COVID-19 pandemic: 5 years later

It was a society seeking answers.

A significant portion of the population was living in fear.

It was a society willing to listen.

And five years ago this week, Gov. JB Pritzker stepped up to a microphone and issued a most unusual order.

The governor said due to the worldwide pandemic which had now reached the United States and Illinois, the state’s residents were ordered to “shelter in place.”

Translation: Stay at home. No work. No school. No church. No restaurants.

For better or worse, Illinois was brought to a halt.

Basically, the theory went, two weeks of no public interaction would largely slow the transmission of the COVID-19 virus.

A slowing of the virus would let the health community catch up in an effort to deal with what would likely be a significant number of people being infected.

The cost of the stay-at-home order has been debated since the passing of those first few weeks, but one thing cannot be questioned – the pandemic led to physical and emotional illness, separated friends and families, caused economic and political upheaval, and shook a nation to its core.

While many aspects have passed, such as drive-thru celebrations and social distancing, there remain lingering effects and viewpoints.

The Journal reached out to a number of people directly or indirectly impacted through the pandemic. Here are some of their thoughts.

Steve Schultz, Limestone

Schultz nearly died from the effects of the virus. He spent months in intensive healthcare units, both in Kankakee and the Chicago region.

The now-69-year-old Limestone Fire Protection District trustee states he was so close to death – he was on a hospital ventilator for an astonishing 93 days in 2021 – it makes him shudder.

At two points it was suggested the time had come to disconnect the ventilator. The family refused.

Schultz lost 110 pounds.

“It could have happened to anyone,” he said this week. “It took a lot of people.”

Schultz said he took the Johnson & Johnson vaccination. Did it help him, he rhetorically asked.

“Would I do it all the same if could do it over? I don’t know,” he said.

He entered then-Presence St. Mary’s Hospital in December 2021. After stints in two Chicago-area hospitals, he returned in May 2022 to Riverside’s Miller Healthcare Center for rehabilitation.

He finally returned to his home in July 2022.

There are lingering effects of the illness. His breathing has changed. His endurance has lessened.

“I used to be very active. I’ve somewhat slowed down,” he said. He’s on numerous medications. He continues to receive booster vaccinations at the recommendation of his doctors.

“I keep praying I will get better,” he said.

He recalled going to the hospital that fateful December. He didn’t recall a thing about his stay until early April.

“Has it made me look differently at life? Yes it has. You live each day as it comes,” Schultz said.

He knows he’s lucky to be alive. He said he has gained back 75-80 of his lost pounds. He said it’s due to the good cooking of his wife, Cathy.

“It’s definitely impacted my lifestyle,” Schultz said. “I’m very lucky to have survived.”

Paul Schore, Bourbonnais mayor

Bourbonnais Mayor Paul Schore recalled talking with his 99-year-old mother about what was going on.

She received the vaccine as did her son and her daughter-in-law.

Schore said she grew up during World War II when there were lots of sacrifices made on the home front to help the troops.

“I recall her saying she was amazed that people were fighting it,” Schore said. “She told me, ‘I don’t think this generation could have survived World War II.'

“It was challenging. Maybe it was a wakeup call to the whole world. There are diseases and they can be deadly to everyone.”

Schore said social media played a part in how people looked at COVID-19 and how to treat it.

“People were getting mixed messages. You didn’t know who to believe. There were a lot of people with differing views.

“As it turned out, this was real. There were a lot of deaths and a lot of illnesses.”

According to USAFacts.org, nationally there were 99,596,741 cases and 1,104,000 deaths reported from data collected Jan. 22, 2020 through July 23, 2023.

In Illinois, there were 3.7 million cases and 39,382 deaths through Sept. 12, 2022. In Kankakee County, 35,247 cases and 381 deaths were reported through Dec. 19, 2022.

John Bevis, Kankakee County Health administrator

When asked if the population is better prepared now for the next pandemic or health emergency, Kankakee County Health Department administrator John Bevis weighed in.

“Possibly. I think people are hypersensitive now,” Bevis said. “Even now when people are sick or coughing near them, there’s still many people who will, by their choice, wear masks out in the public.”

For others though, their thoughts have returned the chance it’s allergies or some minor illness. But it could be something more serious, Bevis said.

“We are seeing higher cases of flu, RSV, colds and even COVID is still present in its umpteenth variation. It’s lessened in terms of its severity, but it is still very dangerous for certain individuals who are immunocompromised, obviously.”

Bevis said people are more aware of measures they can do to protect themselves.

“That’s always a good thing,” he said. “A lot could depend on what is the next future item. ... Wash your hands, wear a mask, stay home when you’re sick. Those are just the things we continue to preach.”

Another positive that came out of the pandemic was the cooperation among local governments in Kankakee County about doing what was best for public health.

“We were able to figure that out,” Bevis said. “Locally, did we always agree on everything? No, however [local governments] were very receptive to information. Where there was legislation, people maybe begrudgingly did follow it.”

Mike Watson, Bradley mayor

“Obviously we didn’t know how serious this was or not at the start,” Watson said. So the village took every precaution they could envision.

Watson said there were concerns, but as time wore on he became a believer COVID had become political.

One of the non-vaccinated, Watson said while there is no disputing many lives were lost, ultimately he believes the illness was largely a bad case of the flu.

“Some leaders blew this up more than necessary,” he said.

Watson governed the village with a not-so-firm hand when it came to businesses and how they wanted to operate. If a restaurant wanted to reopen, he did not stop them.

“It’s not up to me to tell a business or customers to go or not to go. That’s why I didn’t crack down on others,” he said. He said rules regarding which places could operate and which could not had become rather fuzzy and he began questioning it.

“The selectivity of who could be open and who couldn’t bothered me. That’s why I started to get a little belligerent,” Watson said. “I think the government overstepped its bounds.”

In the end, Watson said he lost faith in how “higher up” government operates.

“I didn’t like how all this was pushed,” he said. “It was done through fear. I’m resentful as I look back at all of this.”

Michael Boyd, Kankakee Community College president

Educational institutions were among the most affected by the stay-at-home order and all that followed.

“It was a challenge, and I don’t wish to have it back,” Michael Boyd, Kankakee Community College President, said. “But, I do think we learned how to care for each other with greater empathy. … We learned the value of being together and understanding how to support each other.”

KCC developed an academic continuity plan focused on moving forward, including finding safe ways to get technology into students’ hands so they could keep learning from home.

“[The faculty] literally, in two weeks, transformed the way that they deliver content and support students,” he said.

Looking back from a distance of five years, Boyd said there are some day-to-day decisions he might rethink, but there’s nothing he regrets.

“We were making decisions that people have never had to make before,” Boyd said. “You’re going to make some mistakes along the way, but overall, when we put our mission and our students first, every one of those decisions got us where we needed to be.”

Today, the campus is bustling with a vibrant energy, he said.

Students still carry the weight of their experiences with the pandemic, but now, they can enjoy a typical college life – making friends, making memories on campus, and looking forward to a traditional graduation ceremony.

“I have every confidence they are going to be able to take on any challenge that the future gives them, because they’ve been through COVID,” Boyd said. “They’ll make it through what comes next.”

Tim Nugent, CEO, Economic Alliance of Kankakee County

Nugent said the way he views time since March 2020 has changed. There is Before COVID and After COVID.

“No one will forget 2020. It was a year we couldn’t imagine. I mean the pope canceled Easter,” he joked.

Nugent, a grandfather, recalled how excited many children were when it was announced that schools were temporarily closing.

“Then shortly after, they wanted to go back,” he said. The business world was much the same.

Employees were sent home. Some could work from home via laptops. Many, however, could not. Manufacturing sites – at least those deemed non-essential – were closed.

Fortunately for Kankakee County, many manufacturing sites were named essential.

Zoom conferencing, relatively unknown at that point, became commonplace as a form of workplace-to-home communication.

“It changed the whole texture of how business was done,” Nugent said. “We all learned to do things due to COVID. And it seems almost natural to us now.”

One of the lingering aspects for many businesses is one of COVID’s longstanding side effects: How to get employees back to the job site.

“They are now begging people to go back to work. It wasn’t just one business sector,” he said. “It was across the board.”

Nugent said people in the United States likely learned how fortunate they are to call this country home.

It wasn’t until the pandemic when the vast majority of living residents found some grocery store shelves empty. “Supply chain issues” became a frequent talking point.

“Rationing toilet paper. Never before had we heard of stores running out of things,” he said.

Did government, did business, did the citizenry do everything correctly? Of course not, he said.

“It’s very easy to look at history and see what could have been done differently,” Nugent said. “But it’s very difficult to predict the future.”