“The St. Patrick’s Day Parade might be canceled,” I wrote on March 11, 2020, “but a little virus can’t stop Clevelanders from celebrating their favorite holiday.”
With experience, any writer cringes at their earlier work, but that’s probably one of the most regretful things I’ve ever written.
Even seeing what was taking place overseas, I thought coronavirus, as we called it then, was all hype. Few at that time could comprehend the seismic shift COVID-19 would bring. By the time Ohio’s Stay At Home order took place, we had already been working from home for a week. The first few days were like a party. Zoom happy hours and trivia. Movie marathons. Wine with DeWine. We were scared, scrubbing groceries and begging our skeptical relatives to stay safe. But for the unafflicted, this would merely be a short vacation from real life.
As the weeks turned to months, the novelty (unlike the pandemic pounds) quickly wore off. Weekends wasting away on a swinging hammock in my backyard. Takeout food and masks. Getting jabbed by a National Guardsman in the Wolstein Center, where hundreds systematically shuffled in and out of the makeshift mass clinic. Having a panic attack at Blossom Music Center on Sept. 7, 2021, while seeing Dead & Co. at my first large public gathering.
Some of us thrived and others, like me, suffered in isolation. Still, looking back, I’m amazed at how quickly we adapted, creating new processes at work and always being aware of six-foot distance. Whether restaurants with takeout, breweries with hand sanitizer or makers with hand-sewn masks, businesses turned on a dime to serve customers’ needs, create revenue and keep people safe. We can never forget that more than 7 million people died from COVID-19.
Despite the pandemic technically ending on May 5, 2023, the dust of the aftermath has not settled. Inflation remains high, and businesses — especially restaurants — are still fighting to stay afloat, potentially due to habits changing during the pandemic. The long-term effects on school-age children are still unknown, and fewer kids got college degrees in the years that followed that pandemic. Houses are now 47% more expensive, as pandemic demand exposed the true breadth of our housing shortage. The fabrics of our cities and daily lives are still being rearranged by working from home, the flexibility of which is hard to imagine living without. Most importantly, people are still dying or dealing with the symptoms of long COVID.
All of this seems normal now, but it was not five years ago. With COVID and vaccines being such a hot-button issue, sometimes I wonder if we’ve even reflected on it enough to begin to understand what we went through. Likely, the true toll of COVID won’t be understood for decades. That’s why, five years later, we refuse to forget the March that changed the rest of our lives.
Related: What to Know About Bird Flu in Ohio
Local musicians and venues found new ways to perform. Ben Gage, an Akron musician, created Gage House Sessions to share his music and collaborate with other artists in a livestream
News anchors, such as then-WKYC anchor Sara Shookman, taught themselves to double as videographers, shooting live shots in their basements.
Sarah and Sean McManamon didn’t need a wedding venue to celebrate their love, with friends and family scattered in the yard and following along on Zoom
The future chefs of Cordelia and former chefs of Salt created Cleveland Family Meal to raise funds and offer free food to out-of-work hospitality pros.
RELATED: James Beard Names Four Cleveland Chefs Semi-Finalists
Armed with a truck full of more than 5,000 flowers, wedding florist Andrew Poulson, owner of Andrew Thomas Design in Wooster, decorated the Edgewater Park Cleveland sign in a viral moment of hope.
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