Lifestyle
How Covid Changed the Lives of These 29 Americans
Five years ago, Covid took hold and the world transformed almost overnight. As routines and rituals evaporated, often replaced by grief, fear and isolation, many of us wondered: When will things go back to normal? Could they ever?
Today, for many, the coronavirus pandemic seems far away and foggy, while for others it’s as visceral as yesterday. We asked Americans what changes forged in that upheaval have lasted, and hundreds of you detailed the ways your lives assumed a different shape — for better and for worse.
Here are some stories of those enduring changes. Interviews have been edited and condensed for clarity.
Donna Sintic,
72, Santa Monica, Calif.
It totally changed my perspective on holidays which I had controlled for too many years. Suddenly it was okay to eat pizza on the patio — spaced six feet apart — on Thanksgiving. My new resolution was to relinquish control and just let holidays be about gathering family and counting blessings.
Asher Steinberg,
33, New York City
Life is mostly back to normal for me, but my partner and I still test if we have respiratory symptoms, and generally ask our family to as well. I still feel some uncertainty about what the right decisions are — Should I put on a mask on this crowded subway car? Is that person just coughing because of allergies or should I move a couple seats over?
Antoine Carter,
39, Milwaukee He lost his stepdad and an aunt to Covid in 2020.
It restructured our family dynamic, and I needed to step up and fill new roles. Then George Floyd happened, and it gave me courage to stand up for myself, and ask for what I deserved at my job. I went back to school in 2021 and finished my bachelor’s degree online. It forced me to think, and figure out what was next, and who the next me was.
Carolina Acosta-Alzuru,
66, Athens, Ga.
Before the pandemic I had only one houseplant. Today I have more than 30. I still work a lot. I still wake up at 5 a.m. But now I meditate and take care of my plants before I do anything else.
Sarah Kelly,
35, Winston-Salem, N.C. She was finishing graduate school at the time.
My fellowship ended with no direction forward, I lost my temporary housing and didn’t qualify for unemployment as a student. With little savings, I moved back to my hometown for family and community support. I live a much smaller life now, in a town with no opportunities in my field. The upside to it all? I have a beautiful 5-month-old baby girl, who has brought me more joy than I knew was possible.
Miguel Guzman,
56, San Antonio He nearly died after getting Covid in late 2020.
The most important thing is being grateful to be alive, just being able to do the things that we love to do, to play mariachi music. Being in that dire situation, that’s the only thing that I wanted. I was thinking about my family — how they were going to manage if I didn’t live. But I’m still here.
Michelle Jaggi,
43, Erie, Pa.
Masks became so divisive, and I didn’t expect that. A lot of the concrete connections with people are eroded when you’re not participating in the typical activities, when going out to lunch is replaced by texts and calls. It leads to hurt feelings on both sides. I have friends who have said, “Things don’t have to be this way,” but my family feels, for our safety, that it does need to be this way. Those friendships have changed.
Lynn Truong,
36, Las Vegas
My favorite thing I learned was how to love and appreciate my face with no makeup on. Pre-pandemic, I would put on makeup just to check the mail.
Kesha Coward,
47, Richmond, Va. She has multiple sclerosis, and lost her job in April 2022.
I had never been unemployed and I had to lean on my savings. I have M.S., and I didn’t have health insurance for about a year, so I didn’t have my medication. I was able to find a new job, with insurance, but I could not work remotely. I did get Covid, and it impacted my health — I have had a heart monitor installed. I was really going through it, and I had to push myself. I told myself, this can’t be the end of everything.
James P. Burns,
72, New York City
My wife and I had always wanted a dog, but had hesitated because of time constraints. But with the uncertain future, a dog made perfect sense. Kiki will be 5 in April.
Constance Kreemer,
75, Santa Cruz, Calif. She is a professional dancer and has taught yoga for decades.
I believe my body is my temple. I became a pariah during the pandemic because I wasn’t willing to be vaccinated. I had friends who wouldn’t hug me or get in a car with me. I had people tell me I must be a Republican, when I am very, very liberal. There was so much fear instilled in everyone. The lasting change for me was to know who my people were.
Rosanne Zoccoli,
72, New York City
I do wish that more investment be made into this type of long Covid. It is, incorrectly, not considered dangerous. But I can’t smell gas or smoke.
Paige Woodard,
21, Northampton, Mass.
It was the most drastic weight gain I had ever had in my life. And I think I didn’t notice it for a while, in part because I was living in, like, sweatpants and pajama pants, and I didn’t really have to go anywhere. And that weight has stayed on.
Jacqueline Child,
30, Denver She started a dating app with her sister for disabled and chronically ill people.
I was not outspoken about my disability, and now, interacting with this community every day, I have really normalized it for myself. I think for many non-disabled people, there’s a view that disability and intimacy don’t go together. That is something we want to change.
Sydney Drell Reiner,
67, Hermosa Beach, Calif. She was married for 27 years.
“You look so much happier,” friends tell me now that we’re separated and finalizing the divorce. But what I think they’re really seeing is me — the person I used to be before this marriage. The person who made choices based on what I wanted, rather than what I believed was required of me. Covid stripped away the distractions and revealed a truth I’d been avoiding. And for that, strangely enough, I am endlessly grateful.
Tarit Tanjasiri,
61, Irvine, Calif. His cafe and bakery had 70 employees in 2020.
We were able to leverage our relationship with our vendors and at least keep our employees fed. I know that they were there at the hardest times volunteering to come and clean the bakery for free. We’re able to now really make more investments to offer everyone health insurance, retirement plans.
Michele Rabkin,
61, Oakland, Calif.
Trying to keep our spirits up, me, my husband and a few friends decided we would get together on Zoom to chat, then go watch a movie and come back on Zoom afterwards to talk about it. We’ve watched 175 movies together so far.
Shawn’te C.R. Harvell,
42, Elizabeth, N.J. He is a funeral home manager.
I wasn’t getting much sleep because we were so busy, and that was the first time I questioned my career choice. Everything changed with how we culturally referenced and dealt with our dead, to the point where we were going to the cemetery and it was just the funeral director and the deceased. You had to FaceTime the family. I did not get into this to just be picking up a body to dispose of it. It changed the way we do funerals now.
Charles Huang,
22, Rosemount, Minn. He has not gotten Covid and continues to mask.
The isolation I still feel is painful. When I’m in a crowded elevator or on a fully booked flight, I try to act calm, but my mind frantically fixates on the possibility of contracting Covid, and puzzles over why post-pandemic life never came for me the same way it came for what looks like nearly everyone else.
Cindy Way,
67, State College, Pa.
When my evangelical church closed, I felt a spiritual urge to explore other traditions. I began to question everything I had been told, and went into a spiritual freefall from which I haven’t fully recovered. I saw my lifelong Republican views flip as well. I no longer felt threatened by those outside my bubble and began to attend an affirming church and support the rights of all the disenfranchised. It’s still very painful to acknowledge the pain and damage I may have caused others.
Carolyn Thomas,
60, Strasburg, Va.
My employer insisted that we get Covid shots or file for exemptions that, if approved, would lead to regular testing. I wouldn’t get the shots or tests, and so I had to retire early and give up my high salary for a lower pension than I’d expected. I’d voted for Democrats my entire life, and in 2024 I voted for Trump.
Malik Shelton,
33, Augusta, Ga.
A lot of nurses would tell you, in some ways, we miss Covid — the way people treated you then. The country was going through a hard time, and everyone was being hit, so you didn’t have so many situations with nurses being called names, or patients saying they don’t want anyone with an accent. Those things, now? They happen every day.
Kevin Nincehelser,
37, Topeka, Kan. He and his wife had two more children during the pandemic.
I have been close to them their whole lives because Covid allowed me to work from home and better assist with childcare. My wife and I converted our kids from public school to home-school. We now have all our groceries delivered. I am also a business owner and converted our business from 100 percent in the office to 100 percent work from home.
Dr. Mark Hamed,
45, Sandusky, Mich. He is a local public health official.
It taught me to get out of my silo and listen to people with different opinions, different politics and let them educate me. I met with these little old ladies, as they explained their fears about vaccines and autism. They were so scared for their grandchildren. And after that conversation, they were hugging me, texting me. This community is all about family, so now I tell them, “We should probably get the flu vaccine, because we care about our older folks.” They all mean well, there is just so much misinformation.
Talia Falkenberg,
22, Atlanta Her high school was still remote when she returned for her senior year in the fall of 2020.
There were a lot of firsts I was missing out on. My peers and I were so focused on our own futures, and it made us zoom out and focus on the big picture. I don’t sweat the small stuff anymore, and I don’t feel as angry. I give a little more grace, now, to the administrators who made that decision.
Judith Liskin-Gasparro,
78, Iowa City
An informal Yiddish study group started up over Zoom. Although Yiddish was the native language of all of my (immigrant) grandparents, I had learned no Yiddish as a child. I thought the group might be a nice distraction. To my surprise, I fell in love with Yiddish.
Stephanie Woerfel,
72, Everett, Wash.
My sister and I were avid pool swimmers. We live 10 minutes away from Puget Sound. One day we saw a woman in a bikini coming out of the water onto the beach. The next week my sister and I took the plunge. We swim twice a week in the Sound rain or shine, snow or wind.
Asia Santos,
39, San Diego She volunteered to travel as a nurse to New York City in April 2020.
You were faced with these huge questions every day: What is a good death? What is a bad death? My thing was, no one is allowed to die alone. It was the only way I could get up the next day. You can make trauma work negatively for you, or positively.
Mei Davis,
60, Pensacola, Fla. She has not fully regained her sense of taste and smell after getting Covid in 2021.
Life almost becomes muted. I lived to travel, and the first thing I always did was look up the best restaurant wherever I was. I still do that, because you don’t want to give up on these things, and you hope someday they might come sliding back.
Satirist Bill Maher is this year’s recipient of the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor. Maher will receive the award at the Kennedy Center on June 28th. The show will stream on Netflix at a later date.
Evan Agostini/Invision/AP
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Evan Agostini/Invision/AP
Bill Maher will be receiving the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor after all.
There’s been some confusion about whether the comedian and longtime host of HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher would, indeed, be getting the top humor award. After The Atlantic cited anonymous sources saying he was, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt called it “fake news.” But today the Kennedy Center made it official.
“For nearly three decades, the Mark Twain Prize has celebrated some of the greatest minds in comedy,” said Roma Daravi, the Kennedy Center’s vice president of public relations in a statement. “For even longer, Bill has been influencing American discourse – one politically incorrect joke at a time.”
Is President Trump, chair of the Kennedy Center’s board, in on the joke?
Maher once visited Trump at the White House and he tends to be more conservative than many of his comedian peers but after their dinner Trump soured on Maher, calling him a “highly overrated LIGHTWEIGHT” on social media.
Maher’s acerbic wit has targeted both political parties and he’s been particularly hard on Trump recently, criticizing his decisions to wage a war with Iran and his personnel choices.
“Trump said, ‘when oil prices go up, we make a lot of money.’ Um, who’s ‘we?,’” Maher said in a recent monologue.
Past recipients of the Mark Twain Prize include Conan O’Brien, Dave Chappelle, Jon Stewart, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Tina Fey, Eddie Murphy and Carol Burnett.
In a statement released through the Kennedy Center, Maher said, “It is indeed humbling to get anything named for a man who’s been thrown out of as many school libraries as Mark Twain.”
Maher will receive the Mark Twain Prize at the Kennedy Center on June 28. The show will stream on Netflix at a later date.
Workers react to the media after updating signage outside the Kennedy Center on Dec. 19, 2025, in Washington, D.C.
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Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images
Rep. Joyce Beatty of Ohio is asking a federal court in Washington, D.C., to force President Trump and the board and staff of the Kennedy Center to revert to calling the arts complex The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.
The motion, which Beatty filed on Wednesday, asks a federal circuit court judge to reverse the Trump administration and the center’s current board and staff’s decision to call the complex “The Trump-Kennedy Center.”
In the filing, Beatty’s attorneys wrote: “Can the Board of the Kennedy Center — in direct contradiction of the governing statutes — rename this sacred memorial to John F. Kennedy after President Donald J. Trump? The answer is, unequivocally, ‘no.’ By renaming the Center — in violation of the law — Defendants have breached the terms of the trust and their most basic fiduciary obligations as trustees. Shortly after President John F. Kennedy’s assassination, Congress designated the Kennedy Center as the ‘sole national memorial to the late’ President in the nation’s capital.”
In a statement emailed to NPR Thursday, Roma Daravi, the vice president of public relations for the Kennedy Center, wrote: “We’re confident the court will uphold the board’s decision on the name change and the desperately needed renovations which will continue as scheduled.” NPR also reached out to the White House for comment, but did not receive a reply.
In December, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt announced that the complex would heretofore be called “The Trump-Kennedy Center.” Although the new moniker was never approved by Congress, the Center’s website and publicity materials were immediately updated to reflect the administration’s chosen name, and the same day as Leavitt’s announcement, Trump’s name went up on the signage of the complex’s exterior, over that of the slain President Kennedy.
Later that month, Rep. Beatty who serves as an ex-officio member of the Kennedy Center’s board of trustees, sued Trump, members of the Kennedy Center board appointed by Trump, and some ex-officio members, arguing that the complex’s name had been legislated by Congress in 1964. Wednesday’s motion is part of that lawsuit.
In a press release sent to NPR on Wednesday, Rep. Beatty said: “Donald Trump’s attempt to rename the Kennedy Center after himself is not just an act of ego. It is an attempt to subvert our Constitution and the rule of law. Congress established the Kennedy Center by law, and only Congress can change its name.”
For many patrons, artists and benefactors of the Kennedy Center, the name change was the last straw in politicizing the performing arts hub. Following the White House announcement of the new name, many prominent artists withdrew planned performances there, including the composer Philip Glass (a Kennedy Center Honors award recipient, who received his prize during the first Trump administration), the famed Broadway composer and lyricist Stephen Schwartz and the 18-time Grammy-winning banjo master Béla Fleck.
The Washington National Opera (WNO), which had been in residence at the Kennedy Center since 1971, also severed its ties in January after ticket sales dropped precipitously. Earlier this month, WNO artistic director Francesca Zambello told NPR, “We did try as best as we could to encourage [the patrons] that we are a bipartisan organization, but people really voted with their feet and with their pocketbooks. And so we realized that there was really no choice for us.”
On Monday, a coalition of eight architecture and cultural groups also sued Trump and the Kennedy Center board in federal court over the complex’s scheduled closing in July for unspecified renovations. Their suit seeks to have the White House and board members comply with existing historic preservation laws, and to secure Congressional approval before moving ahead with the renovation plans.
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