Madison Kwiecinski – Editor-in-Chief 

Mvk5945@psu.edu

The 2020 COVID-19 pandemic came with many startling and sudden changes. Buildings and Businesses closed, stores ran out of essentials, and many people lost their sources of income. The lasting ramifications of this pandemic are still very much being felt, with hundreds of people still regularly contracting the disease. 

Many suffered tremendous economic losses, losing homes, businesses and facing difficult hardship. Thousands of others lost loved ones, facing the ultimate loss the pandemic brought on people. Everyday life was changed. 

For the duration of this article I am going to talk about the lighter, everyday things people lost, and the things that have been permanently changed because of the coronavirus pandemic. While I wish to address the more mundane effects the pandemic has had on regular life today, that is not meant to diminish the large and unimaginable hardships many people faced. 

For starters, the education system suffered and is suffering dramatically. Teachers who had reached an age where they could possibly retire by the time the pandemic began largely did, leaving a massive need for educators across the country. Also, children missed months of learning with various schools nationwide still sometimes choosing to conduct classes online rather than in-person. This has generally put many students developmentally behind for their grade level, with test scores showing this gap in education across the country. 

Education as a whole has also permanently changed. I was from a poor school district, who prior to the pandemic would have had no choice but to cancel school when weather demanded. Due to the pandemic and school cancellations, every student in the district received a computer and now the days of two hour delays and cancellations are forever gone, as any school day can be moved online. 

As someone who graduated in 2020, it is also important to note we faced dramatically different end of the year expectations in high school. We did not have graduation, do any of the typical senior events, but we also did not have to present our senior projects or finish any classwork from March on. 

The grades who came after mine have had SAT requirements waived, with similar options being available to those applying to graduate programs. Generally, we are just in an era where the education system has been disrupted and it is important to note people may have been disproportionately affected by these. 

Also, general nightlife and social norms have been altered by the pandemic. For obvious reasons, it is viewed much more seriously to go out in public while feeling ill now. Some people look at others strangely for wearing masks, while others view it  strange that people do not wear them. 

I also long for the days before the pandemic when businesses tended to have longer hours. I miss being able to walk into a grocery store in the middle of the night. I want to have the ability to go through a drive through at any point of night.

I long for the days when movie theaters regularly offered showing times later than 10:00 p.m. allowing for you to make a late night out of it. I miss when there were more places to order food from after eleven at night than taco bell and the lone pizza place near you that recently extended its hours. 

So I pose the questions now, will some of these things inevitably revert over the next several years, or are these permanent changes? Will businesses extend hours again? Will schools continue to place classes online when it is more convenient?

Regardless of how people’s political views on the pandemic may differ, many essential changes were made in order to attempt to minimize the lives claimed by the virus. The question now really comes down to whether these things will have a lasting impact on society, or whether they will be talked about as ancient history in a few decades.