Tuesday will mark five years since the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic, changing many people’s lives.
Dr. Amy Crawford-Faucher, a physician with Allegheny Health Network in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, detailed the terrifying days during the pandemic with our sister station WTAE.
“The overarching feelings were fear, not just among the public but us — the vast unknown of how to treat it,” she said.
After more than 118,000 cases in 114 countries, WHO declared COVID-19 a pandemic, prompting lockdowns, social distancing and masking up.
“We were then transitioning to all telehealth or mostly telehealth, and then we did that for many months, and then rolling out the vaccine, so all of those chunks of time were kind of amazingly intense,” she said.
Tremendous progress has been made within the past five years, with vaccines and oral medications being developed.
“This is just like the flu shot. You get it every year, and then for younger and healthier people, once a year seems to be adequate. But then for anybody who’s older than 65 or have other high-risk conditions, getting an additional vaccine in the year,” Crawford-Faucher said.
The mortality rate also decreased over time. According to WHO, there were around 14.9 million deaths associated with COVID-19 in 2020 and 2021. That number dropped by 6% in 2023 and lowered even more in 2024.
The virus is becoming more like the flu we are used to dealing with but is still something to be cautious of.
“People are still dying from COVID, and much more commonly still getting sick and missing work and making other people sick. So, yes, we still need to be taking it seriously,” Crawford-Faucher said.
