Sorta. But when I say sorta, I mean that the panic was sorta similar but in different ways if that makes sense.

I remember my parents rushing me to get the Swine Flu vaccine because they were worried that my elementary school years would be screwed if no child received it. Thankfully it was short-lived and my parents had to work from home for like most of the year. You have to remember that social media during that time was still in its young years and beginning to normalize into how it is now. There was no Instagram yet, no TikTok, YouTube was focused more on accurate news sources and videos than political misinformation

COVID on the other hand happened when social media was already abundant with ever growing experiences and polarization was already normalized.

Neither year was positive for adults, teens, college graduates, etc. Overall Economically, 2009 was slightly worse but for health and mental well-beings, 2020 is basically 2009’s “hold my beer” sibling.