How COVID has changed our lives, 5 years later
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Customers wait to enter the Edina Trader Joe's in April 2020. Photo: Glen Stubbe/Star Tribune via Getty Images
Five years ago this week, Gov. Tim Walz first declared a statewide emergency over the newly-declared COVID-19 pandemic — and Axios Twin Cities readers have shared how the fallout impacted them.
The big picture: The virus upended our daily lives. It sent us into quarantine, closed our offices and schools, introduced us to the N95 mask, and for a time seemed to transform every face-to-face interaction into a potentially fatal health risk.
Catch up quick: Saturday marks the five-year anniversary of Walz's order sending home nearly 1 million K–12 students — the second in a series of escalating directives in response to the spreading virus.
- On March 19, health officials confirmed Minnesota's first COVID death. Less than a week later, Walz signed the first "stay at home" order.
State of play: COVID itself remains in our lives. In the last year, the virus hospitalized more than 18,000 Minnesotans and killed 777 people — almost ten times more deaths than influenza caused.
- Beyond that, readers say the pandemic still shapes their lives.
What you're saying: "In hindsight, I choose to be thankful," reader Julie J. wrote us.
- "I got COVID but I got better," she said. "I had a white-collar job so I could transition to working at home pretty easily — unlike so many frontline workers who lacked that luxury."
💔 Debra Q. observed that in some families, the pandemic exposed lasting divisions that "set off a continuing litany of differences."
- Strain over "COVID, vaccines in general, immigration, abortion, climate change, etc. [is] all part of the family dynamic now," she wrote.
🏡 Wendy M. "became a total introvert who loves being home."
- Wendy also quit drinking during the first winter wave. "Four years' sobriety," she wrote, "but my anxiety is off the charts."
- The pandemic even altered how she shops: "I'm still hoarding more of the things we ran out of — just in case. I'll never run out of essentials (like toilet paper, masks, M&Ms, etc.) again."
🎙 Kerri A. changed careers, moving into voice acting — which she now does entirely from home.
🚛 Ruth J. decided to retire from teaching and move to Minnesota to be closer to family.
- "Now we attend every concert, basketball game, play, and school event our grands are in," she said.
🙏 Julie J. started playing trivia online during lockdown and still meets in person with the same team.
- Looking back, she said, "I know I was one of the lucky ones."