Two years since COVID-19 was first confirmed in the U.S. the virus has turned out to be worse than many people imagined. While San Diego continues to deal with the effects of the omicron variant, some San Diegans are reflecting on how their life has changed during the pandemic.
“Right now, there is still a lot of false information out there,” said Jo Johnson, a San Diego resident.
Johnson went to a community resource fair at New Creation Church on Saturday morning to pick up extra face masks. Johnson says she received her COVID-19 vaccine booster but has family members who are unvaccinated.
“Once people realize that it is real and the vaccine can help us, I think we’ll be able to get it under control because two years is a long time to be dealing with this,” said Johnson.
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Vaccines are helping Jasmine Cooper and her family begins to live a more normal life.
“I work in travel so that whole industry tanked for a while,” said Cooper.
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The pandemic has hurt Cooper financially. She is also worried about her children's ability to socialize.
“I’ve been reluctant to put them into sports because his sister is immune-compromised, so we don’t want to bring anything back to her. They haven’t been able to experience the things that I would want them to at their age,” said Cooper.
Local aid groups have also stepped up their efforts over the last two years. Hugh Muhammad has been volunteering to do food distributions weekly.
“When we started it started with about 500 or 600, but by the time we got into May, we were doing 1,200 families just on Tuesdays,” said Muhammad.
While families are anxious to go back to normal, health experts remind the public that Covid will likely be part of our lives for years to come. As of Jan. 22, 2022, there have been 639,139 total cases and 4,566 deaths in San Diego County.
