We are about one year away from the global COVID-2 pandemic – Ars’ initial statement on the virus first published on March 8, the World Health Organization declared a pandemic on March 11 and the US declared a national state of emergency declared on March 13. As we all doubt the realization that 12 months have passed, different anniversaries are marked. There is very of the most important milestones to mark; moments that made clear the seriousness and global scale of the pandemic, or were the first signs of the new reality of social isolation, remote schooling, and offices created from any available free space.
For many of us at Ars, the great milestones were abstract – things that happened to other people or society as a whole as we continued away from home. But while we were talking about the experience of March last year, it seemed like each of us came up with a different moment when the severity of the pandemic really clicked.
What follows is a collection of experiences that have brought home the seriousness of COVID-19 to each of us – the moments we knew things would not be the same. Feel free to add your own in the comments.
Kate Cox
Expelled
From where we sat, the world ended on March 13 last Friday. This was the last time my daughter, then in first grade, set foot in a school for the next year.
We had the feeling that it would come. The first COVID-19 case was identified on March 7 in Virginia, in the next county where we live. My husband and I spent the morning at brunch, and you could already feel a strange discomfort in the air. Brunch in one of our regular tournaments did not bird unsafe, exactly – but what if it was?
My daughter’s school held its annual International Night (one of the highlights of the year) on March 11, and until Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, there were discussions in the PTA and parent groups on Facebook. No one could decide if it was safe to go, if the event would be canceled or if the homemade food served by older volunteers would make someone sick.
Eventually I went with my daughter while my husband and our toddler son stayed home. The photos and videos I have on my phone of her and her best friend taking part in a big, joyful Guatemalan folk dance in the school gymnasium that evening are the last photos I had of “the previous one”.
“Please keep your music”
The wind ensemble I play in rehearsed like Tuesday night, and our spring concert was scheduled for Thursday, March 12th. On Thursday lunch, the conductor sends us an email with the promise that the concert is still going on. But just before 5pm he sends another one: the rumors we heard were true, and the schools would close ‘maybe four weeks’. These include the high school where we would perform and the high school where we practiced. The concert has been canceled.
“Please keep your music until we meet again,” he wrote. “I’m not entirely sure when it will be.”
Within half an hour, the district notified parents that all after-school activities and out-of-hours use of school buildings for the rest of the week would be canceled immediately. After March 13, the school buildings would be closed for the next three weeks, and the administration would reevaluate after the spring break.
Spring vacation came and went. April, May, June and the rest of the first grade came and went. Summer came and went, closing with parks and pools and closing camps. Autumn came again – but not school.
There is at least one hopeful postscript. Our daughter returned to the classroom in less than a year from the day she left it – on March 3, 2021.
—Kate Cox, Technical Policy Reporter
The program does not start
I really realized that SARS-CoV-2 would be a big deal at the end of February last year. My first idea was on February 26th. I flew to Vancouver for an event, and as I passed through the non-Euclidean immigration at YVR, I noticed that an exorbitant portion of the travelers coming in from Asia wore face masks.
Things really started to sink a few days later, just before they returned to DC. With breakfast on 28 February, it was rumored whether the car show would take place in Geneva or not, following the first reports of deaths in Lombardy, Italy. Later that morning, Volkswagen made the decision to cancel the planned trip to Geneva for the show. Within a week, the rest of my calendar was canceled one after the other.
I have not boarded a plane since 28 February 2020.
—Jonathan Gitlin, Car Editor
To hear it from a friend
I’m generally pretty curious and have been following the beginning of the COVID-19 story since the beginning of 2020 in a general way. When my husband returned from an Australian tour on March 1, he mentioned that the concern about the coronavirus Down Under was much greater than in the US, and he thought the mistake could get serious. “We probably need to supplement basic necessities, just in case.” So did we. But somehow we were not yet spiritually prepared for how fast things would change.
During the next ten days I visited the set The Orville, where everyone joked about what the new greeting protocol might be instead of hugs and handshakes, and usually opted for a beautiful touch of the elbows. We had a brunch with friends, had a few date nights, started planning a weekend trip to Vegas … and all the while, the number of cases in the US started to rise sharply and spread beyond the initial hot spots. The talk of impending closures swirled.
But the harsh reality of what it means did not strike me before I went to two matinee shows on Friday (The hunt) and Saturday (Blood flow), March 13 and 14, respectively. LA’s pending strike was officially announced when I left the Americana Theater in Glendale on Friday afternoon. When I arrived at the Americana for my Saturday afternoon show – usually the most popular time slot – it was almost completely deserted, like a ghost shop. I was one of only three people during the show. Clearly, other Angelenos got the message faster than I did. I just wish I had taken the opportunity to watch better movies
“We are not going to do everything right”
We dutifully stayed home and followed all the guidelines for best practices for the next two weeks. But even then –EVEN THEN– hope has arisen forever. I mean, it can not last longer than a month or so, right? RIGHT? Then my husband had a sobering podcast interview with a friend of ours, who explained exactly what the world is facing. “If we do everything right, we can beat it by June,” she told him. “But we are not going to do everything right. You have to be prepared for it to take a year, maybe a year and a half. ‘
I’m still checking in with her Twitter feed from time to time, because every prediction she made over the past year was dead accurate down to the patchwork quilt of devastating COVID-19 outbreaks in the Midwestern states and more rural areas.
It has been a long, difficult year of social distance, wearing masks to do messages or go for a walk, no travel, no eating out, no dentistry, and no meeting with friends and family. Humans are an adaptable species, and we have all adapted as best we can. We made good use of Zoom, various streaming platforms and delivery services, and we expanded our repertoire of weekend homemade meals. We even set up a temporary workout in our bonus room. Yet the year has taken a serious emotional toll.
This added to the frustration of looking at something that should bring the country together, driving everyone further apart – because certain unscrupulous factions thought they could benefit from politicizing the situation and spreading unbridled misinformation. A large proportion of Americans have decided to believe them and act selfishly. We grieve not only over the loss of half a million (and count) lives, but also over the loss of a sense of shared sacrifice to achieve a common benefit.
—Jennifer Ouellette, Senior Writer