Pandemic Changes: What's Gotten Worse Since 2020?
It would be a huge understatement to say that the COVID-19 pandemic had an impact on individuals, families, and society as a whole.
At some points, the lockdowns, the mask mandates, and the fear of getting sick felt like they would never end. But of course, it did.
Here we are, five years later in 2025, and for the most part, the pandemic feels like a concern of the past. But there are still many things that were affected by it that haven't yet returned to normal.
So we want to hear from you, the BuzzFeed Community. What is something that the pandemic ruined or made worse than before?
Do you feel that either yours or your child's education has been compromised?
Did the pandemic ruin your typical in-office work environments?
Have you noticed financial changes when it comes to attending events or the price of goods and services?
Was socializing with others way easier before the pandemic than it is now?
If there's something that comes to mind, comment on this post or add an anonymous comment in the form below!
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COVID isn't over. RFK Jr.'s vaccine recommendation is a terrible choice.
The recent U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' announcement to no longer recommend the COVID-19 vaccine for pregnant women and children may be one of the worst public health decisions in the history of the United States, having a long-lasting detrimental impact on the future of our society, our children. The logic behind this decision is obscure at best, which may be why the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention referred questions regarding this policy to the U.S. Health Secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and to the U.S. Dept of Health and Human Services. For women and children, COVID-19 can be a serious disease, and COVID-19 vaccines and boosters help protect the pregnant mother, newborns and children. Pregnancy is a risk factor for severe COVID-19. The British Medical Journal published a large review of studies and concluded that COVID-19 increases the risk of maternal death and severe maternal morbidities (e.g., mechanical ventilation, thromboembolic disease). On one hand, the federal government recommends a COVID-19 booster for those over the age of 65 and for younger adults and children who have at least one risk factor, but then not recommend for those who are at risk because they are pregnant. COVID-19 vaccinations have been observed to effectively increase antibody levels against SARS-CoV-2 (the virus which causes COVID-19) and reduce the chances of a premature delivery. COVID-19 boosters are also safe during pregnancy and have not been found to be associated with spontaneous abortions. The decision to withhold COVID-19 vaccinations for children demonstrates a myopic approach to science and a lack of critical thinking. It appears policymakers are only focused on the prevention of death and hospitalization, defining this outcome as severe disease and assuming everything else is mild. This approach ignores the severe and chronic disabling effects of long COVID in children. It is true that on average children have milder COVID-19 infections and develop long COVID less commonly than adults. However, milder does not mean mild, and less common does not mean uncommon. It is estimated that approximately 4% of children will develop long COVID, compared to 10% to 26% for adults. This is way too high of an incidence for children, especially when re-infections are all too common. Long COVID in children can be serious. COVID-19 increases the chances of a child developing diabetes, other seemingly unrelated infections (for example respiratory syncytial virus [RSV] infections) and cognitive, mental health problems. Vaccinations have been found to reduce the chances of children developing long COVID. So maybe we should recommend and not discourage their use. Children can also spread the disease and place others at risk. This was known early on in the pandemic. I'm not sure how the public began to believe children did not pose a risk to others. Children are germ magnets, a life principle held by many parents and grandparents. Children readily spread every respiratory disease that I can think of. Why would COVID be any different? Opinion: Measles misinformation is hurting our kids while Trump government self-destructs How does our nation confront these public health risks? Simple, blame problems on lockdowns, ignore epidemiological evidence and quit counting cases. Then recommend against pregnant mothers and children receiving the vaccine. Clinical studies, medical record data and data from the V-Safe program have documented the vaccine's safety. VAERS (Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System) is not intended or designed to determine the risks of complications, only to identify potential complications to be investigated. Similar to Facebook, inaccurate or malicious reports can also be entered by AI bots and foreign adversaries to stir social discontent. In general, vaccines are watered-down infections. They boost your immunity while markedly decreasing, but not completely eliminating, severe complications. The mRNA vaccine does not change one's DNA, and the dosage of the spike protein is much smaller than one receives from an infection. If vaccines are as dangerous as social media disinformation says, then multiply these dangers by several magnitudes when an infection develops. If one is worried about mRNA, then obtain the protein-based vaccine, Novavax, which may have lower side effects and should have better standardization of the delivery dosage. Opinion: We have money to fight Kentucky's opioid crisis. Let's not waste it. We soon will be at risk of facing another wave of COVID from the Nb.1.8.1 variant, which is currently spreading across Southeast Asia and just landed in the United States. This variant has increased infectivity and immune-evasive properties. Everyone should become vaccinated and up to date with their COVID-19 boosters, including pregnant women and children. COVID is not over, it is still dangerous, and can cause serious long-term sequelae that may not be evident for months or years after the acute infection. We need to update our nation's vaccination policy, not based on political populism, but to reflect the realities of the world we are living in. Agree or disagree? Submit a letter to the editor. Kevin Kavanagh is a retired physician from Somerset, Kentucky and chairman of Health Watch USA. This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: I'm a retired doctor. Kennedy's COVID policy will hurt US. | Opinion
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Kentucky bourbon raking in money doesn't mean we can ignore alcohol's risks
Brian Edwards' op-ed ('Kentucky's bourbon business is vital to our economy. Don't let DC dry it up") seems wrongheaded. If there is a near-prohibition lobby as he claims, I, too, would disagree and think them Menken's Puritans. While I will make the argument for consumption here, doing so on economic grounds for a substance that the National Institutes for Health estimates costs the nation $249 billion and results in 178,000 annual deaths according to the Center for Disease Control seems antithetical. To start, the science is clear: 'We cannot talk about a so-called safe level of alcohol use. It doesn't matter how much you drink – the risk to the drinker's health starts from the first drop of any alcoholic beverage. The only thing that we can say for sure is that the more you drink, the more harmful it is … the less you drink, the safer it is' (Dr. Carina Ferreira-Borges, World Health Organization, 2022). Further, the purported health benefits of alcohol use have been repudiated. From JAMA ('Association of Habitual Alcohol Intake With Risk of Cardiovascular Disease', March 2022): 'Observational studies have repeatedly demonstrated a lower risk of cardiovascular disease with light to moderate alcohol intake compared with either abstinence or heavy consumption, suggesting J- or U-shaped epidemiologic associations. However, the observed cardiac benefits of alcohol have been hypothesized to be the product of residual confounding (variables) because of favorable lifestyle, socioeconomic and behavioral factors that tend to coincide with modest alcohol intake.' In sum, there is no safe use and no cardiovascular benefit of alcohol. Opinion: COVID isn't over. RFK Jr.'s vaccine recommendation is a terrible choice. However, there is evidence of human use of alcohol from 900,000 years ago, and alcohol is a well-established part of life in America. The National Academies notes that many alcohol-containing beverages provide flavors and sensations that people enjoy, and the effect on how we act and respond in social situations are two of several reasons for widespread alcohol use in our culture. Concerning responsible drinking, the data are split. The United States Census Bureau estimates that there are 258.3 million adult Americans. The National Institutes for Health estimates that 63% use alcohol at least on occasion, or 177 million Americans imbibe. Among these, the Centers for Disease Control estimates 29.6% of young adults and over 10% of seniors binge drink by consuming toxic amounts in one sitting. The CDC estimates that there are, separately, 15 million heavy drinkers who drink beyond moderation every week. The NIH estimates that there are 54 million Americans who need treatment for Substance Use Disorder. 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These drivers are guided by rules of the road and formal laws that guide their driving behavior, and the manufacture of automobiles is very regulated for safety purposes. Nonetheless, there were 6.1 million vehicular crashes, resulting in 1.7 million injuries and 39.3 thousand deaths in 2021. This analogy falls apart at some point, as all do, but the point is made that alcohol use is not the only widely popular, risk-taking behavior in America. Applause to Mr. Edwards for contributing to the public debate. We would agree about a near-prohibition agenda if, as he says, such exists. America and most of Europe have tried prohibition. We know how that ends. Further, regulating the amount of consumption would be a regulatory nightmare. However, holding up the economic benefit as a reason to ignore the science is not the way to go. Better for the alcoholic beverage industry to recognize and promote responsible use and take those steps within their ken to reduce heavy and binge drinking. A market of 100 million American adults should suffice. For the nation as a whole, increasing access to treatment would be a far better use of our time and treasure. Agree or disagree? Submit a letter to the editor. Gene Gilchrist is the chief executive officer for Stay Clean, a cloud-based addiction treatment and recovery community. This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: Kentucky shouldn't ignore alcohol's health risks for profit | Opinion
Yahoo
an hour ago
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Chicago program to light up dark streets is gateway to energy efficiency
The 79th Street corridor is one of the busiest thoroughfares on Chicago's Southeast Side. But many of its adjacent side streets are poorly lit at night, posing hazards ranging from inconvenient to dangerous. For instance, obscured house numbers can confuse both delivery drivers and emergency responders. And higher levels of crime have been correlated with poorly lit streets, making it feel unsafe for children to play outdoors after sunset or for pedestrians to walk alone in the dark. 'For those people who are going to work in the winter at five o'clock in the morning and it's pitch black out there, yeah, they're scared. They're walking down the middle of the street,' said Sharon 'Sy' Lewis, founder and executive director of Meadows Eastside Community Resource Organization, commonly referred to by its acronym of MECRO. But block by block, things are changing, in no small part due to Light Up the Night, administered by MECRO in collaboration with the energy-efficiency program of Chicago utility ComEd. The initiative aims to solve the problem of dark streets by outfitting the front and back of homes with energy-efficient lights that automatically turn on at night and off during the day. Light Up the Night was launched in 2019 as a pilot program in the South Shore community of the city's South Side with an initial goal of providing Energy Star-certified LED light bulbs for up to 300 residences. The program had to pause during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, but eventually, Light Up the Night was able to achieve that goal and then some. Lewis said it has served more than 500 homes so far, and she is pursuing funding to expand. MECRO staff or volunteers install the bulbs into existing outlets at no charge to residents. Lewis said this proactive approach yields better results than just distributing packages of light bulbs and other energy-saving devices that may or may not get used. For Lewis, the installation process provides an opening to talk to residents about other energy-efficient measures, like weatherization or purchasing new appliances. The upgrades, often eligible for rebates to offset the cost, can dramatically reduce utility bills. This is particularly impactful in communities like those surrounding the 79th Street corridor, in which many residents spend a big portion of their income on energy bills, largely due to predominantly older and often poorly insulated housing stock. 'Light Up the Night is not just a gateway to safety, it's a gateway to energy savings. And it starts with the little things. And because we installed it, instead of sending them an 'energy box,' then we know that it's working. When you drive down that street, you know that it's working, you see that impact,' Lewis said. A minimum of 75% participation is required per block, and each homeowner or renter must provide consent before installation can begin, Lewis said. 'If the average block has 36 homes on it, if we get 15 on each side, at minimum, we have really created an impact for the block,' Lewis said. 'So now you have the whole community lighting up at once [at dusk], and then they all go off in the morning.' A legacy of segregation and disinvestment has left residents of predominantly Black communities like the Southeast Side with a strong distrust of outsiders. As a lifelong resident and visible activist, Lewis has an advantage when it comes to engaging with residents, but obtaining initial buy-in around South Shore was still a challenge. 'Getting people to sign up, that was a problem because we can't not have data on where we are leaving the lights. … [But] people didn't want to provide their information,' Lewis said. To get the program up and running, Lewis worked with neighborhood block clubs to overcome apprehension and to identify particular streets in the South Shore community that would benefit the most from the new lights. She also worked with other community organizations, especially those focused on violence prevention. It was easier to start up the program in Austin, a neighborhood on the city's West Side, where, also in 2019, Lewis collaborated with Steve Robinson, executive director of the Northwest Austin Council, with whom she had worked previously on a number of initiatives. Chicago police officers assigned to that community were also enthusiastic about the program, and helped Lewis identify blocks where adding lights would be especially impactful, she said. '[Robinson] invited me over there. It was a whole change. It was a sea change. It was amazing. [The police] were excited about it. They were looking forward to the change we were doing,' Lewis said. Wherever it has been implemented, this small-scale program has had an outsized positive impact, Lewis said. Additional lighting on front porches and entryways also enhances safety for visitors to the community, including service providers like mail carriers, delivery people, and rideshare drivers. Likewise, floodlights installed at the rear of a home or apartment building add to the ambient lighting in often dark alleyways, which results in fewer garage break-ins and instances of illegal dumping of garbage, Lewis said. MECRO does much more than install lights. The organization also helps guide new and existing small business owners, conducting educational seminars and offering technical assistance. And it provides residents with referrals for energy-efficiency improvements and other sustainability-related resources they might not otherwise know about. But Light Up the Night remains part of the organization's core mission. While illuminating areas that used to be dark is the program's first objective, once the new bulbs have replaced older, less-efficient lights, the lower utility bills can be eye-opening for residents. When people see those savings, 'they start thinking, 'Well, what if I get all energy-efficiency light bulbs? Hmm. Okay, now my bill has gone really down. What if I do the weatherization program? Now my bill is really down,'' Lewis said.
