5 years later: Remembering the Eagle’s COVID-19 pandemic coverage
My COVID-19 coverage started with the smell of urinal cakes, standing behind a big-bodied truck driver who meticulously scrubbed his hands with soap in the Love’s Truck Stop bathroom in northern Butler County.
“Sorry,” the man said, apologizing for taking extra time.
“No problem,” I said.
As I washed my own hands, the hand dryer nearly drowned out the trucker, who mentioned something about a virus sweeping across China.
“Can’t be too careful,” the trucker said.
Some time later, my managing editor at the time, Andie Hannon, called me into her office. The first few cases were popping up on cruise ships and other isolated incidents across the country. Hannon made it my job to track the virus locally.
I am forever thankful to her. As guilty as I feel about it, I got to keep my job when many others were sent home.
The early days were slow, but mania exploded after former Gov. Tom Wolf shut down businesses and travel.
Shutdown coverage was hard. Stigmas around contracting the virus made talking to people difficult. So, I settled for the easy information — the numbers.
I tracked the data supplied by the Pennsylvania Department of Health on a spreadsheet. At times, during news conferences I had to call out its discrepancies, until I stopped getting called on. Then, I looked at other ways to show the pandemic’s effects on our community.
We saw businesses shuttered, our favorite events canceled and schools finding creative ways to teach children.
We saw our health care providers working long hours and risking their own health for the greater good. We saw nursing homes and hospitals restrict visitors to protect the most vulnerable. And, we also saw great acts of kindness mixed in with the isolation we all felt.
At times it didn’t feel real. Of course, it felt much more real when I caught it myself … twice. It was the gnarliest head cold I’ve ever had, but I came out of it all right.
Others didn’t, especially the old and frail. COVID-19 claimed thousands of lives over the course of two years, 2020-22, when it appeared most potent.
Today, COVID-related deaths continue to decline, but the pandemic continues to be polarizing among many. It is both mocked and reviled; feared and respected; remembered and forcefully forgotten.
Nowadays when I think back on the pandemic, I smell the smoke fuming off a big bonfire surrounded by a bunch of teenagers. They keep messing with it, melting their shoes and singeing their arm hair in the process.
The fire gets a little crazy, too close for comfort at times, but then everyone stops messing around and gets it under control before someone calls the fire department.
Sitting back in a lawn chair, the flames dwindle and the bellowing heat feels like a memory.
The time we almost set the world on fire. It’s a story we’ll always tell, and a memory we’ll never forget.
Nathan Bottiger, a Butler County resident, is a former Eagle staff writer.
