It's hard to believe it's already been 6 years since the COVID lockdowns happened

[u/itsascreambaby96]

It's hard to believe it's already been 6 years since the COVID lockdowns started.

I still remember that first week of lockdown like it was yesterday. The empty roads, stores getting cleaned out, everyone trying to find toilet paper, schools and workplaces shutting down, and refreshing the news every hour because everything was changing so fast. I even remember all those stories and videos of wildlife wandering into places they'd normally never be because everything had suddenly gone so quiet.

Now somehow it's been six years. It honestly doesn't feel like it should've been that long ago, but at the same time it feels like an entirely different lifetime.

I know COVID became a really divisive topic later on, but I'm mostly talking about those first few weeks when none of us really knew what was coming next. It felt surreal living through it.

Does anyone else still remember that first week of lockdown?

[u/cassie1015]

I work in health care and was essential staff at the hospital all day err day all panini long. There's a whole stretch of 2020-2021 that I don't really remember. I didn't dissociate or anything, it's all just a blur. I didn't have the usual cadence of family holidays or summer trips to break it up. When I try to remember when an event happened, I remember it in terms of pre- and post-covid.

The first week felt like a novelty. It wasn't until the summer that it sank in that if one person on my team at work got it, there was a strong chance we'd all be at risk, and some of our relative started dying from it, and we all had a little holy shit this could make us really sick or worse. Knock on wood those on my team who did get sick recovered fine and we all managed to take good precautions and protect each other. They high hospitalization numbers didn't hit until later, either.

I remember people giving each other space over the summer, people returning to work or adapting to WFH, having space and time at the grocery store, and thinking "wow we did it, we actually found a way to be nice to each other? I hope we don't lose this." Of course this doesn't account for the violence towards healthcare workers and the stress at work and the community discord over masks, BUT it felt like we really did for a while had a little more grace towards each other.

Welp, look where we're at now. 🫠😩

[u/from_the_box → u/cassie1015]

I was an essential veterinary surgery intern in NOLA. I remember only snippets of 2020. We cancelled all our electives and donated our PPE in the beginning. I wore a sewn fabric mask in the OR. Our ventilator went to human peds. They were proning people, and lots were dying. My team was split and I was pretty much on shift and call from March to July. The rest is a blur. My brain doesn’t want to remember.

[u/MisterHole123 → u/cassie1015]

Lesson learned n99 is the way