

The chronic condition affects an estimated 1.9 million people in the UK.

Ms Smith, from Woodley, said living with the illness was "debilitating”.

Before the pandemic, she said she was a healthy, active mum who worked as a florist for almost 30 years and enjoyed long walks and cycle rides.

But she has since given up that job, which she said “took a lot of energy and the work required me to be on my feet all the time".

She now runs her own business as an artist.

Ms Smith said: “I would feel pressure in my chest after doing too much, my legs would get heavy, I’d get a temperature which left me shaking and my body shut down.”

She said she needed help with tasks like getting her daughter ready for school, hanging washing and hoovering.

While short walks or cycle rides can take "two to three hours to recuperate" from.

“It is a strange and unwelcome illness,” she added.

Ms Bachini, from Sindlesham, said she “still struggles with aspects of life that we take for granted".

She explained getting up, trying to get dressed, going to the bathroom, getting out of a chair “take a hell of a lot of energy” and it “feels ridiculous it makes you so tired”.

She continued: “The loss of mobility has greatly affected my daily life and sense of independence, I just try to keep my spirits up.”

Dr Deepak Ravindran, who heads up a long Covid clinic at the Royal Berkshire Hospital, said he believed there were many people unknowingly living with the illness who are yet to recognise the symptoms.

He explained there was a “huge gap in understanding the condition” amongst healthcare professionals.

“Sometimes patients with long Covid have not been supported or not recognised because of the similarities to other conditions such as chronic fatigue and ME,” he said.

In January, NHS long Covid clinics in England received 1,549 referrals .

The Department of Health and Social Care urged people who think they may have symptoms to seek medical advice from their GP.

Follow BBC South on  Facebook ,  X , or  Instagram . Send your story ideas to  [email protected] .

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Guest Essay

How the SAT Changed My Life

By Emi Nietfeld

Ms. Nietfeld is the author of the memoir “Acceptance.”

This month, the University of Texas, Austin, joined the wave of selective schools reversing Covid-era test-optional admissions policies, once again requiring applicants to submit ACT or SAT scores.

Many colleges have embraced the test-optional rule under the assumption that it bolsters equity and diversity, since higher scores are correlated with privilege. But it turns out that these policies harmed the teenagers they were supposed to help. Many low-income and minority applicants withheld scores that could have gotten them in, wrongly assuming that their scores were too low, according to an analysis by Dartmouth. More top universities are sure to join the reversal. This is a good thing.

I was one of the disadvantaged youths who are often failed by test-optional policies, striving to get into college while in foster care and homeless. We hear a lot about the efforts of these elite schools to attract diverse student bodies and about debates around the best way to assemble a class. What these conversations overlook is the hope these tests offer students who are in difficult situations.

For many of us, standardized tests provided our one shot to prove our potential, despite the obstacles in our lives or the untidy pasts we had. We found solace in the objectivity of a hard number and a process that — unlike many things in our lives — we could control. I will always feel tenderness toward the Scantron sheets that unlocked higher education and a better life.

Growing up, I fantasized about escaping the chaos of my family for the peace of a grassy quad. Both my parents had mental health issues. My adolescence was its own mess. Over two years I took a dozen psychiatric drugs while attending four different high school programs. At 14, I was sent to a locked facility where my education consisted of work sheets and reading aloud in an on-site classroom. In a life skills class, we learned how to get our G.E.D.s. My college dreams began to seem like delusions.

Then one afternoon a staff member handed me a library copy of “Barron’s Guide to the ACT .” I leafed through the onionskin pages and felt a thunderclap of possibility. I couldn’t go to the bathroom without permission, let alone take Advanced Placement Latin or play water polo or do something else that would impress elite colleges. But I could teach myself the years of math I’d missed while switching schools and improve my life in this one specific way.

After nine months in the institution, I entered foster care. I started my sophomore year at yet another high school, only to have my foster parents shuffle my course load at midyear, when they decided Advanced Placement classes were bad for me. In part because of academic instability like this, only 3 percent to 4 percent of former foster youth get a four-year college degree.

Later I bounced between friends’ sofas and the back seat of my rusty Corolla, using my new-to-me SAT prep book as a pillow. I had no idea when I’d next shower, but I could crack open practice problems and dip into a meditative trance. For those moments, everything was still, the terror of my daily life softened by the fantasy that my efforts might land me in a dorm room of my own, with endless hot water and an extra-long twin bed.

Standardized tests allowed me to look forward, even as every other part of college applications focused on the past. The song and dance of personal statements required me to demonstrate all the obstacles I’d overcome while I was still in the middle of them. When shilling my trauma left me gutted and raw, researching answer elimination strategies was a balm. I could focus on equations and readings, like the scholar I wanted to be, rather than the desperate teenager that I was.

Test-optional policies would have confounded me, but in the 2009-10 admissions cycle, I had to submit my scores; my fellow hopefuls and I were all in this together, slogging through multiple-choice questions until our backs ached and our eyes crossed.

The hope these exams instilled in me wasn’t abstract: It manifested in hundreds of glossy brochures. After I took the PSAT in my junior year, universities that had received my score flooded me with letters urging me to apply. For once, I felt wanted. These marketing materials informed me that the top universities offered generous financial aid that would allow me to attend free. I set my sights higher, despite my guidance counselor’s lack of faith.

When I took the actual SAT, I was ashamed of my score. Had submitting it been optional, I most likely wouldn’t have done it, because I suspected my score was lower than the prep-school applicants I was up against (exactly what Dartmouth found in the analysis that led it to reinstate testing requirements). When you grow up the way I did, it’s difficult to believe that you are ever good enough.

When I got into Harvard, it felt like a miracle splitting my life into a before and after. My exam preparation paid off on campus — it was the only reason I knew geometry or grammar — and it motivated me to tackle new, difficult topics. I majored in computer science, having never written a line of code. Though a career as a software engineer seemed far-fetched, I used my SAT study strategies to prepare for technical interviews (in which you’re given one or more problems to solve) that landed me the stable, lucrative Google job that catapulted me out of financial insecurity.

I’m not the only one who feels affection for these tests. At Harvard, I met other students who saw these exams as the one door they could unlock that opened into a new future. I was lucky that the tests offered me hope all along, that I could cling to the promise that one day I could bubble in a test form and find myself transported into a better life — the one I lead today.

Emi Nietfeld is the author of the memoir “ Acceptance .” Previously, she was a software engineer at Google and Facebook.

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Why watching the 2024 total solar eclipse might change your life

Regina G. Barber

Science writer David Baron witnesses his first total solar eclipse in Aruba, 1998. He says seeing one is "like you've left the solar system and are looking back from some other world." Paul Myers hide caption

Science writer David Baron witnesses his first total solar eclipse in Aruba, 1998. He says seeing one is "like you've left the solar system and are looking back from some other world."

David Baron can pinpoint the first time he got addicted to chasing total solar eclipses, when the moon completely covers up the sun. It was 1998 and he was on the Caribbean island of Aruba. "It changed my life. It was the most spectacular thing I'd ever seen," he says.

Baron, author of the 2017 book American Eclipse: A Nation's Epic Race to Catch the Shadow of the Moon and Win the Glory of the World , wants others to witness its majesty too. On April 8, millions of people across North America will get that chance — a total solar eclipse will appear in the sky. Baron promises it will be a surreal, otherworldly experience. "It's like you've left the solar system and are looking back from some other world."

Baron, who is a former NPR science reporter, talks to Life Kit about what to expect when viewing a total solar eclipse, including the sensations you may feel and the strange lighting effects in the sky. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Baron views the beginning of a solar eclipse with friends in Western Australia in 2023. Baron says getting to see the solar corona during a total eclipse is "the most dazzling sight in the heavens." Photographs by David Baron; Bronson Arcuri, Kara Frame, CJ Riculan/NPR; Collage by Becky Harlan/NPR hide caption

Baron views the beginning of a solar eclipse with friends in Western Australia in 2023. Baron says getting to see the solar corona during a total eclipse is "the most dazzling sight in the heavens."

What does it feel like to experience a total solar eclipse — those few precious minutes when the moon completely covers up the sun?

It is beautiful and absolutely magnificent. It comes on all of a sudden. As soon as the moon blocks the last rays of the sun, you're plunged into this weird twilight in the middle of the day. You look up and the blue sky has been torn away. On any given day, the blue sky overhead acts as a screen that keeps us from seeing what's in space. And suddenly that's gone. So you can look into the middle of the solar system and see the sun and the planets together.

Can you tell me about the sounds and the emotions you're feeling?

A total solar eclipse is so much more than something you just see with your eyes. It's something you experience with your whole body. [With the drop in sunlight], birds will be going crazy. Crickets may be chirping. If you're around other people, they're going to be screaming and crying [with all their emotions from seeing the eclipse]. The air temperature drops because the sunlight suddenly turns off. And you're immersed in the moon's shadow. It doesn't feel real.

Everything you need to know about solar eclipse glasses before April 8

In your 2017 Ted Talk , you said you felt like your eyesight was failing in the moments before totality. Can you go into that a little more?

The lighting effects are very weird. Before you get to the total eclipse, you have a progressive partial eclipse as the moon slowly covers the sun. So over the course of an hour [or so], the sunlight will be very slowly dimming. It's as if you're in a room in a house and someone is very slowly turning down the dimmer switch. For most of that time your eyes are adjusting and you don't notice it. But then there's a point at which the light's getting so dim that your eyes can't adjust, and weird things happen. Your eyes are less able to see color. It's as if the landscape is losing its color. Also there's an effect where the shadows get very strange.

Crescent-shaped shadows cast by the solar eclipse before it reaches totality appear on a board at an eclipse-viewing event in Antelope, Ore., 2017. Kara Frame and CJ Riculan/NPR hide caption

You see these crescents on the ground.

There are two things that happen. One is if you look under a tree, the spaces between leaves or branches will act as pinhole projectors. So you'll see tiny little crescents everywhere. But there's another effect. As the sun goes from this big orb in the sky to something much smaller, shadows grow sharper. As you're nearing the total eclipse, if you have the sun behind you and you look at your shadow on the ground, you might see individual hairs on your head. It's just very odd.

Some people might say that seeing the partial eclipse is just as good. They don't need to go to the path of totality.

A partial solar eclipse is a very interesting experience. If you're in an area where you see a deep partial eclipse, the sun will become a crescent like the moon. You can only look at it with eye protection. Don't look at it with the naked eye . The light can get eerie. It's fun, but it is not a thousandth as good as a total eclipse.

A total eclipse is a fundamentally different experience, because it's only when the moon completely blocks the sun that you can actually take off the eclipse glasses and look with the naked eye at the sun.

And you will see a sun you've never seen before. That bright surface is gone. What you're actually looking at is the sun's outer atmosphere, the solar corona. It's the most dazzling sight in the heavens. It's this beautiful textured thing. It looks sort of like a wreath or a crown made out of tinsel or strands of silk. It shimmers in space. The shape is constantly changing. And you will only see that if you're in the path of the total eclipse.

Shots - Health News

Watching a solar eclipse without the right filters can cause eye damage. here's why.

So looking at a partial eclipse is not the same?

It is not at all the same. Drive those few miles. Get into the path of totality.

This is really your chance to see a total eclipse. The next one isn't happening across the U.S. for another 20 years.

The next significant total solar eclipse in the United States won't be until 2045. That one will go from California to Florida and will cross my home state of Colorado. I've got it on my calendar.

The digital story was written by Malaka Gharib and edited by Sylvie Douglis and Meghan Keane. The visual editor is Beck Harlan. We'd love to hear from you. Leave us a voicemail at 202-216-9823, or email us at [email protected].

Listen to Life Kit on Apple Podcasts and Spotify , and sign up for our newsletter .

Correction April 3, 2024

In a previous audio version of this story, we made reference to an upcoming 2025 total solar eclipse. The solar eclipse in question will take place in 2045.

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