It’s been almost three years since COVID-19 struck New York. This year we’ve been hit with the “tripledemic” of rampaging flu, RSV, and yes, COVID. It’s been miserable, especially for parents of small children like us who have a kid who seems to come home every week with a new virus. I had a cold followed by another cold and was sick for about 6 weeks with generic non-COVID viruses but finally after a course of steroids and antibiotics, I can breathe again. Relaxing the masking and social distancing of the past few years has led to a resurgence of old fashioned cold and flu.

However, COVID-19 isn’t the threat it was anymore. Our population has pretty much either been vaccinated, had COVID-19, or both. Cases of COVID tend to be mild and treated at home. We have effective treatments, like Paxlovid and steroids. This is the first time that I am trying to avoid COVID not so much because I am afraid for my own life or those of my family, but because it would be inconvenient before our upcoming first airplane vacation since 2019. Honestly, I am almost as concerned about getting the flu as COVID. It has been a bad year to skip the flu vaccine but a lot of people did.

I’ve been reflecting on everything we experienced since this thing started. In the beginning, I had hoped that it would be like a movie in which everyone comes together at the end and the world learns a valuable lesson about cooperation and kindness. Some of my depths of discouragement were when Trump started shifting the blame to myself and fellow Asians with horrible monikers like “kung flu” or “China virus.” In a country where there are a tremendous number of Asian doctors and nurses, it was especially galling. Words bred action, with a lot of my nurses scared to take public transportation or whose kids were bullied in school. After seeing them risk their lives and some of them having become terribly sick for months in the first wave, I was filled with deep anger and resentment at the wave of anti-Asian sentiment and violence.

Still, there were bright points along the way. On our block, two of our neighbors have children the same age as my daughter. We banded together in a “pod” of people who were taking every precaution possible and were willing to let our kids socialize, at first outside with masks and then progressively more freely during lulls in the pandemic. My wife and I appreciated that they did not ostracize us for being doctors who could not work from home and understood we were doing the absolute maximum to try to stay safe. Our nanny made the decision to support us and continue to take care of our children. We continued to participate in synagogue life, sometimes virtually, and then in person. Our families managed to get together outside, my in-laws even buying an outdoor restaurant-style overhead heater so we could sit outside in the winter.

Governor Cuomo, who we unfortunately later found to have behaved in repulsive ways, at that time provided a counterpoint to the vacuum of leadership at the presidential level. He went out there every single day and gave New Yorkers and the nation a realistic assessment with no sugarcoating. He demonstrated social distancing and mask wearing with his state officials and the press. He listened and deferred to the doctor who was the health commissioner. He gave us his version of the “Italian family dinner” where he would talk about love and togetherness and the strength of New Yorkers. He opened the schools to provide day care for the children of health care workers which allowed my daughter, whose kindergarten year was shut down by COVID-19, to at least socialize with other children and have a routine. He condemned anti-Asian sentiment. Whatever happened later, I will always appreciate what he did at that time.

There were spontaneous displays of support for “healthcare heroes” all over our area. There were signs everywhere thanking healthcare workers and other essential workers like police, firefighters, and grocery store employees. The first nonessential business I went to was to get my free healthcare worker coffee from Starbucks. There was a campaign in our town against anti-Asian sentiment with rallies in the park and signs in windows. The country was finally appalled by the extrajudicial deaths of Black people during encounters with law enforcement and Black Lives Matter rallies and signs appeared everywhere.

There was a lot of negativity, probably well-earned, around America at that time. The pandemic revealed some things about our country. The initial death rate was highest among historically disadvantaged populations with high rates of poverty and poor access to healthcare. I personally witnessed the horrific toll on the Black and Latino population in New York. However, as precautionary measures such as mask wearing and vaccination took a political bent, white Americans and especially Republicans started having the highest rates of mortality. Political conservatism became a risk factor for death from the pandemic, despite this population typically having more wealth and better access to healthcare. It’s really shocking how the pandemic threw into stark relief the consequences of inequality in our society and the problems with political polarization. I deeply loathe Donald Trump and I blame him and his minimizing of the pandemic for a lot of the deaths that occurred.

Still, you have to give America credit. The mRNA vaccines, developed with American (and German) science and technology by American companies were developed at a speed that was not thought possible and are shockingly effective with a surprisingly low rate of side effects and have been easy to adjust to create boosters for new variants. The vaccine effort was the one bright spot in the Trump administration’s COVID response although he tried his best to poison it by embracing vaccine skeptics. This technology is a triumph of modern medicine and shows that the American system can still produce miracles.

On a personal level, I think having had a front seat to the massive toll that COVID-19 took on our community has given me a new perspective. It has stirred some kind of deep empathy inside of me. Once our office opened up again, visiting the doctor was one of the few activities many people were able or willing to do. The stories I heard from people about loved ones lost, about entire communities being devastated were painful to listen to. Nowadays, everyone I meet now is also a survivor of this pandemic. We all have a weird, involuntary, but real bond.