In the early days of the pandemic — a lifetime ago it seems now — the Columbia Gorge News invited readers to share how the pandemic was reshaping their lives, and how they were learning to cope with those changes. Their stories were published under the heading “Coping with COVID.”
That was two years ago.
We have since “coped” with systemic closures to slow the original spread as we waited for an effective vaccine.
We have “coped” with the dashing of hope — hope that the vaccine would be widely adopted, hope that the pandemic would end, dashed with the arrival of the omicron variant.
We have “coped” with the politicization of public health measures — anti-mask and anti-vaccine rallies sparked by a proliferation of misinformation and lies.
We have coped with a thousand related crisis — mental health struggles, drug overdoses, houselessness, increased violence, major disparities in healthcare, wages ... Nothing truly new but laid bare by the ravages of the pandemic.
And of course we have “coped” and continue to cope with the deaths of more than 900,000 Americans from COVID.
New paths
The pandemic isn’t over, but an end may — once again — be in sight.
Most of us now consider the narrative of our lives as being in two distinct parts: The time “before COVID” and — one can’t yet say after COVID — the here and now and into our tomorrow.
The question now isn’t how we cope with COVID — the question is what kind of future we want to make for our nation, now that we are (almost) free to meet once again face to face and eye to eye.
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