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Daily Herald opinion: Five years after Illinois’ first COVID-19 diagnosis, we remember the heroes and hardships

On Jan. 24, 2020, medical officials at a Hoffman Estates hospital announced a patient there had tested positive for a mysterious coronavirus that only one day earlier had led to a lockdown in Wuhan, China.

The patient at Ascension St. Alexius Medical Center — a woman who had returned from Wuhan earlier that month — became the second diagnosed coronavirus case in the U.S. and the first in Illinois.

Experts from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention came to St. Alexius five years ago to learn about the disease and how to treat it. The hospital’s role in the early days of what would become a worldwide pandemic remains a point of pride for doctors there, as Eric Peterson points out in a story on today’s front page.

Case numbers, hospitalization rates and death tolls quickly grew over the coming weeks, months and years, with new daily cases soaring above 30,000 in Illinois at one point in 2021.

Five years later, more than 7 million people have died from COVID-19, according to the World Health Organization.

The pandemic’s spread and the precautions that arose from it led to what many still see as one of the most defining and isolating periods of their lives.

While a five-year anniversary is not a long-term marker by most measures, those years have brought incredible change and challenges.

By March of 2020, daily press conferences releasing updated case counts became must-see TV. Health care workers were taxed to their limits, and a field hospital was opened in McCormick Place to handle the ever-growing number of patients. Refrigerated trucks were brought in as the death toll rose.

Millions lost someone they loved to the disease. Many who battled it were left with lingering health problems.

Social distancing forced families apart. Hospitals banned visitors, leaving patients to die alone. Schools closed their doors for months, reopening later with a long list of rules that included testing and masking.

Businesses and entertainment venues were shuttered. Stay-at-home directives drove people from company offices, some never to return. Entire industries scrambled to survive.

The measures were extreme and surely helped keep the number of fatalities and serious reactions down, but they also led to resentments and arguments over whether well-intentioned health directives went too far.

Five years later, we still see the aftereffects.

In the coming months, there will be a number of COVID-19 anniversaries to mark. The first Illinois death. The stay-at-home orders. The approval of vaccines.

As we look back, we will remember those we lost, honor those who risked their lives to keep us safe and pay tribute to the advances that have made a COVID-19 diagnosis today far less terrifying.

And we will also shake our heads — and perhaps share a laugh — about Zoom meetings gone wrong, the clamor for toilet paper and the time wasted washing down soup cans.

As we do, it is important to add gratitude to the mix.

As we remember the fear, we should also remember the courage of health care workers.

As we remember the divisiveness, we should recall the compassion.

And as we remember the isolation, we should revisit memories of the joy of long-overdue family gatherings and joyous hugs once vaccines were rolled out.

Today, ripple effects remain, of course, but our lives have largely gone back to our pre-pandemic routines. We eat out with friends, we shop, we travel, we attend weddings, we send our children to school. But as we enjoy the normalcy we once took for granted, we should pause to remember those — including the doctors and nurses of St. Alexius treating that first local patient — who got us here.

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