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“Just Thinking”
It’s hard to believe, but this week marks the 5th anniversary "15 Days to Slow the Spread" initiative, The two weeks turned into two plus years, and it seems so surreal, five years ago our way of life was turned on its head and our lives were changed forever.
The lockdowns, that started in March of 2020 varied widely by region and triggered some seismic shifts in daily life, work, and society. Here are some of the most notable changes, based on how they reshaped things at the time and lingered afterward:
1. One of the biggest and most impactful changes was school closures, schools went to virtual teaching with little time to prep. Teachers turned into Zoom wranglers, while kids stared at screens instead of blackboards relying on parents to became co-educators. Studies show that the learning loss was brutal with reading and math scores dropping significantly. The two years of virtual school had a huge impact on the social development of the students.
2. The mass shift to remote work had offices emptied out practically overnight as companies sent employees home under "15 Days to Slow the Spread" and subsequent mandates. By April 2020, about 62% of U.S. workers were doing their jobs remotely, some businesses later ditched physical offices entirely, while others fought to drag workers back years later.
3. Lockdowns gutted entire sectors, restaurants, travel, retail which lead to 22 million U.S. jobs lost by April 2020, the fastest drop since the Great Depression with unemployment hitting 14.8%. Meanwhile, e-commerce exploded, Amazon’s sales jumped 44% in Q2 2020, with companies like DoorDash seeing demand triple.
4. Stay-at-home orders cut people off from friends, family, even casual chats. Weddings went virtual, funerals streamed on laptops, and "social distancing" became the norm. Loneliness spiked by May 2020, 35% of Americans reported anxiety or depression symptoms.
5. Hospitals canceled elective surgeries, non-covid care took a huge hit; cancer screenings dropped 90% in spring 2020. Telemedicine, barely a blip before, went mainstream
6. Panic buying cleared out toilet paper, hand sanitizer, bottled water and flour. Global supply chains, lean from decades of optimization, buckled as factories in China shut down and shipping clogged up.
7. Meat plants were shut down while farmers dumped milk they couldn’t sell. “Supply Chain” becomes a go to excuse to explain lack of inventory and cost spikes.
Handshakes died, masks became fashion statements, and six-foot spacing lines snaked around grocery stores. Drive-in movies and outdoor dining popped up as workarounds. Sports went silent—then returned to empty stadiums with piped-in crowd noise. Streaming services took over; Netflix added 16 million subscribers in Q1 2020 alone.
These changes hit hard and fast, and while some things like remote work, telehealth, streaming services and e-commerce have stuck around, other changes have left scars, like the education gap or small business closures. It was a pressure cooker that exposed weaknesses and forced adaptation on a scale few predicted. It was a hard time and affected all of us in different ways, but we can all agree that we never want to go through something like that again.
Let me know what you think.
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