COVID – 5 years later

Somebody mentioned over the weekend that it has been 5 years since COVID hit the world – basically since March 2020.

Wow, we have actually traveled through history to get on the other side – kind of. At the time, when we were first locking down or trying to navigate the new world with a highly contagious and dangerous virus, I was certain we would somehow castigate China later on. China was not being forthright on what was going on over there; they did not warn us early on.

But today, it is like we have forgotten. Or maybe we want to ignore the past.

The person who mentioned the anniversary was talking to another person and she said nobody talks about the 1 million plus have died in the US. For some reason we just don’t want to acknowledge it.

The two ladies also talked about how the US changed after going through the pandemic. We didn’t change for the good, in my opinion.

Pandemic Impact

To me, it seems like people went crazy during and after. They were those who went berserk in stores because they had to wear masks. Others didn’t want to stay home; they wanted to be able to congregate in churches and restaurants. Then there were others who saw conspiracies in the vaccine.

I totally get the fear of lockdown because many people needed to make money and shutting down was essentially depriving people of income. That was a very difficult situation.

Even obtaining essential goods such as groceries or electricity was necessary as a way of surviving. Someone has to ship the goods and sell them. That can’t stop.

Those were difficult decisions to make.

I also understand the fear of the vaccine because of the rush in development of the vaccines. Here, the government was asking people to have faith that the vaccine works.

But once the government proved that the vaccine works (and there were many demonstrations of people receiving the vaccine and suffering from no ill effects), people should have had faith in the doctors. The vaccine was the one thing the Trump administration did right – the administration managed to develop the vaccine under stressful conditions and get it working. That was amazing science.

Instead, today we face more and more anti-vaxxers. Even high-level people in society are projecting the belief that taking vaccines may be dangerous. School vaccinations are one area where we are seeing the impact of the anti-vaxxers.

Measles Outbreak

Today, it has been reported that less and less people are vaccinating their children with normal school vaccines such as chicken pox, measles, and mumps. Out in West Texas, there is a measles outbreak. The latest news from the CDC as of 3/17/2025 is that there have been 300 confirmed measles cases.

The outbreak is occurring amongst the unvaccinated. About 95% of the cases are unvaccinated.

“It’s unbelievably contagious. It’s the most contagious disease we’ve ever seen,” said Danelle Fisher, MD, a pediatrician at Providence Saint John’s Health Center in Santa Monica, CA.

David Mills, Healthline, “Measles Cases Rising in 14 States: How to Protect Yourself During the Outbreak”, March 17, 2025

Measles is said to be the most highly contagious of all diseases. One person can easily infect 17 other people before knowing that they are already infected. The only way to prevent the spread of the measles is by vaccination. Due to the high infection rate, about 95% of the population needs to be vaccinated against measles in order to break the spread. Those who can’t be vaccinated are the immunocompromised or those undergoing medical treatment.

And back in 2000, it was thought to be essentially eliminated.

Since the pandemic, it appears that people have become crazy (for lack of a better description). Parents are foregoing vaccination for their children. Is that because they have transferred their fear or questions about the coronavirus vaccine onto other vaccinations?

Maybe.

It looks like we will suffer more and more outbreak with some children dying until parents decide that maybe vaccinations aren’t so bad after all.