Tri-State marks 2 years since COVID-19 was declared a pandemic
NEW YORK -- It has been two years since COVID-19 was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization.
Since then, the Tri-State Area has seen thousands of deaths, and the world was turned upside down.
As CBS2's John Dias reported, while it's an anniversary worth celebrating, doctors predict we may still have more work to do in the future.
It has been 730 days, 104 weeks or 24 months whichever way you count it. The world has now officially been dealing with the pandemic for two years, facing the coronavirus with many unknowns.
There have been lockdowns, mask and vaccine mandates, social distancing. So much has happened, and yet we still may have much more to get through.
On Thursday, the TSA extended the federal mask mandate on planes and public transportation. It will now run through April 18 to give the CDC time to develop a revised policy.
"We should be maintaining our ability to test... We should be enhancing our ability to produce new vaccines," Harvard University epidemiologist Dr. Bill Hanage said. "We should be redoubling our efforts to get shots into the arms of those who need them most... those who are poorer and older."
Dr. Hanage said while we are in a far better place than two years ago, we need to learn from this experience that pandemics don't simply go away.
"If we sweep them under the rug, they come back stronger. They come back harder. They kill more people," he said.
The first case of COVID-19 in New York was detected on March 1, 2020. New Jersey followed on March 4, then Connecticut on March 8.
Since then, tens of thousands have died across the area, with New York experiencing the most deaths.
Nearly 80 million Americans have been infected, and more than 950,000 have died.
The United States and the rest of the world experienced surge after surge from variants like Alpha, Delta and Omicron.
"Everyone wants to know if another variant is coming... I'll tell you what, I don't know," Hanage said. "But I will tell you that I never bet against natural selection... We shouldn't be assuming that the virus is done with us."
As New York City and the rest of the Tri-State Area try to shift into an endemic, the big question is when will we actually reach it?
"I don't think we're in that state just yet, although hopefully, we're going to be in a state where we have got the kind of amount of disease that we can afford to not be obsessing about it all the time," said Hanage.
Two years ago, it was almost impossible to predict what we would all go through. But today it's a milestone that may have you reflecting on how far we've come.
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