COVID-19’s fifth anniversary: 5 areas where life changed in U.S.

The U.S. COVID-19 pandemic began five years ago Tuesday, arriving in a country that already had a partisan divide that would continue to shape the reaction to restrictions.

Pew Research Center recently reported that was one of three major social trends happening at the time: Distrust in many institutions was growing and there was “massive splintering” of the information environment. America had stepped into a pick-your-own-truth period that the viral illness just complicated. In the Pew survey, 72% of U.S. adults said that the pandemic “did more to drive the country apart than to bring it together.”

The U.S. deaths have been easier to count than some of the disease’s impact. Worldometer, which stopped updating last April as case counts slowed way down — but didn’t stop, as COVID-19 still kills more than influenza — notes that the U.S. had 111,820,082 COVID-19 cases and 1,219,487 deaths. Utah was No. 28 in terms of deaths, at 5,719. California had the most, at just over 112,000, while Vermont had the least, at just over 1,100.

Millions of Americans still struggle with the lingering effects of long COVID.

Clearly, then the long-lasting and perhaps most profound impact varied from family to family, but there were societal changes, as well.

Of note in the Pew survey, “About half of U.S. adults or fewer now say their state elected officials (49%), Joe Biden (40%) and Donald Trump (38%) did an excellent or good job responding to the pandemic. A slim majority (56%) give positive ratings to public health officials, like those at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).”

The report adds that “only local hospitals get a full-throated approval from Americans: Looking back, 78% say medical centers in their area responded well to the pandemic.” And most of those surveyed say they are no longer afraid of the illness.

Slightly over half say the news media “exaggerated the risks of COVID-19 at least slightly,” including 80% of Republicans and 30% of Democrats.

The World Health Organization officially declared COVID-19 a global pandemic on March 11, 2020. Lots of things changed after the virus arrived. Here are five areas where the impact is still felt.

1 of 70

2 of 70

3 of 70

4 of 70

5 of 70

6 of 70

7 of 70

8 of 70

9 of 70

10 of 70

11 of 70

12 of 70

13 of 70

14 of 70

15 of 70

16 of 70

17 of 70

18 of 70

19 of 70

20 of 70

21 of 70

22 of 70

23 of 70

24 of 70

25 of 70

26 of 70

27 of 70

28 of 70

29 of 70

30 of 70

31 of 70

32 of 70

33 of 70

34 of 70

35 of 70

36 of 70

37 of 70

38 of 70

39 of 70

40 of 70

41 of 70

42 of 70

43 of 70

44 of 70

45 of 70

46 of 70

47 of 70

48 of 70

49 of 70

50 of 70

51 of 70

52 of 70

53 of 70

54 of 70

55 of 70

56 of 70

57 of 70

58 of 70

59 of 70

60 of 70

61 of 70

62 of 70

63 of 70

64 of 70

65 of 70

66 of 70

67 of 70

68 of 70

69 of 70

70 of 70

Education deficit

More young adults lived with their parents during the early pandemic days than at any point since the Great Depression, per a different Pew report.

And as Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported, “Social isolation during the pandemic has had a lasting impact on mental health, particularly among children and adolescents.”

School closures have had a lasting impact on the students who experienced them, from diminished social engagement to challenges with actual classes. Online learning was a beast for many students, according to the Education Recovery Scorecard, a joint project of Harvard, Stanford and Dartmouth universities. The scorecard shows that as of last spring, the average U.S. student “remained nearly half a grade level behind pre-pandemic achievement in math and reading.”

It notes that socioeconomic and racial/ethnic disparities in math achievement have grown since the start of the pandemic.

Absenteeism is beginning to recover, per the report. But it’s not there yet.

Remote work

About 6 in 10 U.S. jobs had to be done in person. But nearly everyone else went home during the pandemic and remote work is still a staple for many people. One-third of those who were remote during the pandemic told Pew they still work remotely all the time. Forty-three percent say they are remote some or most of the time.

Sixty percent of those with teleworkable jobs say it has helped them improve their work-life balance, while still letting them do their jobs and meet deadlines. About half of those working remotely said they’d likely look for another job if the boss said they have to physically return to work.

But the pandemic caused unemployment to spike. Before COVID-19, it was 3.8%. Pew said by April 2020, the rate had risen to 14.4%, though by the end of 2021, it had dropped almost to pre-COVID levels.

More women left the workforce than men, Pew reported. And some who left have never returned. Meanwhile, a number of businesses simply could not hold on and closed during the pandemic.

Online church

Many church services went online during the heart of the pandemic and 36% of Americans said they watched religious services online or on TV in the last month. “But the pandemic did not shake American religion: The share participating in services in some way has been steady and the share who say COVID-19 had a big impact on their spiritual life is small,” per the Pew report.

Distrust of science

The Pew study found that people were very frustrated during COVID-19 by changing advice. Early on, masking was actively discouraged as not very effective, for instance. Then it was mandated.

Today, just 1 in 5 Americans say they still mask in stores and businesses; for 80%, the answer is rarely or never.

As distrust of authority and so-called expertise grew, people started tuning out some resources and finding their own.

As the Journal Sentinel reported, quoting Sedona Chinn, an assistant professor and researcher in the Department of Life Sciences Communication at University of Wisconsin-Madison, folks who were frustrated started doing their own research, but it also “led to more misinformation and more anti-expert bias, making it all the much harder for solid science to break through.”

Some people did good research, getting information from many sources. Others went to sources that confirmed what they were already thinking, even if it was wrong.

Early mistakes as public health was learning about the novel coronavirus didn’t help that. Scientific American points out that U.S. officials “botched” initial testing and results were often inconclusive or slow. The whole issue of whether to mask or not and the changing advice amplified distrust.

Per the article, we are now more ready — and less ready — for another pandemic. We know we can make vaccines fast and develop tests, for instance. That’s helpful for the next event.

But, per the article, “Current threats to the institution of science itself are exacerbating the problem.” It points out that “some overtly anti-science and anti-vaccine people — most notably Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.,“ have been assigned to lead federal health agencies. ”He has made sweeping cuts to the CDC, the NIH and other science agencies," among other moves that may change how things would play out in a future pandemic.

Health care delivery

Masks are now readily available in health care facilities and use is encouraged for those who might have a contagious illness and those looking to avoid it. Seeing someone on a plane wearing a mask is not an uncommon sight.

Post-COVID, telemedicine is here to stay, experts say, potentially greatly improving access. As the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported, “Patients getting behavioral health services across the (local health) network are just as likely to do so virtually as they are to visit a doctor or therapist in person. Online access has also made therapy more efficient to deliver across a large health system, eliminating the need for patients and therapists to physically be in the same place, said Anil Singh, executive medical director for population health at Highmark Health.”

Telemedicine is growing in many areas of medicine, where it was once almost unheard of. Now people with mobility, transportation and timing issues can access care of many different types, including in the neurosciences.

That’s just one of the changes that hospitalist Dr. Russell Vinik, chief medical operations officer at University of Utah Healthcare and associate professor of medicine at the University of Utah, told Deseret News last year that he believes will last.

Vaccine skepticism has grown since COVID-19.

Routine screenings, which basically stopped during COVID-19, have not fully recovered. As Vinik noted, “One of the tragedies still impacting health is delayed screening. At the height of the pandemic, mammography dropped by over 50%, while colonoscopies fell as much as 80%. The cancers themselves weren’t suspended, just the search for them. So cancers were detected at later stages,” Vinik said. “Patients suffered because of that.”