DENVER — Jan. 20 marks one year since doctors found the first COVID-19 case in the U.S.
Much has changed over the last year, so 9NEWS asked a physician, a business owner and a Denver resident what they've learned in the last year and what they hope for in 2021.
Editor's note: These interviews have been edited for context and clarity.
9NEWS: How would you describe the last year?
Dr. Michelle Barron, UCHealth Senior Medical Director of Infection Prevention and Control: One really long year.
Paul Reilly, Coperta and Beast + Bottle Executive Chef and Proprietor: In the last year, a lot and a little has happened. It almost feels like we’ve pressed pause, some going forward, some going in rewind. If I look at the year from a professional standpoint, it’s a bit of a lost year.
Ben Alexander, Denver Resident: One long year.
What was life like for you a year ago when the first case was found in our country?
Barron: I don’t exactly remember the day where we were but we had already been huddled in one of my colleague's offices with notepads and mapping out everything we thought we might need to do for several weeks. This was kind of the, okay it’s here now and it’s time for us to start putting a lot of these ideas in motion. I don’t think I could’ve ever imagined where we are now.
I think we were very hopeful. There was some history with SARS-CoV-1 and how that played out. It didn’t spread worldwide but it certainly devastated the city of Toronto when it hit. I think I thought we could become Toronto but maybe we’ll get spared. I don’t think anybody could have thought we’d have over 400,000 deaths and the storm we’ve been weathering ever since.
Reilly: I had certainly heard about it in the news. It really hit me when I was up in the mountains skiing with some friends of mine. A buddy of mine from Brooklyn said, 'I think this is actually going to be a big deal.' I remember at that moment being kind of naïve, kind of concerned. That was also the ah-ha moment. I thought, 'maybe we’re going to have to dig into this.' Is it going to change the course of our lives?
Alexander: I feel like everything was going along like normal. Then I remember hearing about it. I actually thought it was going to be a big deal before most people did. I remember people at work saying, ‘Oh, it’s just in China, it’s not going to get here.’ I thought it could be a pretty big deal. Turned out to be a lot bigger than I expected for sure.
If you could go back to this day one year ago, what advice would you give yourself?
Barron: If I could go back a year to this day and find myself with all these ideas and all these plans, I would probably tell myself that you can’t communicate often enough. You can’t communicate the same message without changing it over and over. Prepare for the insanity of daily changes, hourly changes. Probably, most important, I would tell myself, remember to take time to breathe. Take those deep breaths, take those moments to meditate, clear your head and keep going because you’re going to need it.
Reilly: If I could go back to early 2020 and give myself a little bit of advice, I think it would be to breathe and get ready for a roller coaster ride of emotions. I'd say what happens today is not how it’s going to be in a week or 24 hours or certainly six months. Buckle up and get ready to have your life changed in a way that you can’t have any grasp of. Also, invest in Zoom.
Alexander: My advice would probably be to not sign the lease that I did on my apartment. I would’ve opted for something different, honestly. I would’ve gotten out of the city, somewhere with a little bit more green space.
What was your darkest day of this year?
Barron: There were actually a lot of dark days. I think just seeing patients not make it and realizing the toll this was taking beyond what we saw in the hospital. Being in medicine, you always have some of these dark days where people don’t make it and you wish you could’ve done something different. It didn’t end when I left the doors of the hospital. I had family members that were directly impacted by this and that’s hard.
Nobody was spared. It didn’t matter your education, it didn’t matter your background, it didn’t matter where you lived. Everyone knows someone directly that was impacted by this either through the illness or all the other consequences, lost jobs, lost homes, lost education, lost opportunities. That weighs against all the positives. I do agree with the optimistic philosophy that to have good days, you have to have bad ones. You wouldn’t appreciate the good without the bad.
Reilly: My darkest day was saying goodbye to some friends that lost their lives this past year. I wish I could say that happened only once. So, it’s a culmination of those days.
Alexander: A few darkest days I would say. They all kind of blend together like the times when it’s a bummer the gym in my apartment gets shut down or something like that. Just normal parts of life getting impeded.
What was your best day of this year?
Barron: There were many of those actually. I would say being able to work within a team, seeing how great teams can be, seeing how people can rally under what can seem like the most dire of circumstances, being able to lean into our training and know our training can actually make things work and make things happen and can do so in such short periods of time. When you look at the fact that we have a vaccine, it’s amazing. I mean, truly amazing how many scientific minds, got together with industry to get us here.
Reilly: There’s no one specific day but I have been able to spend an unbelievable amount of time with my immediate family and my kids this last year. Being a chef, that doesn’t always happen. Having that opportunity while they’re still young kids has been pretty special.
Alexander: Best days in the last year? I don’t know. I mean, it’s a nice day out here today so that feels pretty good. I think we’re on the upswing so I’m looking forward to 2021.
What are you hopeful for in the year ahead?
Barron: I hope we’re beyond the pandemic and that we have herd immunity and this is something we all still recognize we have to be conscious of but it won’t be the onus of everything we do every day. I hope that we’ll be back to some sense of normalcy and that we'll be looking forward to what we can do to prevent the next illness. What can we do next to make everyone healthy and whole?
Reilly: I love that you’re asking me a question about hope today because I feel like there’s a lot of change and there’s hope for the first time in a while. It feels really different. As a parent, it feels amazing to have that hope again.
I hope that we’re able to have comradery again with other people. That’s what I miss. I miss being together. I miss breaking bread with friends over a meal. I think now that the vaccine is rolling out, the confidence is going to come back up and we’re going to come together as a community and unify. There’s a lot of hope today. It feels really special.
Alexander: I hope that we can go to Broncos game again and have the stadium full. I hope we can go out and do things like normal. As a country, we’re very divided right now. It’s been a pretty crazy time. If our cases keep declining, I think that would probably be a unifying thing which would be good.
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