Having marked the beginning of the pandemic that tormented numerous lives, January 10, 2020 is an important date in history. What was initially supposed to be an event that required only two weeks off from school, COVID-19 had transformed into a global threat. On May 11, 2023, according to the Center of Disease Control, the catastrophe finally came to an end, although it seemed to be everlasting at the time of its existence.
Up until the official end of the virus, nearly seven million deaths occurred due to the fatal nature of COVID-19, according to WHO’s Coronavirus Dashboard. Millions more were infected with the virus and suffered through ‘long covid’, a term pertaining to the long-lasting health impediments caused by COVID-19, worldwide.
“As a kid in 8th grade, I could never have imagined such an event and the severity of it. The number of deaths and the overall damage caused is almost numbing. Although pandemics are a natural occurrence, having gone through it, all I hope is for such an event to never occur again,” said junior Sean Tran.
As a result of the numerous deaths, the unfathomable suffering, and the isolations imposed, anxiety and depression rates were at a high. Not only was the pandemic impactful at the time of its existence, but even after the individuals, especially students, got back to the relative “normal”.
“The lack of connection with other students caused a lot of anxiety when they came back to re-engage, which caused a lot of mental health issues. And also, children hated online learning, so coming back and starting the next level up needed a lot of remediation to be done,” said school nurse Amy Heisel.
While the pandemic has officially been declared to have ended, by no means has COVID-19 been eradicated from the face of the earth. According to the CDC, more than 3,500 people died in the last week of April in the United States. Ever since the advent and the widespread use of the vaccines, not only have the deaths gone down exponentially, but also the severity of the conceived disease. The symptoms have been substantially suppressed, and the suffering doesn’t compare.
Now that the pandemic has passed, every individual entails a unique outlook of it. While the suffering caused will never be forgotten, several individuals strive to find positive implications of the pandemic in a sea of darkness.
“Having to realize that you guys are resilient and able to deal with change in your future because your lives were stopped and changed; I think it made [the students] a lot more resilient than previously,” said Heisel.