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Depression
Has It Been Forever—or Does It Just Feel Like It?
What's endemic and how can we get there?
Posted January 24, 2022 Reviewed by Devon Frye
Key points
- We might be exhausted by COVID, but it's not over yet.
- Stop, look, and listen: there may be a way to live with COVID.
- If outdoors is safer than indoors, let's find ways to spend more time outside.
- Wearing masks when you're sick or spending time in crowded places might be the answer.
I just bought a new pair of tennis shoes. Not my usual gym shoes, but a step up—something in pale yellow leather with a higher quotient of cool.
Outside feels infinitely safer than inside these days.
Like it or not, COVID-19 remains ever-present in our lives. Instead of being frustrated (OK, I’m a bit frustrated) by the looming situation of a third year of all of this, I’m taking more of my life outside.
Just a gentle reminder: COVID-19 was named for the year it was discovered, 2019. It was first identified in mid-December 2019 in Wuhan, China. Unfortunately, most people didn’t pay much attention to the virus and were ill-prepared when the first case of COVID was detected in the U.S. on January 20, 2020, in Washington State.
In the last two years, more than 855,000 people have died from COVID in the United States, and collectively more than 5,554,786 have died worldwide.
COVID has not only killed, but it has also shifted and created several surprising new variants, Delta and Omicron being the latest, each demanding more caution and vigilance.
Is It Beginning to Feel Like Forever Yet?
No mask, masked, double-masked, vaccinated, boosted, unvaccinated, eating indoors at restaurants, only eating at restaurants with outdoor spaces, still working from home, struggling with schools and daycares opening in person, then quickly closing for a week or ten days at a time because COVID has been detected—we are exhausted from it all, and many people are feeling certifiably depressed.
The arts have suffered; small businesses have suffered; restaurants are closing; people are leaving the workforce in droves; early retirement seems to be the order of the day; and for the immune-compromised and the cautious, it’s unclear if it’s even safe to get a haircut while wearing a mask. Staying at home and buying groceries online is what’s happening. Which means that for many, nothing much is happening.
Nobody knows and no one dares to predict when all of this will end. There’s hope that this pandemic will become endemic: a disease regularly found among particular people in a certain area. What does that mean?
It means that COVID will not end by disappearing. Instead, enough people will gain immune protection from either vaccination or infection that there will be significantly less transmission of the virus and fewer COVID-19 hospitalizations and deaths, but COVID will continue to be part of our lives.
Lessons Learned
Past pandemics and epidemics gave way to a number of important changes in the way we live. We now accept these changes as normal—but when first introduced, people were skeptical.
For instance, now as a matter of routine, we have screens on our doors and windows. The use of screens for windows and doors was implemented to keep out mosquitos and thereby reduce the spread of yellow fever and malaria. Building covered sewer systems and providing access to clean water helped eliminate typhoid, typhus, and cholera epidemics.
When Louis Pasteur introduced the idea of handwashing as a way to reduce disease in the 1800s, people thought he was crazy. We now know that frequent and thorough handwashing can reduce the spread of disease and infections from the common cold, Hepatitis A, RSV, the flu, mono, staph infections, and COVID.
Handwashing? Covered sewer systems? Screens on windows? Although we take these aspects of our human habits and habitats for granted, they were once novel ideas, and it took a lot of convincing for folks to follow through with them and change their old habits.
What have we learned from COVID-19, in terms of disease prevention and management, that could give us long-term improvements in individual and global health and possibly turn this pandemic into an endemic?
Time to Put on My Yellow Sneakers and Go Outside
What if, because of COVID, we started spending more time outdoors? What if we shared carryout picnics instead of eating in restaurants? Planted gardens? Shopped at outdoor farmers’ markets? Took our children to parks and on hikes instead of going to crowded theme parks?
What if we unhooked from our electronic devices, stepped out of our homes, and breathed a little fresh air? It would not only be safe: it might just be fun.
As for those pesky masks, what if we kept them and wore them whenever we had a cough or a cold? Or routinely wore them in the winter during flu season? Imagine what our world would be like if we all cared enough to keep others safe from sickness by just wearing a mask.
Since this pandemic isn’t going away even if it becomes endemic, it’s time to put on a pair of pale-yellow sneakers and go outside in search of a better, safer way to exist with COVID. In doing so, let’s hope we discover a less stressed, healthier way to live.
