Four years later, Covid has reshaped the lives of many Americans

Jessie Thompson, a 36-year-old mother of two in Chicago, is reminded every day of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Sometimes it happens when she picks up her children from daycare and lets them play in a neighborhood park on the way home. Other times it’s when she steps out of the shower at 7 a.m. after a midweek workout.

“I always think, ‘In my previous life I had to be on a train in 15 minutes,’” says Ms. Thompson, a manager at United Airlines.

A hybrid work schedule has replaced her daily commute to the company’s headquarters in downtown Chicago, giving Ms. Thompson more time with her children and a deeper connection with her neighbors. “The pandemic is such a negative memory,” she said. “But I have a ray of goodness in it.”

For much of the United States, the pandemic is now a thing of the past, four years into the Trump administration declared a national emergency because the virus was spreading unchecked. But for many Americans, the consequences of the pandemic are still a prominent part of their daily lives.

In interviews, some people said the changes are subtle but unmistakable: Their world feels a little smaller, with less fun and fewer crowds. Parents who started homeschooling their children never stopped. Many people continue to mourn family members and spouses who have died from Covid or complications from the coronavirus.

The World Health Organization removed the designation of a global health emergency in May 2023, but millions of people who have survived the virus are suffering from a long Covid-19 crisis, a mysterious and often debilitating condition that causes fatigue, muscle pain and causes cognitive decline.

One common feeling has emerged. The changes wrought by the pandemic now feel permanent, a shift that may have permanently reshaped American life.

Before the pandemic, Melody Condon, a marketing specialist in Vancouver, Washington, who is immunocompromised, said she had a stronger sense of trust in other people.

“Unfounded or not, I believed that for the most part, others would take small actions to keep me and people like me safe,” Ms Condon, 32, said.

But now she has encountered people who resist getting a Covid test or wearing a mask in some situations.

“What they are communicating is that they don’t care about my health and my life,” Ms. Condon said. “I have lost so much trust in others.”

For Paris Dolfman of Roswell, Georgia, a mild Covid infection in 2022 turned into an excruciating case of long-term Covid-19 that has turned her life upside down.

Ms Dolfman, 31, is now largely bedridden and dependent on her mother for complete care. But she said her attitude to life had broadened, despite her painful condition.

“One day I looked out the window and saw happy birds on a branch, and I imagined what it would be like to have the freedom to do what your body wants to do,” she said. “I decided to focus on the smaller things. Not to focus on the big picture, but to focus on the little things that I have.”

Clint Newman of Albuquerque spent the first year of the pandemic in isolation, alone in his apartment.

“I haven’t touched another human being for 12 months,” he said. “It was brutal. It has scarred me quite deeply.”

Mr Newman said he believes he is seeing the lasting effects of the pandemic all around him.

“I see it in people’s anger, in people’s aggressive driving,” he said. “It seems like there is a lot of sadness and anger in the world right now. And I think a lot of that can be traced back to the lockdown.”

After emerging from isolation, Mr. Newman realized that the trajectory of his life had also changed. He decided he didn’t want to be lonely anymore. After joining a dating app, he met a woman, Shay, and the two got married in 2022.

“The pandemic is something that I carry with me all the time,” he said.

Four years after she got Covid, Cindy Esch of Liberty Lake, Washington, said she had to settle for a different life than the one she lived before.

She and her husband often went on adventures, especially on their sailboat Passion. But her case of long Covid was so difficult – she often feels intense fatigue that leaves her exhausted for days – that the couple were forced to sell their two-storey home and move to a house without stairs.

Doctors have told Mrs. Esch that she and her husband must be extremely careful so that she does not contract the virus a second time, which could further endanger her health.

“I just never want to get Covid again – it’s something we think about all the time,” she said. “It’s part of my daily life. It has become part of who my husband and I are.”