MARCH 18 • 2021 | 5

W

hat’s most heart-
breaking about 
reading the essays 
published in March 2020 was 
that they could have been writ-
ten today.
The tired joke 
is that this month 
is March, which is 
funny because last 
month was March, 
too. The reality 
is that half of the 
country is isolated, 
half is overwhelmed and half a 
million are dead.
Those without children or 
family nearby are often bored 
and lonely. The less fortunate 
are struggling to pay for basic 
necessities, battling addiction 
or substance abuse, or are 
overwhelmed with health care 
expenses. Those caring for chil-
dren or the elderly, already a 
Sisyphean task in a society mer-

cilessly obsessed by productivity, 
are barely hanging on.
The scientific community 
has managed to develop four 
astonishingly effective vaccines, 
a true modern miracle. But basic 
necessities like mental health 
care, childcare and sick leave 
have become luxury goods. 
Jewish community and ritual, 
a life-sustaining force for Jews 
for thousands of years, has been 
reduced to uneasy gatherings, 
standing masked and dis-
tanced — alone, together — and 
computer screens, or selfishly 
exchanged for public safety.
And some, it’s true, have 
gained new understanding from 
this strangest of years — about 
the ways we are all connected, 
perhaps, and the things they 
realize they value the most.
Have we really learned any-
thing in a year turned upside 
down? 

I asked those who wrote essays 
for JTA in March of 2020, just 
as the upsets were beginning in 
earnest, to share how their lives 
and thinking has changed since 
then. There are moments of 
grace and resilience, but there’s 
not a lot to take solace in. 
I mostly feel like crying. 
Maybe that’s all we can really do. 
(Responses have been lightly 
edited for length and clarity.)

FROM DR. GARY SLUTKIN
I’ve been guiding and leading 
efforts to control major epidem-
ics in the U.S. and 
abroad for over 
35 years, much 
of that time with 
the World Health 
Organization. 
Over those years, I 
learned that popu-
lations do not like to make the 
changes in their behaviors that 
are needed to stop an epidemic. 
These changes may be in 
sexual behavior (AIDS), contact 
with sick people (Ebola), or in 
the case of COVID-19, avoiding 
gatherings as well as wearing 
masks, and other inconvenient 
but lifesaving efforts — changes 
needed until an epidemic is 
under control. 
I was glad to be helpful to the 
Jewish community, if I was, as 
well as to other religious com-
munities in the earlier days of 
the COVID pandemic. However, 
with the exception of a very few 
governors, and a very few cities I 
worked with, denial was way too 
strong. And I and we failed.
This epidemic of COVID-19 

in the United States is one of the 
largest preventable failures in 
modern history. However, the 
blame does not go to one politi-
cal leader alone, but to a culture 
that is not used to inconvenience 
or personal sacrifice for the 
greater good. And, also, to many 
of my own scientist and media 
friends and colleagues where 
communication efforts were not 
nearly good enough. 
The focus was rules rather 
than understanding the virus in 
the air; bending of a curve and 
opening up instead of stopping 
the virus, which other countries 
successfully did!
We’re not out of the woods 
now. There is still way too much 
complacency and more prevent-
able death to come if people let 
their guard down prematurely, 
before we have control. 

FROM ALLISON DARCY
In March, I wrote about the 
beautiful, virtual, connected 
world of Judaism 
that COVID-19 
opened up to me. 
One year later, I 
find myself still 
inspired about what 
a post-vaccination 
world will look like 
for those of us who still need to 
stay home, but also a bit cau-
tious.
After a few-months burst of 
all-Jewish Zoom calls all the 
time, a combination of Zoom 
exhaustion and people realizing 
this was going to continue and 
that hosting was real work that 
they deserved to get paid for 

essay
One Year Later

Laura E. 
Adkins
JTA

PURELY COMMENTARY

Essayists share what they have 
learned since the pandemic began.

Dr. Gary 
Slutkin

Allison 
Darcy

“I’M HOPEFUL THAT ORGANIZATIONS 
REALIZE THEY OPENED THEMSELVES 
UP TO SO MANY NEW PEOPLE THIS 
PAST YEAR — AND THEY DON’T HAVE 
TO LOSE THOSE PEOPLE WHEN 
THEY MEET IN PERSON ONCE AGAIN.”

— ALLISON DARCY

continued on page 10