What a difference five years can make.
Although the global story of the coronavirus pandemic began in December 2019, it would not be confirmed in America until Jan. 20, 2020.
In Pennsylvania, covid began its takeover six weeks later. Until March 6, the pandemic was like Brexit or a terrorist attack in a foreign country — something that occupied headlines and inspired conversations but was happening a world away.
Then the first two cases popped up in the eastern side of the state. Within days, two became 10 and then 12. Social distancing was ordered in some of the most populated areas.
And, on March 13, Gov. Tom Wolf closed the schools. It was supposed to be just two weeks at first. But Pennsylvania’s first covid death came March 18, and, by the end of the month, there were about 3,000 confirmed cases. Schools closed for the rest of the year. Social distancing became stay-at-home orders and closing of nonessential businesses.
By January 2021, a little over a year into covid’s known existence and 10 months into its Keystone State run, Pennsylvania topped 20,000 deaths. But now there was a vaccine that was starting its release to groups at risk based on occupation like health care providers or vulnerability like seniors and those with medical conditions.
More than 100 million Americans contracted covid, and 1.2 million died. But there was another casualty. America and Pennsylvania might never be the same again.
Our divides have been becoming slowly deeper for decades, but covid was an earthquake that shook the world and widened the chasms.
Five years after the toilet paper disappeared and we started making sourdough and working in pajamas on the couch, we are more split than ever. Politics, education, law, science, medicine, religion, foreign relations, the military — all of them are polarizing.
Long covid is what we call the chronic aftereffects of the virus, a cloud of cardiac, respiratory, digestive, neurological and other symptoms.
Long covid seems to live all around us, too. It is the lack of cooperation, the disappearance of bipartisanship, the intractable refusal to acknowledge the other side’s arguments. It is the explosions of anger and opposition. It is swatting political opponents, shots fired at a campaign rally and a never-ending parade of attacks and indignities delivered against neighbors we now deem enemies.
The pandemic was an opportunity for us to be our best, to become the 21st century version of the Greatest Generation of the 1940s. So much of 2020 and 2021 headed in that direction: the herculean efforts to create and distribute the vaccine, the shows of support for nurses and doctors, people stitching masks for family and friends.
But here we are in 2025. Pennsylvania, like the U.S., survived the pandemic, but we live with the scars.
