To put it in terms people can visualize, one dust particle — a big one — can measure up to five microns, a micron being one-millionth of a meter.
On the other hand, the estimated diameter of the COVID-19 virus is between 60 and 140 nanometers, a nanometer being one billionth of a meter.
You may ask how anything that tiny could wreak such havoc on an entire world. But the COVID-19 virus — which is actually called the SARS CoV-2 — certainly did just that. Name a facet of every-day life on this planet in 2020, and it was somehow altered by this virus, some significantly, but most — if not all — in some way.
If you were never the type to wash your hands multiple times a day, you began to do it. If you thought that surgical masks were worn only by those in the medical professions, you have to think again. At different points this year, their use was so controversial that people literally took sides in the United States over whether to even wear them.
In 2020, we all learned exactly how far apart six feet were. Any holiday where the gathering of people played a major part (which would be all of them) became its own morality play, as state and national officials pleaded with Americans to refrain from any gatherings.
In fact, as if in a parallel universe, Americans died by the hundreds daily during the pandemic’s peak periods while other Americans debated over whether requiring people to wear masks in public constituted a violation of Constitutional rights. Crowds consistently gathered in front of the Swampscott home of Gov. Charlie Baker to express their discontent. It seemed that in 2020, even the most obvious issues ended up being divisive.
Put under a microscope and magnified for the public to visualize, the COVID-19 virus looked like a pin cushion. Other illustrations made it look as harmless as a slice of pepperoni pizza. It originated in China late last year, and made its way onto U.S. shores, as near as anyone could guess, in February.
By early March, it had become enough of a worry that major events were just canceled. And toilet paper became impossible to find.
Schools were the first major casualties, and Friday, March 13, proved ominous in that regard in more than the usual way. By the following Monday, schools in the Lynn area had been forced into a remote-learning situation — a protocol that remained in place in Lynn and Saugus through the end of the year. Other communities were fortunate enough to return to some sort of in-person learning (termed as hybrid) by Christmas. But even so, in September, when school started, most of the area’s school systems were still 100 percent remote.
The cost was astronomical, and we’re not talking about money. Seniors lost the final quarters of their high school careers. They could not graduate with traditional ceremonies. There were no proms, no class trips, no “one last look around the campus.”
More poignantly for some, there were no sports — a situation that, again, remains an issue even now. When the pandemic started, The Lynn English boys basketball and St. Mary’s girls basketball teams were poised to play for state championships when the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association pulled the plug on the state finals.
There were no spring sports. No Little League. A smattering of summer sports, but not anywhere close to their usual volume. In the fall, some sports returned while others were moved to a makeshift fourth season between February and April, including football. For the first time in anyone’s memory, there was no Thanksgiving football.
Desperate times called for heightened response. Virtually every area nonprofit agency ended up postponing or canceling outright its annual big-ticket fundraiser. Yet they all still stepped up to contribute mightily to fill in the gaps caused by the pandemic shutdown. The existence of the Lynn Education District, for example, a collaborative of schools and nonprofits, helped establish a network that quickly mobilized to provide services. There was “Healthy Students, Healthy Saugus.” There were food pantries set up in almost every community.
Many nonprofits provided extra child care. Others distributed grab-and-go meals to students who relied on school breakfasts and lunches for nutritional sustenance. They did this with the spectre of catching what proved to be a virulent virus hovering over their heads. We saw CEOs unloading trucks full of diapers to distribute to needy families. No one was too big to get in the trenches to help out.
And there was definitely heightened need. The economy took a huge hit, with layoffs abounding. The Salvation Army in Lynn took the lead in distributing food to those who needed it, and there was such demand that the traffic created by the drive-through system of collecting the food caused massive tie-ups around the Franklin Street headquarters. The site had to be moved to the Manning Field parking lot.
If students had to learn remotely, workers moved their offices to their living rooms and bedrooms. Office attire wasn’t a suit, but a bathrobe and fuzzy slippers.
If we didn’t know what Zoom was before March 13 we found out soon enough. And we also learned how to disable the video on Zoom so that the rest of the world couldn’t see us — thereby allowing us to attend the “meetings” unshaven and in our pajamas.
Restaurants also were adversely affected, with limits placed on indoor seating cutting into profits. Some took advantage of favorable summer weather, and a favorably warm fall, to offer outdoor tents and sidewalk cafes. Some, such as Kowloon’s in Saugus, really thought outside the box and offered outdoor movies to go along with pork fried rice. Other restaurants chose — at least in the early stages — to simply shut down and keep people employed by doing repairs.
The government’s Paycheck Protection Program, by the end of the year, loaned 4,847 businesses more than $300 million in the Lynn area, saving about 36,000 jobs — some of them at The Item.
Lurking beneath all of this was death, and the very real fear of dying. The virus was particularly brutal to the health-compromised and the elderly. If you had pre-existing conditions, you learned that you were on your own when it came to staying out of harm’s way. Nursing homes, veterans homes, and crowded living conditions all seemed to invite the spread.
In Massachusetts, we learned the difference between red, yellow and green in terms of the risk of spreading the disease. The state initiated a “Stop the Spread” campaign that enabled hundreds of thousands of people to get tested free of charge, and for a while we seemed — at least in this state — to have a handle on things.
Then the cold weather returned, more people retreated indoors, and the second surge that had been predicted by health experts all over the United States, struck with a vengeance. Now, as in then, hospitals are overflowing, beds are scarce, elective surgeries are being postponed, and front-line workers are exhausted.
In Lynn, 11,322 have been infected since March, with 156 deaths. Saugus has seen 2,138 cases, with 48 deaths; Swampscott 550 and 11; Nahant 133 and six; Peabody 3,907 and 228; and Marblehead 653 and 31.
Lynnfield, which was one of the first of the local communities to report fatalities, has seen 659 cases and 19 deaths. And in Revere, where things got so critical that Mayor Brian Arrigo went up and down the boulevard with a bullhorn in March imploring people to practice safe, social distancing, 6,667 cases have been reported along with 121 deaths.
By December, two different companies had produced vaccines, and some front-line workers in the area have already been given doses. There may be light at the end of the tunnel before too long.
But the situation is still grim. While Saugus voted Tuesday to send their students back to school in January, Lynn and Revere — plagued by a continuous presence in the state’s red zone — remain 100 percent remote. Lynn Superintendent Dr. Patrick J. Tutwiler hopes Lynn will be back in school, in some form, in February. Meanwhile, the city’s health department put the kibosh on all winter sports just when the city’s athletic directors and the School Committee were trying to come up with a plan to have them.
Through all of it. St. Mary’s — which is not under the jurisdiction of the City of Lynn — started school on time, ran a fall sports program to the extent the state allowed, and kept it up through the end of the year.
The need for testing goes on, however, and the City of Lynn has provided a drive-through facility on the site of the ferry that used to take people into Boston.