Covid-19, Mask Mandates and a Brief timeline

Covid-19 something we are all so tired of hearing of. Covid this Covid that, it’s something we’ve been hearing nonstop for two whole years… Can you believe it’s been two years? Just like that two years have passed by in this strange dystopian trance. “A society where people must wear masks to prevent the spread of an infectious disease.”  A movie concept that should have just stayed a concept, but for some reason we’re living it. With that aside Covid has been something that’s disrupted our lives for the past two years, events canceled, celebrations postponed, and a year in school spent online. February 28th marks the end of the state mask mandate, I’ll be reserving my opinions on that for a potential future article. For now let’s look back at what marked the beginning of these two years, how did things get to where they are today?


Sars-CoV-2, the designation for Covid before it was known as Covid, a strain first seen in the middle east as a respiratory system known as severe acute respiratory syndrome or SARS. Though that’s not the first time the Coronavirus was detected, in 1965 scientists identified a man infected with it. Though not the same variant that we saw during the pandemic it belonged to the same family, with the same crown-like structure.  There have been a few more outbreaks here and there after 1965 of viruses from the same family, but nothing eyebrow raising compared to the current pandemic. At the end of December in 2019 Sars-CoV-2 made the jump to humans in China.

Starting in Wuhans one of many wet markets, where customers can buy fresh meat and fish along with other animals which are killed on the spot. Some wet markets may sell illegal or banned species such as cobras,boar and most infamously bat. Though the last one was a factless assumption, there had been no consumption or even recorded butchering of said animals when the first cases began popping up, and it is considered a misconception that the disease originated from bats.  The location had made it perfect for the virus to spread around, as at a wet market many animals are in close proximity and the fact that it was open air further added to its advantage. From there it was spread from person to person, to people who haven’t even had contact with animals carrying it, from person to person


Unfortunately we all know what happens after that, in January of 2020 the CDC confirmed the first case of Covid-19 in the United States. It soon continued spreading from state to state, eventually causing a state of emergency to be declared. In April of that year the mask mandate was passed and enforced, social distancing and mask wearing soon became mandatory to ensure the safety of our fellow Americans. What was supposed to last a few months went on to two years, due to how divided we were on the masks we ended up going for a lot more than necessary. The mask mandate was something that was outright ignored along with other precautions and enforcements made to curb the infection rate of the virus.

We could have been out of these masks sooner if the mandates were following, with misinformation being rampant about almost every aspect of the virus. Things took a lot longer than expected. In hindsight more things could have been done to get us out earlier, but the past is in the past. What matters now is that we are slowly beginning to transition back to our normal everyday lives. The mask mandate has ended and restrictions have begun to ease up, though all are uncertain about what the future holds for us. Only time will tell.