By Lois M. Collins

The world likely wasn’t paying that much attention on March 11, 2020, when the World Health Organization declared already-worrisome COVID-19 a global pandemic. But that coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, would soon change world economies, business practices and how health care systems and even schools operated. New and repurposed phrases in the U.S. would soon become part of everyday language in coming months: “masking,” “social distancing,” “flatten the curve,” “quarantine” and “remote work.”

COVID-19 would forever change individual families, too, as the death toll climbed into the millions worldwide.

The fourth anniversary of that pandemic declaration this week is a reminder of how it reshaped the world in profound ways. We better understand preparedness and resilience. We witnessed the vital role of science and research. We found more appreciation for public health and health care workers. We figured out that mental health matters. We saw the value of technology for remote work, education and social connection.

We learned a lot about disease spread and building vaccines fast, about lost jobs and opportunities. We also gained insight into social isolation, the nuclear family and how to put one foot in front of another on a very unfamiliar path. It’s a time to look back, review what happened, and then look forward and commit to keep going when crises inevitably come.

Shutting down

The highly contagious virus had already been declared a public health emergency in the U.S. and three big airlines had already suspended flights to mainland China because of the outbreak there. But despite stories about virus-related illness and death in nursing homes on the West Coast and a deadly outbreak on a cruise ship, U.S. news cycles that morning seemed more taken with the previous night’s Democratic primaries, which nudged Joe Biden along the path to presidential nominee, and the sentencing of film producer Harvey Weinstein for his rape and sexual abuse conviction.

Still, WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus’ words to the media that morning were stark: “In the past two weeks, the number of cases of COVID-19 outside China has increased 13-fold, and the number of affected countries has tripled....

https://www.deseret.com/lifestyle/2024/03/14/covid-19-pandemic-fourth-anniversary-masking-politics-vaccines/