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First there were the sirens. New Yorkers are accustomed to darkness, even blackouts, but the silence pierced only by the wail of emergency vehicles was unheard of until two years ago this week when Gotham went into lockdown. Soon after, huge swaths of Americans, especially in our cities, were parked in their dwellings, facing a form of self-imposed isolation none had ever experienced.
In the beginning there was not only vast unity on the temporary and measured use of lockdowns, there was even a perverse kind of excitement to it. There were supplies to procure, remote work arrangements to be made, Zoom cocktail hours to organize and schoolrooms to fashion in our abodes. But soon both the unity and the novelty wore off, as a deep winter of lonely quietude fell upon America.
TSA TO EXTEND COVID MAS MANDATE FOR ANOTHER MONTH
Today as we mark this anniversary the crisis feels like it is finally behind us, though thousands are still dying from or with COVID, depending on how you count and who you ask. Almost to a person we have been changed by the experience.
For some, normal lives were thrust into activism, for or against restrictive measures. Some have not set foot in their offices since the virus descended like a cloud. For still others, the consequences at the bottoms of bottles and tips of needles have been destructive and deadly.
At their peak the lockdowns denied many the most basic human rituals and experiences. Those who died alone with final glances at loved ones on impersonal screens will never have a chance to die again with the grace of human touch. Those who could not bury them with honor will long live in that loss.
KAROL MARCOWICZ: BIG BUREAUCRACY FUMBLED COVID AND OUR FAITH IN INSTITUTIONS
Even the less dire denials of church, bowling leagues or the book club left so many in a lonely place they had never been before. The irony was that even as our abiding need for human contact with others became so…
Source : foxnews
