As we mark five years on from the start of the coronavirus pandemic this month, life has changed for many people, in ways both mundane and profound.
Dr. Kurt Papenfus is someone NPR interviewed in 2020. The CEO of a small hospital in rural Colorado, Papenfus first took care of COVID patients, then he became one. He told us the story of driving himself to Denver — with an escort of sheriff's deputies to make sure he made it — so he could get the intensive care he knew he needed for COVID pneumonia.
"The 'rona beast is a very nasty beast," he said back then. "It has a very mean temper. It loves a fight, and it loves to keep coming after you."
Papenfus now praises the investment in research that, he believes, advanced science by decades in just a few years. Personally, he has struggled with the brain fog of long COVID, and he has learned a lesson about conserving his energy.
"COVID was a harsh reminder that, 'Yeah, you better take care of yourself. If you can't take care of yourself, how are you going to take care of other people?'" Papenfus says.
Here are five more examples of lessons we have learned and things COVID changed permanently, though it is not an exhaustive list:
1. Video calls made the room bigger, distances shorter.
Has this happened to you? You're watching something on Netflix from, say, 2018. There's a video conference call in the story line and it's presented as something odd, cool, unusual.
The pandemic changed that for everyone.
Zoom and other video conference apps became a common part of business and personal life.
Despite the occasional frozen screen glitches and folks joining calls in their ratty pajamas, there are upsides.
Beth Hendrix, executive director of the League of Women Voters of Colorado, said the use of remote conferencing led her group to become truly statewide. It allowed more meaningful participation for folks from the eastern plains to the west side of Colorado, called the Western Slope.
Before, all their meetings were in person, which "kept folks outside of the metro from really taking part in leadership actions. So that is one positive thing."
Michael Dougherty, Boulder County's district attorney, saw a similar silver lining: Virtual court proceedings allowed a lot more people to take part.
"We also have victims who are scared to be in the same room as a defendant or his loved ones," he said. "They now can attend court virtually without the defendant even knowing they're there."
2. Pandemic pups brought us two-legged friends, too.
Many people became pet owners for the first time during the pandemic. Grace Markley, from Denver, said one of the surprising and beautiful things of the crisis was "we ended up adopting a miniature bernedoodle."
She met neighbors who also adopted pandemic dogs. They hung out outside, socialized over potlucks and happy hours, connected over the canines and formed what they called their Doodlefest. It became a regular gathering, a holiday card featuring poodle-mix doggos, and a group chat. "And to date there are 22 of us on the chat," Markley said.
"This part of town is just alive with pandemic puppies. So that was something that was really special for us. And five years in, we are still going strong," Markley said.
3. Health inequities were exposed and so was vaccine hesitancy.
COVID exposed stark inequities in both society and the health system.
Julissa Soto, a health equity consultant, helped both spotlight and address them at hundreds of clinics around Colorado.
One instance was at Ascension Catholic Parish in Denver's Montbello neighborhood, where in 2021, she told the masked congregation that COVID-19 vaccines are safe, effective and available.
"I'm on a mission to get my community vaccinated, and I will not stop until I get the last Latino vaccinated," she said at the time.
Over the course of the pandemic, she helped get about 60,000 people vaccinated, by her count, at more than 400 vaccine clinics and events like the one at Ascension Catholic Church.
Fast forward to 2025, and Soto says it's important to remember how many people were lost.
"Really sad, lots and lots of people died," she said in an interview.
In Colorado, the number of people who died surpassed 16,000 people, according to figures reported by the CDC. More than 1.2 million people died across the country.
Most Coloradans got vaccinated, but the Latino community, which was hit hard by the virus, barely got to a 50% vaccination rate, Soto said. The low rate provided her "an opportunity to highlight the inequities. They have always existed in public health."
During the 2024-2025 respiratory virus season, less than 25% of Colorado adults got the updated COVID-19 vaccine.
Among the lessons Soto said she learned in the pandemic: to pivot, think on her feet, remove barriers, challenge the status quo.
"I believe that we're going to find solutions," she said. "Remember from every setback, it will be a comeback."
4. The classroom changed, and challenges set in.
For some, the dark clouds of the pandemic still exist. Melanie Potyondy, a public school psychologist in Fort Collins, says she's noticed a troubling trend with kids: "a lack of resilience, a lack of that grit, that I think I saw in previous cohorts of kids prior to the pandemic."
She says they're now quicker to give up, quicker to write off a teacher they don't click with. Add in a reliance on technology, which "compounds this diminished level of grit in that it's so easy to hide out behind a phone and to not have to have difficult conversations with people in person."
Schools have begun experimenting with cellphone bans during class, but the jury is still out on whether that will solve the learning challenges teachers and students have been reporting since the disruption of the pandemic.
5. Long COVID, too, appears here to stay.
"Hard to believe, five years later. Still in a little bit of recovery mode" is how Denver resident Clarence Troutman summed up his experience, both of getting COVID-19 and then long COVID.
Troutman was a broadband technician with CenturyLink, a telecom company, for 37 years. He caught the virus at the start of the pandemic, was hospitalized and on a ventilator for a time, and ended up staying in the hospital for two months.
Five years on, life is a mixed bag for Troutman, who had to retire from his job because of his health.
"I don't have the neuropathy I used to have," he says, citing a bright spot. That's nerve damage causing pain, numbness or tingling.
"Kind of the psychological scars of everything have honestly kind of healed," he says, noting the positive side of the ledger.
But he still grapples with chronic fatigue, brain fog and diminished lung capacity. Troutman says a long COVID patient group he joined after he got sick still meets regularly, comparing their experiences, supporting each other.
"We're still a tight little group and we're getting better together," he says.
He's started working out at his local rec center, thanks to his improving health. And he said he's closer than ever to his son and two grandkids in Atlanta.
"I feel truly blessed every day when I think about the people that weren't able to make it through this thing or changed forever, even worse than I am. I know I'm blessed," he said. "I'm a very lucky guy."
Troutman said another good thing was his discovery of an inner power.
"You kind of tap into a strength or resiliency you didn't even know you had until all this happened," Troutman said. "So yeah, it's been quite the journey. Quite the journey."
Copyright 2025 NPR