44 Bizarre Photos From Covid Era You Probably Wouldn’t Have Believed If You Hadn’t Lived Through It

Endless lockdowns. Masks. Social distancing. Working from home. Stockpiling toilet paper. Clapping for medical workers every day. Zoom calls. Odd graduations. Delayed weddings. Peculiar habits. Vaccine hesitancy. Constantly shifting governmental regulations. Declining mental and emotional health. Families ripped apart. Grifters selling protective equipment and hygiene products at a massive markup. Misinformation, disinformation, and politicization of vaccines.

It was a weird era, full of fear, stress, and uncertainty. For many people, it was one of the worst times of their lives. For others, it was a time when they could check out from their studies and work, and slow down.

While it’s easy to criticize governments and organizations for poor communication, slow responses, hypocrisy, or rules that didn’t make much sense, at the time, there was full-blown panic.

It’s difficult to make the right decisions when you lack information and with so many unknown variables about the illness you’re dealing with.

That being said, the pandemic exposed a lot of weaknesses in the way that the world reacts to major health crises. In a recent article, ‘Nature’ magazine points out that in some ways, the world is both better and worse prepared to handle another global pandemic in the future.

“In some respects, there are grounds for optimism. For example, mRNA vaccines came of age thanks to rapid progress in research and technology — much of which occurred during the pandemic. Low-and middle-income countries’ capacity to make vaccines is greater now than it was in 2020, although there is still a long way to go before they are self-sufficient,” ‘Nature’ stresses.

“Nations have improved their systems for infectious-disease surveillance and have a better understanding of how to design fast clinical trials for testing vaccines and treatments during a crisis.”

On the other hand, now, countries also seem worse prepared to handle another pandemic than in early 2020, when the World Health Organization declared that Covid-19 was an international public health emergency.

“When it comes to political will and financial backing, many have recoiled from taking the steps necessary to bolster pandemic responses. Politicization of the COVID-19 pandemic has stigmatized public-health authorities and guidance in some countries, and increased vaccine hesitancy,” ‘Nature’ explains.

According to Joanne Liu, a paediatric emergency-medicine specialist at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, and a former international president of the medical-aid organization Médecins Sans Frontières, “the science will deliver if we have a new emerging infectious disease. I think it will be the people who aren’t going to deliver.”

As ‘Nature’ points out, efforts to boost vaccine equity since the pandemic have stalled. What’s more, it will be harder to prioritize pandemic preparations as more time passes since the end of the last international health emergency.

“The sense of urgency dwindles with each passing year and there is a strong desire to put the COVID-19 pandemic — sometimes described as a once-in-a-century event — behind us. That does not mean that the world has another 95 years until the next pandemic.”

As reported by ‘Nature,’ one study found an up to 50% chance of a similar pandemic in the next 25 years.

According to Liu, who, together with her colleagues, ran pandemic simulations after the outbreak of the Ebola virus in West Africa in 2014, they didn’t foresee how much the world would change a decade later, after the Covid-19 pandemic.

“None of us thought about the case scenario in which we would have leaders and a large part of the population that do not believe in science,” she explained.

According to ‘Nature,’ public health and infectious disease researchers must work closely with social scientists to understand how misinformation spreads, as well as how to counter it.

“Public-health authorities must learn how to better communicate uncertainty to both policymakers and the public, so that changes in guidance during the next pandemic do not give rise to distrust. But, ultimately, the first step is to hold on to the urgency of 2020. Do not let history be forgotten — or worse, rewritten.”

Meanwhile, as reported by DZIF, the pandemic exposed critical deficiencies in the global health system. If the world wants to improve preparedness for future emergencies, there is a need for collaborative and globally equitable health strategies. These will help counter diagnostic limitations in resource-limited settings and socioeconomic disparities in testing capacity.

Which of these odd photos did you find to be the weirdest, funniest, or most nonsensical? How did you handle the pandemic? Was it a time of extreme stress for you, or are you one of those people who feel low-key nostalgia for the lockdowns?

Do you think the world is better or worse prepared to handle another global pandemic? What lessons do you think we should all take away from the pandemic?

We’d like to hear your thoughts in the comments at the bottom of this list. Just remember to keep the discussion civil.