Fighting Pandemic Fatigue to Fight the Pandemic

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This January marked two full years of living through the pandemic. Hard to believe, but the first case of COVID-19 in the United States was reported by the CDC on January 21, 2020. In the last few months we hear more and more the phrase “pandemic fatigue”. Sadly, it is self-explanatory, an expression of the mental challenge we all face - to find the inner strength to keep fighting the pandemic.

Collectively, we have, and still are, putting up a hell of a fight.

In the early days of the pandemic we quarantined and isolated ourselves, each family in its own home, to minimize as much as possible the spread of the virus - for almost unimaginable stretches of time.

We learned, almost overnight, to work and study remotely in order to keep services, businesses, and the education of our children moving forward and supporting our daily lives.

A vaccination has been developed and deployed to the general population at an impressive speed.

When we ‘emerged’ from our homes we donned face masks and kept a distance from one another - both acts that stand in stark contrast to how we are used to living our lives.

But we did it. All of the above. Because we’ve decided, together, to fight and win this battle against the coronavirus. We’ve braced through multiple pandemic waves and various variants.

And so we are tired. We are pandemic-fatigued.

This might be the toughest fight yet, the fight against our own fatigue. But you know what, we’ll win this one as well.

In order to summon the inner strength needed to keep on fightin’, we each need to embrace our shared responsibility as individuals in a community. Our actions impact not only ourselves, but those around us, the good people we come in contact with at the grocery store and gas station, in classes, in offices, when we workout or jog, when we have dinner with friends or celebrate birthdays with family. We are all ‘loved ones’, we should never forget that.

So yeah, masks are a drag, sticking a swab up your nose isn’t awesome, and we all could use a hug. But that’s our reality at the moment, and the only way to change it back is to fight, both the fatigue and the pandemic.

All we need to do is ‘chin up’, put on a smile (even if it’s still hidden by the mask - don’t worry, we can tell you’re smiling by your eyes) and pull through. We can do it.