Today marks two years of the Covid pandemic. On this day two years ago, the World Health Organization declared that COVID-19 was a global pandemic.
In two years, the global death toll has surpassed 6 million. In the United States, 950,000 people have died.
Since 2020, a lot has changed. There have been lockdowns worldwide to try and prevent deaths. There have been a series of concerning variants, the main three being Alpha, Delta and Omicron, the most recent wave that led to the highest peak in U.S. daily cases since the beginning of the pandemic.
The U.S. is now nearing its lowest number of cases since the 2021 drop in cases. But there is still an average of 1,500 deaths a day.
Vaccines have been developed in this amount of time, but the U.S. has one of the lowest vaccination rates in wealthy countries. Only 65 percent of the U.S. population has gotten fully vaccinated, despite the fact that vaccines remain more than 90 percent effective against severe cases that cause hospitalizations and death.
Covid quickly became a partisan issue, with Republican states going with few to no restrictions, and promoting anti-vaccination conspiracies. The states with the lowest vaccination rates tend to be Republican states, and they also have the highest Covid rates.
Now, state by state, Democrat states have begun to drop restrictions now that vaccination rates are up and death rates are down.
But there are still mask requirements in some places, including on airplanes and in some schools.
The economy has also changed. The pandemic vanquished supply chains, backing up cargo ships, completely emptying grocery stores, and more. Offices closed and either laid workers off or had them work remotely. Women were impacted the most, with more than 5 million women losing their jobs. Unemployment rates were highest for women of color. Now, companies are bringing employees back to the office, to very mixed reviews.
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