The coronavirus pandemic has reached the one-year mark. March 11 was the day that changed everything — the coronavirus outbreak became an official pandemic, and celebrities like Tom Hanks tested positive. It was a game-changing day in all of our lives.
It’s been a year since then. We’ve been in this pandemic for 365 days. And so much has happened. Many work from home now. Others wear masks for eight hours a day in grocery stores. TikTok trends became national trends. There was an election. Just a weird year.
People are — oddly — nostalgic for it. As Vox explained, people on TikTok were sharing their nostalgia for the early days of quarantine when TikTok started to blow up and “The Tiger King” was a household name.
“As much as TikTok has contributed to the dizzying acceleration of cultural trends, it also acts as a handy time capsule for various phenomena, a tool to define the past days and weeks and months of pandemic monotony,” according to Vox.
It’s been a journey the last year. But it’s one that has changed our lives forever. We will always look back at this pandemic — likely for the worst. Millions of people have died, and that’s something we can never forget.
The pandemic will linger in our culture and our vernacular for years to come. Plenty of phrases we use now all stem from the pandemic.
Here’s a look at 15 phrases you won’t have said before the pandemic. Or, if you did, they wouldn’t have made sense.
“Where were you on March 11?”
This is the day the pandemic really began. The World Health Organization declared the coronavirus outbreak a pandemic. Utah Jazz star Rudy Gobert tested positive, as did Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson. And former President Donald Trump declared a travel ban on people coming from Europe. It’s a day many will always remember — including where they were that night.
“I loved the bubble!”
Imagine telling someone there would be an NBA bubble back in 2018. Imagine telling them that the NBA would take a four-month break, only to return in a “bubble” environment in Walt Disney World. It was a unique championship experience we’d be unlikely to see again.
“OK, let me hop on a Zoom call real quick.”
OK, Zoom and Microsoft Teams were around before the pandemic. I had even begun using it for work already. But it didn’t really jump into the cultural atmosphere until the pandemic when everyone in an office job was forced to work from home. It’s a phrase you likely wouldn’t have used years ago, and it makes so much more sense now.
“This business has 25% reduced capacity.”
The commonplace decision to reduce capacity at businesses only started because of the pandemic. Maybe businesses would lower capacity for a deep clean or some issue within the building. But an entire city or county having 25% reduced capacity? That definitely wouldn’t have made sense three years ago.
“Face coverings and masks are required.”
Businesses started to require face coverings and masks because of the coronavirus outbreak. That was something we’d never really seen before, and now we all know what it means. We know we have to wear a mask into a store and protect others from the coronavirus. But it’s something we never thought to do before.
“Due to contact tracing, you have to get tested.”
Again, this phrase would not have made sense three years ago. When was the last time you were contacted because you were exposed to someone who had the flu or a cold? Contact tracing became a huge deal in 2020, and it’s something we never experienced en masse.
“Can I go to Disneyland yet?”
Disneyland is still closed. Yes. Disneyland. That’s something that would have been imaginable in 2019. Did anyone think Disneyland would be closed for an entire year? Maybe a day or two. At most, a week as it prepares for something major. But an entire year? That would seem so wild.
“I’m heading to a virtual concert this weekend.”
I don’t have data on this, but virtual concerts were few and far between before the pandemic. Now, so many artists, celebrities and groups hold virtual concerts over Zoom or Google Hangout. You can literally watch Josh Groban over your computer screen. Sometimes these concerts can be free, too. It’s just something we didn’t know could happen, or something that would happen to our culture.
“I can’t wait to go back to the movies.”
Like Disneyland, movie theaters closed down early in the pandemic as companies worked to figure out the next path forward. They’ve reopened now, but there aren’t a ton of new movies and the audience capacity is extremely reduced. You can buy out an entire auditorium for a private watch party, too. People aren’t exactly flocking to the movies right now. You could argue theaters shut down at peak movie season — when films like “Avengers: Endgame” were topping all-time lists for tickets sold. Now, we’re back at square one.
“I’m doing drive-by tick-or-treating”
There were so many questions at Halloween. How often have health officials made us question whether or not to go trick-or-treating during the annual holiday? Telling kids they can’t get candy? That’s something we never thought we’d see. But it became a reality.
“Please, don’t visit with your family on Thanksgiving.”
I don’t know if there’s even been a time where federal public health officials called for the United States to stay home for family holidays like Thanksgiving or Christmas. So many people didn’t travel home for the holidays because of the pandemic — something that would seem way out of the ordinary in a normal year. The Transportation Security Administration said in November 2020 that 1.17 million people were screened on the Sunday after Thanksgiving. That number was 41% of the 2.9 million people screened on the same day in 2019, as CNN reported.
“I can’t believe ‘Mulan’ came out on Disney Plus”
Disney changed the game when it came to streaming movies in 2020 when it released “Mulan” on Disney Plus through its “Premier Access” program — giving us a brand new film but through streaming. A similar thing happened with “Wonder Woman 1984” as it was dropped on HBO Max on the same day it came out in theaters. This was only a taste of how movies and shows came out during the pandemic. Just think about telling someone in 2008 that there’d be a documentary about a man named the Tiger King and that he would seek a pardon from prison from President Donald Trump. Yeah. That says everything.
“Did you get Pfizer, Moderna, or Johnson & Johnson?”
Pfizer and Moderna were relatively unknown companies among the general public. And Johnson & Johnson makes baby products. So how strange is it that we all know what these companies do and how they help our lives now?
“Put the mask over your nose.”
We’ve all been there. We’re out at some public space and someone has their mask below the nose. They get the reminder to put the mask over the nose. That’s something that would have made no sense in 2006. And yet, it’s so common now you all know exactly what I’m talking about.
“The new normal”
Life has become normal now, but it’s a new normal. Nothing feels the same. We wear masks in stores. We communicate over Slack, Zoom, Teams and Gmail. We barely see our friends and family. We’re in a completely different world than where we’ve been before. The new normal has become a commonplace phrase for all of us as the pandemic itself became normalized.
Of course, our own Boyd Matheson argued at the beginning of the pandemic that we have to see the world through the lens of a “new now,” hinting that our lives will become normal again.