March 9th, 2020: a day that will live in infamy. Well, infamous at least to me. It was on this day last year when San Francisco State University sent every student home. The coronavirus has arrived to our shores in full-scale. Learning will be entirely remote for the foreseeable future. Here we are one calendar year later: instruction is still remote, though we are nearing the end of COVID, with vaccinations happening nicely.
Remember when we thought this thing would be over by the summer of last year? That was hilarious.
Cliche as it may be, it certainly doesn’t feel like a year has gone by. The interminable Groundhog Day-like experience of everyday feeling exactly the same as the previous doesn’t offer much signs that the days are progressing. We’ve all at some point or another got utterly sick of being suck inside our houses, lacking any social contact beyond the Zoom meeting screens. It’s a fortunate miracle indeed if you’ve made it this far in the coronavirus saga with your health and employment intact.
Because we are rapidly on the descent towards normalcy. One in five adults in San Francisco have gotten at least one shot of the vaccine. Public places and commercial districts are looking as alive as its been since last March. Traffic has returned to the pre-pandemic levels of bad. America may have botched the overall response to COVID (half a million people dead is appalling and criminal), but damn it are we kicking ass in producing and disseminating the vaccines. It’s an absolute achievement that we have three viable vaccines within one year of the outbreak.
It probably won’t be that easy, after one year of this tremendous and involuntary lifestyle change, to return back to the way it was. But that’s one of those good problems to have. I am beyond ready to meet up with friends, to travel again to foreign countries. It’s been one long year of the pandemic, but the end of it is within reach. Take care!
Delayed progress.