A year ago I had a weird cold, and in March decided to write about the symptoms as a marker, just in case it overlapped other non-typical COVID symptoms, We were still learning the basics back then – we weren’t masking yet, though caution was high. Cloth masks had barely been tried and paper ones were in short supply; most of the focus was on social distancing, wearing gloves, and not touching our faces.

I suspect I did not have COVID (it was the thick mucus that made me wonder, but I haven’t seen other report of people having that issue with their eyes). But at the time… yeah, I was worried.

The first known US death from COVID happened a year ago tomorrow, and even back then I knew we could be facing months of the disease. Had Trump et al actually faced the crisis with any kind of aggressive response, it might have only been that long.

But here we are.