Five years after the start of the pandemic

Started: 2025-03-06 21:06:47

Submitted: 2025-03-06 21:35:41

Visibility: World-readable

It's been five years since the COVID-19 pandemic took over my life, but instead let's look forward to the next catastrophe

Five years ago today was my first day working remotely as Google responded to COVID-19 in Seattle and decided we were better off not coming into the office. That's half a decade, which seems like an auspicious anniversary to observe. This means it's time for my annual retrospective, but this year I don't have much to say about the last pandemic that I didn't already say last year.

Rio curls up on the purple armchair

I'm now wondering where the next crisis will come from, and how much role the new president will have in shaping it. It might be a public health crisis; there are plenty to choose from, including bird flu (not yet widespread but spreading through domesticated chickens and dairy cows) and measles (spreading because idiot antivaxers don't understand medicine). It might be a global depression because the toddler in the White House keeps using tariffs to bully the rest of the world. It might be one of the thousands of things the federal government used to do quietly behind the scenes to keep everything running smoothly that they can't do any more because everyone who knew what to do was purged by the new administration. It might be straight-up fascism. Or maybe we'll bounce along from crisis to crisis without anything quite becoming a full cataclysm. Maybe that's the best we can hope for.

Amaryllis blooming in the kitchen

On that cheerful note I'll wrap up with a picture of an amaryllis from last year. It reminds me that I need to get the pot out of the garage and into the house to see if it'll bloom again this year.