Journalism these days is so focused on anniversaries — it can be reported in advance, relies on “experts,” and allows editors to plan their news budgets — that it was natural the five-year anniversary of Covid’s first appearance in this country would be a big thing, although not that big. I sense the wound is still a little raw, so the observances have been…muted, shall we say.
We all have our memories. The overwhelming weirdness of it all is how it stands out for me. I was already doing a fair amount of work at home, so that wasn’t a shock, but for Alan, it was. The sound of the Microsoft Teams audio alert calling him to yet another online meeting is seared in my brainpan. He remembers working on the car that first weekend of shutdowns, outdoors on a typical late-winter afternoon, being struck by the near-constant sirens, presumably ambulances arriving at the hospital a half-mile away. Kate was on tour with her band, and it was like jumping from one melting ice floe to the next, each venue less sparsely populated than the next, culminating in a van breakdown in rural Utah. She settled into her own room, defeated.
“Don’t worry,” I told her. “By Memorial Day this will all be past us.”
Well. Shows what I know.
I’ve probably shared the above previously, and we all have our own memories. I reread a one-year anniversary story I did for Deadline Detroit around this time every year, just to remind me how crazy it was. I particularly linger over the recollections of a black funeral director:
The real trouble started when government offices closed. We couldn’t get death certificates. You have to have an official cause and manner of death to bury, and especially for cremation. I rented a refrigerated truck. My holding room was overflowing. Hospital morgues were overflowing. It was late May to June before I could finally catch up.
Without death certificates, families can’t collect insurance. And because people were dying so young, nobody had a will or plan. Some people had their living wills, medical power of attorney, all those things in order, but that wasn’t the majority. Then you had households with multiple Covid cases, like a husband and wife in the ICU at the same time. If one died and the other was on a vent, no one could speak for them. So someone had to get emergency guardianship. It complicated all the situations. It hit my community so hard, and we were screaming and it’s like nobody heard us. I’d hear these people saying, “We have to open up. I can’t go to my restaurant anymore,” and I’m having trouble getting gloves because of the hoarding. Without gloves, I’m out of business.
Yes indeed. So it’s interesting to read one group’s memories and takeaways, i.e., conservative chatterboxes. To listen to them, it’s all about FREEDOM and VACCINE MANDATES and GOVERNMENT LYING and DYING WITH COVID, NOT OF COVID, and SHEEPLE. More than a million Americans didn’t die (except for grandma, who took her last breath alone while her tearful family watched on an iPad). And for what? A silly flu? Never again!!!
Well, OK. And when Croaky’s oversight allows bird flu to mutate and become the next pandemic, we all know what to do. But there won’t be stimulus checks, no special unemployment, no public-health measures.
I took some pictures. This is one of my favorites, from September 2020, some Grosse Pointe teens having a socially distanced hang in a middle-school parking lot:’
Of course some fashion rules must be upheld, no matter the situation. I mean, we’re not savages:
I’ve had eight Covid shots, and no Covid (to my knowledge; I know asymptomatic cases exist). I wonder if I’ll be able to even get one this fall.
How was your St. Patrick’s Day? I went out for the first time in years, to two spots: The Gaelic League and Nancy Whiskey, a great Detroit dive. I had fun, and confined my drinking to two Harps and a shot of Jameson’s. An old man kissed me on the lips. I came home and told Alan. “Did he try to slip you some tongue?” he asked. No, I’m happy to say.
Heather said on March 19, 2025 at 11:42 am
I remember unlocking my bike outside a busy bar in Chicago’s Wicker Park and thinking, “yeah, this thing is going to spread like wildfire.”
A friend and I were thinking about kayaking in the river to watch them dye it green on Saturday, but it was super windy that morning and it would have been about a 40-minute paddle just to get downtown from the launch, so we had to scrap it. I would like to do that sometime though.
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Jeff Borden said on March 19, 2025 at 11:44 am
Brain Worm Bobby wants the bird flu to spread and spread and spread. Vaccinating the chickens would turn them into “mutants,” he says. Well, great. Meanwhile, research into a wide array of incurable diseases including ALS –which killed my younger sister last fall– are being halted by funding cuts. The next pandemic will make COVID-19 look like a bad cold. We’re killing ourselves. Who’d have believed it possible just a few years ago?
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Deborah said on March 19, 2025 at 11:47 am
We’re going out to eat then a Sam Shepard play at Steppenwolf tonight. That was not going to happen 5 years ago or even 4 years ago. I think about that often when I do things that were impossible back then. Usually “back then” refers to 20 years or so ago. Weirdly the pandemic feels like both 20 years ago and yesterday.
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Bob (not Greene) said on March 19, 2025 at 1:07 pm
My recollection of COVID was chronicling its relentless march from early March through the next two years in the three communities I covered at the time. I never worked so much in my life; for at least a full month it was seven days a week, because events on the ground were constantly changing. I never experienced the “shutdown” of people’s working lives because all I remember doing was working — as was my wife who is a pharmacist and my oldest son, who was living with us at the time and worked as a nurse in a nursing home — on the floor where COVID patients were quarantined. He basically lived in the same house, but separately from us, for months. He was the first to get CVID — but not until December, just before medical personnel could get vaccinated.
And then, in May-June all hell broke loose again with the George Floyd fallout. I remember May 31 driving around to see what was up at the local mall and shopping centers and talking to cops who were hearing about online chatter. I drove home and walked back to the mall (which had been closed since mid-March) and by the time I returned, the mall was mobbed with looters and cops in riot gear trying to prevent more people from breaking in. They weren’t even trying to arrest anyone; they just wanted them to leave.
I walked through the mall parking lot, taking photos and videos, as cars zipped around me. I stood on one of the concrete “islands” in the parking lot near one of the entrances where riot cops had formed a line, when there were about 10 or so loud gunshots from about 100 yards away.
I headed over there and cops were giving CPR to the guy who was shot (the shooting did not involve a cop — it was an execution from a rival, they shared the surveillance video with me). A woman got out of her car wearing scrubs (don’t know why she was there) and ran over shouting that she was a nurse and the cops let her take over until the paramedics got there. He was long dead by then. There would be more shootings at that mall later in the year when it reopened.
After the looters had cleared out from the mall, I walked back toward home (I only live about a quarter mile away) and saw how the other shopping centers had been looted, as well as stores just down the block from my house.
For the next week, my neighborhood was kind of a police occupation zone, where there were curfews. And then there were George Floyd protest marches, which started in Cicero and came west down Cermak Road to the intersection where my coverage area began, Harlem Avenue, and the protestors would take over the intersection for a bit and then leave. It happened several times that June.
And all that time I was in throngs of people, interviewing them, taking photos and videos — it was a whirlwind and it was then that I concluded that I was too damn old for that intensity of reporting. I never got COVID, though, until I left journalism in late 2023.
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Julie Robinson said on March 19, 2025 at 3:14 pm
Holy crap, Bob! That is a LOT to witness. Reason #5000 why I didn’t go into journalism.
I too have had every single vax offered. I still got the virus three times, two times from other family members who sang in groups, and once that I can’t trace. My lungs haven’t recovered and now I take two meds for asthma. But we are all still alive.
Went back to the optometrist today about the wrong prescription they gave me, and it was quite unpleasant as they refused to believe me. I took in all my old prescriptions showing the placement of prisms in each eye, and how he had them opposite. They tried to blame Costco. I got vertigo from wearing the wrong ones for five minutes as they were testing me. Eventually he wrote a new one, but at the front desk they printed out another wrong prescription, so I had to call and they said oops the doctor forgot to enter it. They emailed me the correct one.
This guy’s getting reported. And reviewed.
When I got home my mother told me she has two medical emergency (semi) problems. I moved heaven and earth and got appointments for tomorrow. Now I’m going back up to Costco to drop off the new, correct prescription. I’m so ready for vacation, but I don’t know how I’m going to find the time to get packed!
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Dexter Friend said on March 19, 2025 at 5:05 pm
Zoom, phone not iPad. All three daughters allowed into the room, basically in space suits.
I was prohibited from being there due to my age and physical state. Then, we had a funeral director in the family and he was a saint to us.
And the band played on….
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alex said on March 19, 2025 at 5:25 pm
…so the observances have been…muted, shall we say.
Everything has been fucking muted. Or muzzled or whatever you want to call it. When the New York Times describes everything Trump has done in his first two months as “possibly unconstitutional,” then it’s no stretch for me to declare I’m “sort of pregnant.”
My remembrances of the quarantine were pleasant. I alternated between home improvements and my job and got to meet all kinds of interesting neighbors who might never have connected with me otherwise. I also dropped a ton of weight and had the best medical lab results in years.
If I’ve had Covid I’m unaware of it, but I have some suspicions that I suffered an asymptomatic episode, which is to say asymptomatic as far as the typical respiratory and GI problems are concerned. What I do recall is that my well-controlled pre-diabetes (A1C below 6) erupted overnight into blood sugars in the stratosphere that took months to come down. I had an A1C of over 11. I’ve been insulin-dependent in the three years since. I also had a lot of brain fog starting at about that time and feel as if I still do, and it’s partly what made me decide to take an early retirement.
Still fighting with insurance over Repatha. My cardiologist is fighting them on my behalf.
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Dorothy said on March 19, 2025 at 5:47 pm
FIFTEEN DOLLARS for those masks! I know elastic was scarce but as someone who made and gave away around 300 masks, I know a cloth tie around the ears like the ones in your picture are not going to keep a mask on your face. That’s nuts – $15. Without elastic you had to make long strips of fabric that tied behind your head. If I had to charge someone for a mask I would have asked maybe $7.50. The amount of fabric was minimal. I had the construction down pat really fast, and I sewed up a storm for weeks and weeks. I mailed many of them to family. It kept me busy and made me feel good that I could help in a very small way.
A famous knitter who I follow on Instagram posted a reminder yesterday that it was the five year anniversary of her second grandchild’s death. Baby girl was born on the 16th, died on the 18th. Crib death – no explanation for those situations but they are crushing and heartbreaking. They live in Canada. Of course by then in 2020 we were all shut down. But Covid was not a reason why she died. I can’t begin to fathom what that would be like to lose a perfect baby 48 hours after she’s born.
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David C said on March 19, 2025 at 6:11 pm
The quarantine-ish was pretty good for us. We’re homebodies anyway, so being told to stay home was easy-peasy. We went remote at work and now I have approval to move back home to Michigan and continue to work remote. That never would have happened if not for Covid. Now I can spend time with my mom who is gradually slipping away from dementia, and Mary can spend time with her mom who is 93 years old.
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Colleen Condron said on March 19, 2025 at 7:56 pm
I’ve had every covid shot. Never had covid, knock wood. Today I went to Walgreens and got an MMR booster. I fall into the age group that was likely not sufficiently vaccinated as children. I figure better safe than sorry.
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Julie Robinson said on March 19, 2025 at 10:20 pm
Dorothy, did you join a Facebook group for mask makers? I downloaded so many patterns trying to figure out what would work best for each family member. The camaraderie was heartening–patterns were free, and folks were mailing each other supplies. I probably only made 50-75, and I woulnd’t have dreamed of charging for them.
David, I’m so glad you’ll still be able to work remotely. So many companies are removing that as an option, and it just seems like it’s to be mean. Families that moved have had to move again.
So today, two great things happened; first a sweet couple whose wedding was disrupted five years ago (venue cancelled, no party allowed) renewed their vows at a nearby park. This time their toddler son helped.
Second, the hateful “church” group that called our church evil and threatened to burn our right to read library books got a comeuppance. They’ve been going to welcoming churches during Sunday morning services, sometimes going in, usually staying in the parking lot and blasting “music”, then filming the whole thing and uploading to Youtube. An influential pastor knew their landlord, and after they learned what they were doing, they kicked them out and changed the locks.
Not only that, pastors are invited to a meeting with the police chief and sheriff to discuss what the churches’ rights are and how the police can help them. Our wonderful state legislator is also putting them on blast and has announced she’ll be at the church they’re planning their little riot for this Sunday. I guess it’s FAFO time.
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Sherri said on March 20, 2025 at 12:01 am
Is it really a constitutional crisis if institutions are too weak or afraid to call it one?
https://stringinamaze.net/p/is-anyone-ready-for-this
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ROGirl said on March 20, 2025 at 4:19 am
I’ve had a slow-moving nasty head cold all week with sinus pain and a throbbing headache, shortness of breath, aches, scratchy throat. I should have stayed home yesterday and I still feel like crap today, so I’m hunkered down for now. After reading about the anniversary of the events 5 years ago, it occurred to me that this might be covid. I did have a mild case once, but interspersed with regular colds. Multiple people at work have come in sick, and nobody cares.
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David C said on March 20, 2025 at 5:56 am
I heard Schumer’s interviews from a couple of days ago and his excuse for doing nothing is we’ll wait until the Supreme Court rules against him. WTF.
Does he see the same Supreme Court that the rest of us see? If they say, “It’s fine”, does he say it’s OK then? What a wuss. I’ve never been fond of Bernie, but goddamn it, he’s out there and saying what needs to be said and it seems to be connecting with people.
I know I’m taking a bit of a risk going remote, Julie. The current management has approved right up to our division president. It’s kind of hard to recruit people with the talents they need to come to little, old Oshkosh, so they have embraced remote work. I know that could change at any time and they could pull the rug out from under me. I’ll just retire then and we have enough assets to keep us going. I hope.
Cool news about the rug being pulled our from under that “church”. Going full Westboro Baptist sometimes has consequences.
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Jeff Borden said on March 20, 2025 at 9:37 am
The tRumpanzees are not funding maintenance of buildings and public art covered by the GSA. They’re Philistines.
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Little Bird said on March 20, 2025 at 10:10 am
What I remember most were the wiped out shelves in grocery stores. The drive up Covid tests, and then the huge sites for getting your vaccine. In Santa Fe it was on a no longer active college campus. You entered at one specific location, drove along streets that twisted around the campus. Finally you ended up in this enormous field, where there were what seemed like hundreds of cars. There was a line of little white tent canopies, like the kind vendors use at farmers markets. That’s where the people administering the shots were. Then they wrote a time on your windshield and you inched along as the people in front of you had to wait to leave until the time written on their windshield had passed.
I remember thinking it looked like a scene from a disaster movie, when the Red Cross or whatever organization came to the rescue. But it didn’t feel like a rescue.
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Deborah said on March 20, 2025 at 1:10 pm
I cried when I got my first vaccine, I was so relieved. I was embarrassed but the woman who gave me the shot said a lot of people reacted that way. Ours were given in a large room at Northwestern hospital a few blocks from us.
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Deborah said on March 20, 2025 at 1:24 pm
What is it about dictators and their tacky surroundings? https://www.jefftiedrich.com/p/lets-talk-about-what-a-tacky-little
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Jakash said on March 20, 2025 at 2:25 pm
My wife and I got our first vaccines in that same large room, Deborah. We never had to scramble to find somewhere to get the shots; Northwestern emailed us out of the blue informing us of that option.
Needless to say, I’m only linking to this because he agrees with what I wrote here a few days ago, but lefty former Chicago Tribune columnist Eric Zorn concludes his Substack hunk about the Senate shutdown votes by saying: “Given the lousy options they had, (Schumer) and the Senate Democrats who voted with him chose the least lousy.”
https://ericzorn.substack.com/i/159139094/about-that-capitulation
Further down, he posts this song. Though originally released in 1996, it’s aged pretty fricking well. Iris DeMent, “Wasteland of the Free.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLjHcbSVmYs
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Sherri said on March 20, 2025 at 5:01 pm
Rep Harriet Hageman of Wyoming didn’t take the advice not to hold a town hall. I suspect she’s regretting that.
https://bsky.app/profile/newseye.bsky.social/post/3lksw7yvdkc22
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Sherri said on March 20, 2025 at 5:32 pm
The latest sign that I really don’t understand the world is that DoorDash, the food delivery service, has signed a deal with Klarna, the buy now pay later service, so you can just spread the cost of that meal you had delivered over 4 easy payments!
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susan said on March 20, 2025 at 5:54 pm
Sherri @20 — Well, that was entertaining! PLUS….bonus! Another George Santos look-alike! That must be a dominant Republican gene. (Kari Lake is another duplicate.)
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Dave said on March 20, 2025 at 7:25 pm
Here’s a far more detailed report about Rep. Hageman, thanks to a friend who lives in Wyoming. I especially like that part where she blamed it on Laramie being a college town, even though the crowd didn’t appear to have many college age people.
https://cowboystatedaily.com/2025/03/19/hageman-doesnt-back-down-as-hostile-crowd-curses-her-at-unruly-laramie-town-hall/
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Cheez Whiz said on March 20, 2025 at 9:05 pm
I flew from San Francisco to Detroit to attend my nephew’s funeral in Sep 2020. I heard constant bitching about “the lockdown” and thought “your restraunts have indoor dining! Your bars are open!” California had neither at the time. Also posters everywhere about masks being required with “By order of Governor Gretchen Whitmer” on top in giant font, so customers would know who to blame.
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alex said on March 21, 2025 at 8:25 am
During the pandemic, one of my hubby’s MAGA family members, who we unfriended on social media, was posting crap about masks and vaccinations being the first steps in a scheme to put us on trains bound for death camps a la Nazi Germany. We’ve been hosting an Easter open house for so many years now that it had become a tradition but hubs called it off this year because of his family’s politics and he told them so. He wants to hold a smaller gathering and invite selectively.
I was so sorry to see that I missed the last lecture in the local Omnibus series — it was Pati Jinich who hosts cooking shows on PBS. On the local news, it’s reported that she was treated to meals at Cindy’s Diner and Coney Island in an effort to show off our local cuisine. I find both places disgusting and the food repulsive and I can only imagine poor Pati, with her refined palate, having to smile and feign liking any of that slop.
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Icarus said on March 21, 2025 at 9:24 am
Deborah, didn’t you and I meet for donuts after getting our COVID shots?
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Deborah said on March 21, 2025 at 10:33 am
Icarus, I remember meeting for donuts but I don’t remember it being after getting a Covid shot. I did get a few Covid shots near that Stan’s donut place on Eire, so you’re probably right. I don’t think it was after my first shot though, I got that one at the NM Prentice hospital.
Side note, the donor Prentice was a Rockefeller heir, Rockefeller’s great grandaughter lived in a building near us, but before we lived here in Chicago. Her daughter, Ashley Prentice Norton, wrote a book based on living with her mother in that place. Ashley’s father, a reporter was a friend of ours and was very thankful that he was not included in the book https://www.chicagomag.com/arts-culture/september-2012/ashley-prentice-norton-on-the-chocolate-money-being-a-rockefeller-and-returning-to-chicago/.
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alex said on March 21, 2025 at 11:10 am
I remember Abra Prentice Wilkin. She rode around in a shamrock-green stretch limo with “ABRA” personalized on the license plates, always blocking the streets with flashers on in front of the poshest establishments in the Gold Coast and Streeterville when I worked in that area, and it seemed like Chicago Magazine and Michael Sneed couldn’t get enough of her.
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Julie Robinson said on March 21, 2025 at 12:13 pm
Oof, Ashley is burning bridges.
I was dragged to Cindy’s once but didn’t care for it. Never ever went to Coney Island or the equally awful Powers Hamburgers. I have a tetchy digestive system.
So, after two emergency appointments yesterday for Mom, we are now at an urgent center for D, whose three day backache became acute overnight. His sister gets in this afternoon and they’re driving to the Keys tomorrow, then we are flying out to NYC. We are having fun times!
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Deborah said on March 21, 2025 at 3:53 pm
Julie that article about Ashley Norton was written in 2012. Her father Jon Anderson died not long after that as I recall. I read Chocolate Money when it came out, it wasn’t great, but interesting because we knew her dad and the highrise penthouse she lived in is nearby, it has a enormous window a couple of floors high facing north, I wonder who lives there now? I don’t think Abra, the mother still does.
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