A look back at the impact of COVID-19, 5 years later
MILWAUKEE (CBS 58) --- It's been five years since COVID-19 officially became a global health emergency. A month later, the pandemic changed most aspects of everyday life. Years later, health experts say they've learned so much about how to keep communities healthy.
It was Jan. 31, 2020, that the World Health Organization first declared COVID-19 a global emergency. At the time, the virus didn't even have an official name. It was only known as novel Coronavirus, but as it continued to spread its impact was felt everywhere, including in Wisconsin.
The pandemic gave the world a crash course on infection prevention, how infections are spread and changed everyday practices in an attempt to prevent the spread of disease. Things like hand sanitizer and face masks became items of regular use and for many still are today.
Five years later, Dr. Jeff Pothof with UW-Health in Madison says the worst of COVID-19 is likely behind us. "It's been around the world a number of years now, so we don't have this same scenario where you have pretty much every human being on earth never having been exposed to this pathogen before...extremely high case fatalities to really no one left probably on the planet who hasn't been exposed to COVID-19 at this point," he said.
Doctors have also seen a slowing in mutations and variants of the disease, which during the pandemic made people sicker. "Since the omicron variant, we've had changes like differences in COVID-19 the virus, but they've all been.... closely linked to the omicron variant," said Pothof. There are still many researchers working to learn exactly how Covid came to be in the first place and also many working to learn more about the long-term impacts on the body, known as long covid.
"We understand more about long Covid but certainly we don't as much as we do about heart disease or diabetes — there are people still, five years out who are not back to normal. That long Covid hasn't gone away so a lot of research is underway right now," said Dr. Pothof
While we've learned to live with the disease, doctors remind people that it still exists and to keep putting those protective measures in place to stay healthy.