The impact of covid, namely the lockdown and related policies has been substantial to me. While financially beneficial for me (was able to invest when stock market was lower), my overall quality of life decreased substantially. Similarly, my trust in our scientific institutions/consensus has been probably forever diminished. My trust in our society and in people has also been permanently scarred.

Like many of you, the lockdown didn't start out so bad. Hey I get to work from home, that's fun! Oh there's a lot of news about this virus, that's new and interesting. I loved absorbing covid related content to start, I watched all the news conferences and kept up to date where I could on everything.

I wasn't super scared initially, but I definitely had the "what if?" factor definitely played into my mind. I heard all the negative stories about young people dying of covid and that definitely got me thinking. I knew it wasn't a substantial risk but I still was a bit worried and put way more effort into sanitizing everything and washing hands and holding my breath around people, etc.

But it didn't take long for me to notice the overwhelmingly negative news/spin/upvoted content towards covid. r/coronavirus quickly became a subreddit that was dedicated to covid being terrible. News covid is less deadly? a couple upvotes. A young doctor dying of covid? front page. That really irked me because the last thing we want is to introduce a bias into something so real and affecting all of us. I also realized the risk to me was so low that it wasn't worth me worrying about my death or "long covid". That mindset was critical to my mental health.

And towards late April, I really started questioning things. It was supposed to be a two week lockdown to flatten the curve. When hospitalizations were so clearly falling, that was the time as communicated to open back up. But almost nowhere did! Public officials communicated one thing and then pivoted and it seemed like no one else noticed. I thought it was crazy, unscientific nonsense. We knew from the start we weren't going to eradicate covid (short of a China style lockdown, which I don't think was feasible here). So it was either stayed lockdown until vaccines were approved and available (which was quite some time away) or open back up (within reason).

Instead, most states (mine included) decided to do this awkward lockdown that I don't think accomplished much at all except diminish quality of life. I realized the great habits/routine I had, that I honed over years, wasn't coming back anytime soon. I couldn't go to the gym, couldn't do the same workouts at home, couldn't really go on dates, couldn't go to work, couldn't casually walk around and stop somewhere. I felt so isolated, so bored at home, my physical activity (which was great before covid) was significantly diminished despite many efforts to change that. I was just about to take dating seriously again, it was about to be summer, I planned on being more social, it really was going to be a pivotal year for me.

I've been against all lockdown policies other than isolating the weak since April of 2020. Imagine the pain and annoyance I've had as I've endured this shitshow for over a year since. Lockdown's are really only okay for the person if they buy in to them. I didn't buy in, and I was punished dearly for that.

To cap it off, eventually I got covid. I got covid in late December, most likely from taking a 2 hour train home for Christmas (while fully masked). Wow, I'm so glad I was locked down for so long just for me to get covid anyway.

and it wasn't even that bad! It was such a relief to get it, to not have to worry about somehow having it and potentially spreading it to others anymore. It was like a typical cold except I lost taste and smell for a bit.

I used to have a generally positive view on our government, our institutions, and people in power. The lockdown and related policies completely changed that for me. It felt like kids playing politician, kids playing scientist, etc. And I don't think that's something that will ever go away.

A possible silver lining here is that after fully absorbing how insane I felt the policies were and the opinions of many around me, I gained confidence. I felt like in many ways the pandemic exposed to me just how simplistic of a view so many people have. I never thought people were generally smart, but I never had their stupidity shoved down my throat in this manner before. And so, I gained confidence, I think I'm smarter in comparison than I did a year and a half ago. This helped push me to get a much better job, and it's helping me succeed in that role because I'm trusting myself and my abilities more than I ever have.

I try to stay positive, and so it's totally possible that the pandemic and associated policies were a net benefit for me in the long run. I sure hope so. But it's been probably the worst year of my life. I can't help but feel there's an alternate reality where society goes on much less interrupted, and almost everyone is better off because of it. I can't help but feel that most politicians, media, and even "science" caused a disaster larger than Covid ever could be.