JACKSONVILLE, Fla — Two years ago today, people across the world were living in a lot of anxiety.
We had just heard about the first confirmed COVID-19 case on the First Coast. Business shutdowns, working from home and virtual school were on the horizon.
Since then, more than 960,000 people have died from COVID-19, and the people who took care of them are still working in our hospitals.
"In the hospital people used to get together and you know, used to hug and all that," said Debi Delapaz, nurse manager at UF Health. "Now people are kind of more cautious about that."
"I think it's okay to sit back and spend this time reflecting and acknowledging the sadness that you feel," said Kelly Guion, Baptist Heart Hospital nurse manager.
These two nurse managers ran or still run the COVID-19 units at their hospitals.
"There was a lot of fear," Guion recounts about 2020. "Because it was completely unknown. At that point, we were getting our very first COVID patient at Baptist downtown."
But on the two-year anniversary of the world changing due to COVID-19, fear is not what they feel now.
"I think the first feeling that comes to me is pride," Guion said. "It's a sense of confidence that I might not have all the answers, I might not know what's coming, but I know that together that this team can do it."
"We are ready," said Delapaz. "We know what we're dealing with. We're all ready, we know how to do it."
First Coast News asked what they hope the world takes away from the past two years.
"At any moment, something can happen," said Delapaz. "Be nice to each other also. Everybody suffers from something."
"Love on the people you love and be there for the people that you need to be there for and support each other," said Guion. "Because you just don't know. Right? I think that's something we all learned through this. You just don't know."
Looking at the trajectory of the pandemic through the latest CDC graph, there are patterns. Over the past two years, cases have been down in June, then up around Christmas and January.
Right now, the average number of cases is lower than it was last March, but still higher than in June of 2020.