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COVID, five years on: memories of a strange and scary time
chicago.suntimes ^ | 01/12/2025 | Neil Steinberg

Posted on 01/13/2025 1:01:28 PM PST by ChicagoConservative27

When did COVID start for you? Personally, I trace the beginning to Feb. 13, 2020. My wife and I were waiting for a plane at O’Hare when a group of Japan Airlines flight attendants walked past, wearing those masks I’d read about. I snapped a photo and sent it into the city desk. Look: news.

Emotionally, it really began in March. The stripped Target shelves. A few hours before Gov. JB Pritzker shut down the restaurants, I popped into Kamehachi for a last sushi fix and was surprised to find myself the lone diner at 12:30 p.m. Watching the chef prepare my order, thinking, with dread: “I’m killing myself for a negi hamachi roll.”

Though if you are looking for the very beginning in the Chicago area, I suppose that should be Jan. 13, 2020 — five years ago Monday — when a suburban woman returned from Wuhan, China, where she had been caring for her elderly father, bringing with her the COVID virus. A few days later she felt ill and went to Ascension St. Alexius Medical Center in Hoffman Estates. making her the first person in Illinois, the second in the United States, diagnosed with a disease that, in the next half decade, would kill more than 1 million Americans and 20 million worldwide.

(Excerpt) Read more at chicago.suntimes.com ...


TOPICS:
KEYWORDS: bigpharma; civilrights; covid; covidcommunism; despotism; five; memories; scary; strange; time; tyranny; years
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I was pissed the whole time. People losing businesses. being laid off, masks, empty grocery stores, covid Karen's, and teens taking their lifes.
1 posted on 01/13/2025 1:01:28 PM PST by ChicagoConservative27
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To: ChicagoConservative27

Happy New Year 2020 Part 5!


2 posted on 01/13/2025 1:06:07 PM PST by TheDon (Resist the usurpers! Remember the J6 political prisoners! Remember Ashli Babbitt!)
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To: ChicagoConservative27

I went to a college sporting event last night with a large group of my extended family.

My dad said, “Remember when we were here during COVID and they yelled at us when our masks were on our chins?”

They literally had “spotters” who would scan the crowd of 4000 people and scold those who masks were worn too low.

What a time to be alive...


3 posted on 01/13/2025 1:07:51 PM PST by nitzy (See my about page for a comment that was deemed unacceptable by the FR mods)
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To: ChicagoConservative27

five years on? Covid responses are still rippling through the economy and the fabric of our politics and social life.


4 posted on 01/13/2025 1:09:02 PM PST by AndyJackson
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To: nitzy

People lost their minds then


5 posted on 01/13/2025 1:09:09 PM PST by ChicagoConservative27
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To: ChicagoConservative27

Strange, yes. Scary, not so much.


6 posted on 01/13/2025 1:09:21 PM PST by mykroar ("It's Not the Nature of the Evidence; It's the Seriousness of the Charge." - El Rushbo)
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To: nitzy
That was when sporting events and Trump rallies were decried as "super spreaders", but participating in "peaceful protest" mobs was said to be totally awesome Americana at its finest.

At least according to the "experts".

7 posted on 01/13/2025 1:12:51 PM PST by Tell It Right (1 Thessalonians 5:21 -- Put everything to the test, hold fast to that which is true.)
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To: mykroar

The propaganda vids coming out China were hilarious.


8 posted on 01/13/2025 1:15:49 PM PST by Deaf Smith (When a Texan takes his chances, chances will be taken that's for sure.)
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To: ChicagoConservative27

I retired in 2018... Minimal impact from the COVID scam. No jabs for the wife and I, our kids families or grandkids.

I continued to state it was all bullshxt and took a little bit they all agreed.

Georgia opened up before Florida and everything here was pretty much back to normal when all businesses opened on 30 April 2020.


9 posted on 01/13/2025 1:19:05 PM PST by maddog55 (The only thing systemic in America is the left's hatred of it!)
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To: ChicagoConservative27

You and me both. I saw what I thought were reasonable people turn into petty fascists at the drop of a hat.


10 posted on 01/13/2025 1:19:51 PM PST by kosciusko51
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To: ChicagoConservative27

I don’t remember it being scary, but I damn well remember it being strange as all get out, and annoying to the extreme.

Showed the worst side of people, especially the control freaks.


11 posted on 01/13/2025 1:25:01 PM PST by rlmorel ("A people that elect corrupt politicians are not victims...but accomplices." George Orwell)
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To: kosciusko51; All

I lost many friends and family members because I was not going along with the program. I was told to STFU and do what the local and state government was telling me.


12 posted on 01/13/2025 1:25:28 PM PST by ChicagoConservative27
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To: ChicagoConservative27

I have covid. Drs still don’t want you to come in if you have tested positive and have a fever.


13 posted on 01/13/2025 1:26:58 PM PST by RummyChick
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To: RummyChick

Feel better soon


14 posted on 01/13/2025 1:27:18 PM PST by ChicagoConservative27
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To: ChicagoConservative27

I lost co-workers, some that I knew for more than 30 years. Fortunately, my close friends and family were sane about it.

I switched jobs in part of the COVID strong arm tactics.


15 posted on 01/13/2025 1:29:50 PM PST by kosciusko51
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To: kosciusko51

These people I knew for years and years all of a sudden become these tyrannical tyrants overnight


16 posted on 01/13/2025 1:31:09 PM PST by ChicagoConservative27
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To: kosciusko51
"I saw what I thought were reasonable people turn into petty fascists at the drop of a hat."

It was a sobering lesson. I learned that the vast majority of people are far more stupid, feckless, spineless, ignorant, gullible, and prone to engage in tyrannical behavior, than I ever could have imagined. This includes many family and friends, and no small number of people here on FR.

17 posted on 01/13/2025 1:35:02 PM PST by Sicon ("All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others." - G. Orwell)
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To: ChicagoConservative27

Became real for me when I lost my father in law to Covid in April 2020.


18 posted on 01/13/2025 1:45:03 PM PST by Fuzz
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To: ChicagoConservative27

15 days to flatten the curve....


19 posted on 01/13/2025 1:45:33 PM PST by Bigg Red (Trump will be sworn in under a shower of confetti made from the tattered remains of the Rat Party.)
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To: Fuzz

RIP.


20 posted on 01/13/2025 1:46:16 PM PST by ChicagoConservative27
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