RELIC

March 15, 2025, marks five years since the United States enacted a nationwide lockdown in response to COVID-19. The unprecedented pandemic had already prompted emergency responses from many countries before March 2020. For the next three years, Americans remained in lockdown, divided about what to believe and whom to trust. Common sense was swapped for hysteria, skepticism, and paranoia. Social distancing and quarantine culture upended the immutable, ushering in a new way of life with seemingly equal permanence. Few endured unscathed as the world retreated behind closed doors, but none were more greatly affected than those in the medical field. As Americans denied the danger of the epidemic, hospitals overflowed with COVID victims, and overextended staff were constantly exposed to risk.

Industries not reliant on in-person operations quickly adapted to function online, accelerating the broader shift towards a digital landscape. Landfills brimmed as we tore through our new disposable lifestyle, while wildlife rebounded as humanity hunkered down.

Despite its feeling of heavy permanence, lockdown was eventually lifted; the world resumed, and COVID-19 was “over”. Though no less relevant, the lessons ingrained through years of quarantine soon stood forgotten: Masks and other personal protective equipment help prevent the spread of illness. Nature will heal if we slow down. Community means something - before it is stripped away. Critical thinking must be preserved.

What wasn’t forgotten was our newfound symbiotic dependence on technology. Current headlines in an ever-blinking and buzzing stream of global consciousness have replaced the urgency of the pandemic. Although the upheaval of COVID-19 has passed, an underlying virus of cognition continues to echo from sea to shining sea. America has changed irrevocably. The epidemic of misinformation-fueled ignorance and derision engulfs our country still; like masks, soon our democracy may be little more than a vestige from a time remembered.