In one way or another, every single one of us had our lives impacted by the relatively recent Covid-19 pandemic. After all, a global virus bringing a nearly worldwide lockdown is bound to create some permanent changes in our everyday reality.
Of course, major events like this have the tendency to shake up the ground we’re standing on and change some things irreversibly. But with not all of it being obvious at first glance, one Redditor decided to dig a little deeper and ask a question about what the pandemic ruined a lot more than we realized. Scroll down to read what people online answered!
More info: Reddit
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It ruined the illusion I had that my fellow humans were generally smart and well adjusted. Some had weird opinions but we agreed on the basics of humanity and how to keep it together.
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When the Coronavirus pandemic became serious, most countries initiated nationwide lockdowns, which left the vast majority of the world’s population isolated in their homes. At first, it seemed as if our lives were put on pause.
But in reality, there is no such thing as pausing life. The time was still moving forward, and the sudden changes we had to adapt to left a massive mark on our world and on us.
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This pandemic caused us two kinds of damage: visible and invisible.
The visible type was a lot more obvious, as it was not only in front of our eyes but also a lot more directly felt. People losing their lives or receiving lifelong health complications, businesses closing, and workers losing jobs and facing poverty were just some of the most notable problems.
However, there were also the less visible issues that may have eluded our attention and crept up from behind while being dismissed as not serious. Those come from the psychological side of living through such an event.
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In 2020, trying to bring attention to these equally relevant issues, Dr. Elke Van Hoof of the World Economic Forum wrote about the French approach to the aftermath of various disasters, in which they would set up two camps. One where victims would receive help with any physical injuries they might have, and in another one, they would be treated on a psychological level, as well as be evaluated for the need for further post-traumatic treatment.
If enforced correctly, this type of strategy could’ve prevented, or at least weakened, the negative mental health effects that Covid left for most of us. It could’ve also helped the world economy recover faster and more effectively.
But alas, probably no one could’ve foreseen just how big this pandemic would become, and thus, we were caught underprepared. While the world was doing its best to build a sufficient number of ‘tents’ for the physically ill, mental health was, more often than not, neglected.
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Most of those mental health problems came from people being isolated for a prolonged amount of time. Being alone, of course, can actually be quite beneficial, and, in the years since Covid hit, more and more of us have been able to do tasks from home that we previously couldn’t, giving us the opportunity to leave less often.
However, as Kendra Cherry of Very Well Mind shared, people are social creatures, and remaining alone for extended periods can eventually harm our mental and even physical well-being.
According to the article, isolation has often been linked to a higher risk of various medical conditions, like heart and immune system issues, stress, depression, anxiety, and others. People who experience these problems are more likely to abuse alcohol and various substances while having lower life satisfaction.
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In the end, Coronavirus might have ruined a lot of things, but the past is something that none of us can change. And yet, looking back at it may not be pointless after all because as long as we learn from the situations and our mistakes made along the way, we will most likely be better prepared if we ever have to deal with something like this again.
What did you think about this story? Do you have anything else you’d like to add to this list? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
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#35
It is clearly not the case.It really feels like corporations have an even stronger grip on the United States than ever. Like we are really being squeezed in every way, and it's because our government is so heavily lobbied and controlled by corporations.
Pay rate, job security, benefits. All of these things seems to be getting objectively worse, or stagnating at best.My social battery. I am so drained all the time, I never want to do anything outside of work, even when it’s something i previously enjoyed. I’d rather stay home.A lot of smaller businesses completely died because of it.The pandemic divided people. There were so much anger and hate between each other - vaxxed vs non-vaxxed , mask vs no mask etc.Tipping culture expanded, tips expectation went up, and never came back down.The Social Contract. For example just being decent to one another. That’s been on decline but post pandemic it has not recovered.
Things such as respecting public spaces or others is gone for the most part. Feels like no one cares anymore and selfishness rules.A lot of people's basic manners.Cheap food. The supply chain either still hasn't stabilized or it has and we are being taken advantage of.Availability. I’m a night owl and used to grocery shop at 2 am just by myself me and my headphones it was glorious.My sense of time. I'm at a point now where I'll be thinking of something from a couple months ago and then I'll be corrected that it actually happened nearly 3 years ago.Our media literacy/trust wasn’t great pre-pandemic, but post we’re completely screwed. Nobody knows who or what to believe anymore. Objective truths are no longer objective truths, they’re instead pieces of a larger conspiracy or agenda.The death count was metric focused on, but each of those deaths probably ruined the lives of many others. Not to mention those that survived but didn’t fully recover. The real number of people f****d up by death, disability, or loss of loved ones is huge.Ruined the social skills of a whole lot of kids. Kids started kindergarten and then basically got yanked out of that for two years and stuck at home. Some struggle just to read 'cuz they missed those years.The economy never really went back to the way it was pre pandemic. Prices never normalized and the selection of products is much more narrow then it used to be. So everything now is more expensive, for smaller amounts of less selection of worse quality.Trust in the Government. It wasn’t 100% before by any means but it certainly took a nose dive during and after COVID.Dining out. Ridiculous prices, bad/no service, and lousy food. I don’t think any other industry has been as wrecked.Healthcare. The industry and the people in it who saw a lot of preventable dying and sickness are broken.
It’s not the same as it was before, and it probably won’t ever be.Mental health. i get services from a free clinic, but they're absolutely overworked. one of my previous therapists was dealing with like 70 patients. i have no idea how she lasted as long as she did.Businesses' cleanliness and hours.
Go to some local box store, like Target. Walk around and see just how trashy it looks now. Clothes on the floor, because they don't have enough staff to pick up the mess. Half empty shelves. It's like they're in a perpetual state of closing down.
Also, lots of late night stores and restaurants cut hours and never returned them. There's nowhere for a night owl to shop at a grocery store near me anymore. Used to have a 24 hour grocery, now they close at 10 or something.I feel like the stuff I do for money has come to feel so f*****g meaningless. I press buttons and guide other people on pressing those buttons so some other people can print packaging. Everything's so big a business needs 25 other businesses to survive. We've created millions of problems to sell made up solutions.
I don't think I'm alone in this?Alcoholism. It became normalized to drink at home, alone, during the day...etc. I know a lot of people who have maintained that habit even now.Faith in science and medicine for a lot of people.My lungs. I've had a chronic cough since the first time I caught it. Never been the same since.The local live music industry.Restaurant menus.The education and future of every kid born between 2006-2010. Ask any teacher. It’s a lost generation. They’re years behind, if even still in school.Driving on roads, apparently there is a backslide ~~and~~ in how good we are at it and we've never recovered.24 hour stores/restaurants/services in general.Communication. The shutdown caused us to lean heavily on new less efficient communication methods to get by and now that we're back, people haven't stopped leaning on them.
We have zoom meetings with people in the same building as us instead of walking 20 feet to their office. We block off hours for meetings that should be a sentence just to hang out on videocalls. People will g-chat (Gmail instant message )me to set up a zoom meeting with our cameras off for a single question. . . .AKA a phonecall with extra steps.
Everything is a meeting now . People end up missing one meeting because they're double booked in a second meeting while running late for a third. Meanwhile not one of them needed to be a meeting
Everyone also expects immediate response from everyone at any time a day while also somehow being entirely unavailable themselves.The ability for young people to acquire the same quality of life that their parents and grandparents have.Organic dating.Snow days for schools.More indoors activities than it was before.Everyone's teeth
Can't get a dentists appointment.
