I hoped pandemic might spark more human decency

March 11 marked three years since the World Health Organization declared a pandemic. And while it’s hardly something to celebrate — oh, a new box of N95 masks, you really shouldn’t have — I did find myself reflecting on what has changed over the intervening 36 months.

And what hasn’t.

I was in Mexico with my kids when the poop hit the proverbial whirring blades, triggering a mad and ultimately futile scramble to try and find our way home as fast as possible. When we left, there was heightened concern but things were more or less normal. When we finally made it back, the airport was a ghost town and toilet paper and hand-sanitizer were suddenly hard to come by.

I remember those early days of the pandemic being the scariest of them all. So much was unknown and I felt helpless. The severity of the virus was still a mystery and the protective measures we now take for granted — masks, social distancing, vaccines — were still months or years away. I was concerned for the safety of my family, myself and my community.

But I also remember being strangely optimistic. I was hopeful that we as a society would set aside our petty grievances and work together for the greater good — a.k.a. making sure as many of us survived as possible. Perhaps we’d reevaluate the costs of late-stage capitalism, start putting people and communities ahead of corporate interests, invest in much-needed improvements in health care, scientific research and looking after our most vulnerable populations.

Yeah, I probably should have known better.

Instead, the rich got richer by taking advantage of the opportunities created by the pandemic, while the marginalized and most vulnerable paid the heaviest price — often with their lives. Those of us who could work from home bought webcams, upgraded our internet and complained about having to spend so much time with our children. Meanwhile, those in the service industry lost their jobs or risked their health to keep things running. Seniors in long-term care facilities died in appalling numbers.

Important discussions on public health measures devolved in specious debates over personal “freedoms”; the need for vaccines and wearing of masks compared, somehow, to real examples of historical oppression. Conspiracy theories got as much attention as real science. Instead of coming together, society split even further apart.

Three years in, the pandemic feels like it’s more or less over. Masks are mostly a memory, booster shots now largely an afterthought. Case numbers and death tolls aren’t being recorded and that ignorance allows us to continue on with, if not our old lives exactly, then a reasonable facsimile.

I suppose that’s something to be celebrated. My family and most of my circle of friends came through COVID more or less unscathed (knock on wood) and I feel incredibly lucky. But at the same time, the changes I’d hoped for — or even just a minimal expansion of basic human decency — have not materialized in any way. In fact, the opposite feels true.

That isn’t the real tragedy of the pandemic: too many people actually died for abstract consequences to trump them. But it does feel like a missed opportunity, that something better could have come from all of this.

It didn’t. But at least we still have toilet paper — even if it’s now more expensive than ever.