When world stopped during pandemic, we banded together

Society was shutting down. It was March 2020, the earliest days of the pandemic in Minnesota, and major sporting events were canceled or took place without an audience.

- Karen Tolkkinen

Colleges across the state and country closed campuses, directing students to study online. The National Guard blocked off an entire New York suburb. Elderly people were dying in Washington state nursing homes.

And it wasn't just old people. Young people were also ending up in intensive care. It was unreal. At the Alexandria newspaper where I worked, the news staff talked about how to cover what everyone was still calling the coronavirus.

Some, exasperated, felt the whole thing was overblown. Others got emotional and said people were dying, and that the threat was real. If big-name sports teams are putting public health above profits, I thought, something is seriously wrong. My old enemy, anxiety, began to creep back into my life. Minnesota banned get-togethers of more than 250 people. On March 13, President Donald Trump declared a national emergency. Schools closed. Our son's school wanted us to pick up his things; they'd cleared out his desk like they didn't expect him to come back.