It is nearly always clear from context that when people use "during Covid" they mean "during the emergency response to the Covid-19 pandemic" (too long to write every time!) and are not making any statement at all about the continued circulation of the virus or the effects of the disease.
People who get shouty about this are just looking to yell at someone for not taking COVID seriously, as though there is something that can be done on an individual level beyond taking some basic precautions and getting boosters as applicable.
They hold the belief that full eradication was possible and will never stop being resentful that things have ended up the way they have.
I'm not a scientist, just a country lawyer. When talking about things in the recent past, I often use "during Covid." Everyone understands what I mean. People I work with are still getting infected. We know it's still around.
Do those people also understand that even asymptomatic cases of COVID cause lasting systemic damage, potentially including permanent brain damage? www.cidrap.umn.edu/covid-19/eve...
I usually say "during peak covid"
I’ve taken to using the phrase myself as it is pretty clear what it means! Useful way to refer to a time period, not a commentary on what has or hasn’t changed
lol at presuming the data is in any way similar after the Jill Biden mask off presser
FYI you responded to the wrong post
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"during early COVID"
I use “during lockdown” for my shorthand, but I live in NYC and there was an official lockdown of the city. I’m sure it doesn’t quite fit for people who lived in areas without a definitive date and lockdown requirements.
Yes, "during lockdown" has a specific meaning here in Melbourne which is not the same as "during the covid emergency response", as the emergency response was ongoing (and impactful) while lockdowns were sporadic.
If I hear someone say "during covid I couldn't visit my parents overseas" I and everyone else here knows what they mean. "During lockdown" wouldn't substitute.
It’s not hard to use a couple more words for the sake of accuracy. Also it’s almost always clear that what people actually mean by “during Covid” is that they chose the false reality of the pandemic being behind us biologically at the time it was declared “over” socially.
As I wrote above, I disagree. But you don't have to take my word for it, you can ask them. I am sure that they know that covid is still here, and are using "during covid" to mean "during the pandemic emergency response". I can't prove it to you of course, but it is easy enough for you to verify.
Why are you sure of that, though? The vast majority of people I talk to about it genuinely believe covid is over, and "during covid" is an expression of that belief. People ask me what I'm masking for, and when I say covid, they're genuinely surprised. Some ask me when it "came back."
Huh. Hasn't been my experience at all.
I think that may be a big source of the disconnect, then. Most people I know both online and IRL who have been asking folks to stop using the past tense have talked about this experience. It's a really big part of why this is so important.
Could you point to one person online on any forum who expressed the belief that covid disappeared? I've interacted with 100s or 1000s of people online about covid on 4 platforms and never run into this belief. I am not sure where you hang out online, I am interested.
If brevity is the issue, might I suggest “early Covid” then? Assuming precision in language is a shared value, I think that is objectively more accurate & requires no justification or assumptions.
Of course you could suggest it to people who use the phrase. (This post, and the quoted posts, weren't about what phrasing I use!)
I have been to multiple weddings where the couples story is “we met during Covid” and everyone understands what time period they mean.
I will typically say "during lockdown", which admittedly was different periods depending on where you were, but I use it to effectively mean "before vaccines were widely available".
I’ve said that too, with that meaning, but I try to avoid it because people wildly overstate how locked down we were and for how long. Here, “lockdown” in any real sense was a month or two.
Yeah, as a Chicagoan typically interacting with other Chicagoans, there's an implicit understanding of the dates to which I'm referring. Don't know that I'd use it with folks in vastly different circumstances.
They should write it every time
I usually call it the deep dark days of Covid or something like that. I know it’s not precise, but acknowledges that it’s ongoing.
I agree, though I will often use the phrasing "at the height of the pandemic," which I usually don't find to be too terribly wordy.
i’m fond of “at the beginning of the pandemic” i get particularly spiky about “during covid” especially because it’s often followed by “when we were all in lockdown—“ i was a grocery clerk. there was no lockdown for me. the polarization of job-based risk is deep in my bones from that time 🫠
I can imagine! The wretched treatment of many public-facing essential workers during that time seemed to have rightly inspired a new wave of union activism.
Yes, I've used that one before.
Sorry we don't have a better shorthand term for that, but we don't. Trying to control how people use language to express a perfectly good concept* is folly. *there is, in fact, a "during" and an "after" the emergency response to the pandemic
I've also heard "lockdown" or "quarantine" used to refer to that block of time but both of those obviously also have their issues
The shorthand term I normally use is "during the acute covid pandemic". It may just reflect the kind of people that read me, but there hasn't been any particular misinterpretations.
I don't mind it, but, like "during covid" it could be misinterpreted. The pandemic of acute disease from Covid-19 has not gone away, just as the pandemic of acute disease from Influenza A/H1N1pdm/2009 hasn't gone away. It may disappear one day, just like A/H1N1 has disappeared (twice!) before.
And getting replaced by reassorted viruses, also related to the 1918 pandemic. Just “during the pandemic” (or Swedish “under pandemin”) also often works well in context, to refer to the time with significant contact reductions due to covid-19.
strange that we have the annual flu we do because of the same fuss people made over covid precautions
what
in the 1920's there was an epidemic of the spanish flu. you can even find old newspaper comics printed at the time of people complaining of having to wear facial coverings. what was labled the spanish flu was a world wide epidemic similar to covid.
I think you are confusing several different factoids. The 1918 pandemic, known as "Spanish flu" was indeed influenza A/H1N1. That A/H1N1 pandemic ended 39 years later in 1957.
The same A/H1N1 strain was reintroduced in 1977 due to a lab leak, causing another pandemic from 1977-2009 before it was replaced by a zoonotic A/H1N1 strain. The 2009 A/H1N1 pandemic continues today.
thank you for correcting me. i just vaguely remember my high school history teacher for ap us history had explained it that way. lincoln high school in tacoma,wa back in the late 90's
Realising you're writing from Australia; beyond contexts where WHO PHE (ending May 2023) is meaning to infer, the end date might have it mean very different things. WHO PHE period does encompass most AUS Covid deaths but a UK "During COVID" meaning 2020 + 2021 it would = "Almost no COVID" in AUS!
In general parlance here in Australia, if someone says "during covid" to mean "during the emergency response to the covid pandemic" they are not referring to the WHO definition of PHEIC, but rather the time period were there were significant restrictions...
...in place on e.g. international travel, public gatherings, occupancy in hospitality, face mask wearing, etc. Generally from March 2020 to sometime in early-mid 2022. Again, I am simply describing the way the public uses the English language.
It's a fairly well-defined period of time, marked by some substantial regulations that were unprecedented before and haven't happened since, and the exact timing might differ a little from country to country, but generally most people know that's what "during covid means colloquially.
Right - so it is accurate that translating that concept (pandemic domestic legal restrictions) to the UK (were most restrictions where removed in July 2021) would mean date range in Australia with almost no COVID deaths. With 19 July 2021 (UK) and start of June 2022 (AUS) as local end dates.....
cont.... those periods cover is 66% (UK) and 37% (AUS) of COVID deaths in Our World In Data data. So AUS a bit like US in sense that more recorded deaths in post vaccine, Biden era (1.2m deaths to Jan 20 2021 reaching 2.5m a year later). Similar concept, different times & deaths involved.
Yes, that is why I said "It is nearly always clear from context ... not making any statement at all about the continued circulation of the virus or the effects of the disease".
Not arguing that inference is wrong. "During pandemic emergency phase"/"In pre-vaccine pandemic" are slightly different but seem short. The lack of broadly adopted & visible post-vaccine mitigation is probably why emphasising "COVID still here" feels right to more COVID cautious folk.
An implicit stance - in absence of better masking, visible ventilation improvements, normalised "Is there a wave on?" monitoring - seems to be "Get the vaccine, get the disease and die if you are going to". I once had a relative explicitly advocating me to go get COVID (when Omicron was new).