The Yearly Ping

Well.

It’s been a while. And I know the Ping is where people look for up-to-date, quality, fresh content. But it’s worthwhile to note that, well, there’s been a pandemic. You may have heard of it! And it’s thoroughly changed everything but somehow everyone is hoping that things will go back to the way they were.

And just when we thought we got to a good place – and in the U.S., we did, in spring/summer! decent even! – Omicron came along and as of this writing is just <em>everywhere.</em> In my Zoom calls with coworkers this week, I’d say an overwhelming majority either have COVID, had it, have/had family members with it, or some combination of the above. It’s staggeringly fast at spreading.

I thought it could be useful to look back at the early days of the pandemic here in the U.S., reaching back to March of 2020, when it went from “Oh man, this could be something” to “Oh shit, this is a big deal”. Here are a few of those memories, and things I’ve learned over the course of this so far.

• My last day in the office was March 12th. It was the same day that my son’s school switched to remote instruction, and I remember that as I was packing my monitor and electronics to take home, a coworker joked, “Well, see you in six months!” LITTLE DID HE KNOW
• I did a decent amount of bread baking in the March-April 2020 timeframe. That fell away quickly.
• I somehow read fewer books. Not proud of this one.
• I learned that Zoom fatigue is quite real! I’ve always done a lot of Zoom meetings in my current job, but of course that just went up in March, 2020. Initially personal Zooms were kinda fun and weird… now I find I have little energy for them.
• I did repaint my home office, so that’s a win. No one likes pastel yellow walls.

Things are, of course, different here at the start of 2022. I’m just a smidge hopeful, despite the Omicron awfulness. I’ll go out on a limb and toss a few predictions here, because the Yearly Ping is pretty good at this sort of thing, and I’m not an expert.

• I suspect Omicron will rip through the US through January, and start to fade away come February.
• This won’t quite be the year where COVID becomes endemic. Maybe 2023 or 24. Not quite yet.
• This all will be fairly seasonal: pretty bad in the winter, lower in the summer.
• Long term effects aren’t going anywhere. Here’s hoping they aren’t severe.
• We’ll continue with concerts and outdoor events and the like in the warmer months.
• Masks aren’t going anywhere for a while yet.

Hang in there, folks. In the meantime, at least we have the metaverse to keep us company.

Posted in Uuuuugggghhhh