Five Years After COVID: What Have We Learned?

We are officially five years removed from the beginning of the pandemic, and it feels both surreal and all too real simultaneously. The world has slowly, but surely, gotten back to normal–or as normal as it can be after an event of that magnitude.There are, however, some things that will never be the same–whether that be fundamental changes to business as usual or lasting lessons that have made a permanent imprint on our lives. 

The Workplace Evolves

“Beware the Ides of March” took on new meaning in 2020. Up until that time, the idea that a pandemic half a world away would derail our lives seemed highly improbable. After all, many of us remember the SARS and Swine Flu panics of yore, neither of which ever materialized into the catastrophic events that were predicted. Surely, the COVID hysteria would blow over soon.

But mid-March, employers told their employees to pack up their computers and work from home until we “flattened the curve.” Those two weeks turned into years, and eventually the once-novel concept of remote work became the new norm. The pandemic office closures ushered in a new era of Nine-to-five life, giving employees the opportunity to work from home with their kids or even get a taste of the digital nomad lifestyle that had typically been reserved for tech bros and independent contractors. Whether this drastic change was for better or for worse is still up for debate.

Some companies enjoyed the decrease in overhead expenses that come with operating a physical office day to day and also found their employees happier and more productive–or equally productive–than before. Others weren’t sold on the concept. 

There were many employers that did not fully trust the new system either because they lacked trust in their employees ability to work unsupervised or perhaps because they missed the moral that comes with workplace socializing. Nonetheless, five years later, some employers have just begun to require employees to come back to the office, while others have adopted hybrid models. But many have completely changed their structures, allowing workers to do their jobs wherever they please–a practice that seemed unfathomable prior to COVID.

Never Let A Crisis Go to Waste 

While there are positives and negatives to the remote work revolution, the government overreach that we saw during covid was unequivocally negative.

Speaking of the 2008 financial crisis, former chief of staff for President Obama, Rahm Emanuel, famously said, “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste … it’s an opportunity to do things that you think you could not do before.” What did this mean in practice? National crises are great means of justifying government overreach. And boy did elected officials take this sentiment to heart during the pandemic. 

Governors were especially guilty of abusing their emergency powers. Small businesses, unfortunately, bore the brunt of the burden.

If a small business was not deemed “essential” they were forced to close. Without the financial resources of big companies, many were unable to survive the financial hit and found themselves struggling to provide for their own wellbeing. 

At a time when people needed hope and community more than ever, churches were prohibited from holding services–even if they were held outside. If they dare defy these orders, they could be, and were often, arrested. Yet, packed, political protests were allowed to continue.

The absurdity of these laws gave the impression that governors enjoyed their emergency powers and wanted to see how far they could go. In New York, for example, former governor Andrew Cuomo declared that bars selling only finger foods, like chicken wings, were at risk for spreading COVID and should be closed, while those that sold “substantial” food like sandwiches, were safe. Using a scale of chicken wing to sandwich to assess COVID risk made absolutely zero sense. Nevertheless, this became the standard.

Unfortunately, it took far longer than it should have to reign in the abuse of emergency powers–some states even required lawsuits to force Governors to relinquish their control. Perhaps the scariest lesson we can take away from the pandemic is to be wary of the abuse of emergency powers, lest we never fully recover our rights.

The Importance of Human Connection 

One of the hardest lessons we had to learn was just how essential human connection is to our lives. COVID forced us to spend years in isolation, making even the most introverted people long for in-person contact. Trapped in our homes, and in our minds, we sat alone, or only with our families, catastrophizing while the news in the background pedaled fear 24 hours a day.

And it wasn’t just physical isolation. COVID quickly became politicized, alienating friends, neighbors, and even family members from each other on ideological grounds. Instead of growing together in a time of collective crisis, we grew apart. These rifts are still alive and well years later. 

Even though we are now painfully aware of the value of human connection, the ideological rifts remain intact … maybe, we have not yet fully absorbed the lesson. 

Life Finds A Way

Listing every fundamental change and lesson we learned from COVID would take thousands upon thousands of words. The points touched on in this article are just the tip of the iceberg. In fact, it is no exaggeration to say that there was almost no aspect of our lives that wasn’t impacted by the pandemic.

Throughout the entire ordeal, there were moments when we feared that society would completely crumble, never to return to any semblance of normalcy. But to quote the great Jeff Goldblum in Jurassic Park, “Life, uh, finds a way.” Covid was not the first global crisis and it will not be the last. Let us use this unpleasant experience as a learning opportunity to remember that, above all, the resilience of the human spirit transcends global pandemics.