It all started when we got a week off of school. Coronavirus was just making its way to the United States and had just reached Indiana, with a case reported in nearby Avon.

We thought it was just going to be a week off of school. A week turned into a month, and then a month turned into the rest of the semester. Even a year later, things aren’t back to normal. 

Here is a brief timeline of what’s happened since last March:

January 2020: January 20, the first Covid-19 case in America was found in Washington. 

February 2020: February 6, the first Covid death in the US took place in California.

March 2020: On March 11, WHO declared Covid-19 a global pandemic. The same day, Trump banned travel from 26 countries in Europe. On the 12th, Indian Governor Eric Holcomb gave schools a 20 day waiver for days off due to Covid. On the 13th, Trump called a national emergency. On March 26, the US became the country with the most Covid cases. On the 19th, Holcomb closed all Indiana schools until May 1. On March 31, it was confirmed that 33% of people in the world were on lockdown.

April 2020: On April 2, the world passed one million Covid infections. The same day, Governor Holcomb said schools will remain closed for the rest of the school year. 95% of Americans were on lockdown by April 7. 

May 2020: In May, places in Indiana started reopening to the public.

July 2020: In July, Governor Holcomb ordered a mask mandate for people 8 and older. 

September 2020: On September 28, the world passed 1 million Covid deaths. Indiana went into the final stage of reopening in September. 

October 2020: On October 2, Trump announces he tested positive.

November 2020: All Marion County schools closed and returned fully online. 

January 2021: Marion County schools started reopening, and Ben Davis returned to hybrid. 

Many students have forgotten what it feels like to be at school five days a week. If you told us a year ago we’d only be at school twice a week, we wouldn’t have believed you.

We were so excited to get a week off, and we didn’t know we’d be in the same situation in a year. We went from seeing friends every day and eating in a packed cafeteria to never seeing people and eating at individual desks.

Despite not having a normal school year, there have been some benefits. A major benefit has been office hours. We get to reach out to teachers and get personal help when we need it. Teachers also get time on Fridays to grade, so Skyward is more up to date. Teachers understand that this year has prevented challenges and they want to help students as much as they can. 

Covid has grabbed many things we had, and we’ve had to deal with it. Many people have struggled with mental health since the pandemic. Stress, anxiety, depression, and isolation has taken over many people’s lives.

With some things not being open anymore, it is hard for people to deal with these issues. Students had to switch to learning completely online in the matter of days. This led to students not performing as well as they would in a normal setting. Students have different resources at home, so naturally there are going to be some students with a bigger struggle than others. Nonetheless, all students have probably struggled at some point in the past year. 

So life is different a year later and there is still much to learn.