A microscopic image of the COVID-19 virus. Image courtesy of the Rocky Mountain Laboratories of the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
The Day the World Changed
Four years ago today, our entire world changed. One could almost say that it stopped in mid-spin … for so many, it felt as if we were poised on a hair’s breadth of uncertainty. Fear rotated with panic as the world — ours and everybody else’s — just stopped.
Oh, the next morning and the evening arrived, and the next, and the next. Clocks ticked. Alarms rang. Toasters still popped up, and babies cried. But as we went into the unknown of the COVID-19 lockdown, no one — from the top of the government to our local officials, knew what would happen next.
In a sense as the world stopped it felt as if we were all living a Ray Bradbury moment — our hearts stood still while our computers performed data backups.
It was a time of unparalleled crisis. Some rose to the challenge; especially here locally as the leadership teams across the county gathered together (albeit virtually after the very first meeting) and for months on end met many times a week, trying to sort out, how to calm people, agreeing on what to do, how to survive, how to keep people safe, how to be a community in the midst of a global crisis.
At the top leadership level of our country we got first — denial, then undercounting, told to inject bleach, and a nasty campaign against face masks, as well as rejection of the truth. Thank God for scientists and public health professionals, many of whom endured violence and threats from the far-right convinced that the virus was at the least a hoax, and at the worst, a threat to their belief systems.
Most wondered if our world would ever be right again. Somehow, the country, the community — and our world made it through the worst of it. COVID is still with us, and we are told it probably will always be here in one shape or another.
As journalists reporting on and recording for posterity what and how it happened, we joined several of our fellow journalists in a project we called the COVID Diaries — to record one day in the life of the COVID pandemic across this state.
“Every anniversary brings up memories… some are triggering, others I recall with joy and gratitude. Reflection on the four-year anniversary of COVID impacting our lives, my mindset is sincere gratitude and appreciation for our county, and all the people who stepped up and leaned in, in a very uncertain and unprecedented time,” said Chaffe County Public Health Director Andrea Carlstrom. “You’ve heard me saying jokingly that if your public health official is in command of some crisis it’s probably not a good day. It was a long and challenging and dynamic response, and we should be really proud that our county took the high road, where other communities really struggled with that.”
Many would say that this rural mountain region survived COVID better than some metro areas. Others might add that we managed to survive it with community intact — remaining neighbors and friends and working together.
“I think we’ll look back and be really proud that we were able to navigate the complexities of the pandemic with a sense of hope, optimism, and loving your neighbor,” added Carlstrom. “You and my colleagues were here with me every step of the way … our community does come together.”
What have we learned from the first pandemic of the 21st century? Among other things, that it might not be the last pandemic we face in our lifetimes, or the lifetimes of our children and grandchildren. But hopefully, as Carlstrom says — we learned more than that.
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