Five Years Later: The Case for a COVID-19 Memorial Day

As an infectious disease pharmacist in a hospital, I've been trying to piece together a journal of my COVID-19 experience. I thought a detailed account might give me some peace of mind, but every time I sit down to write, I'm hit with the exhausting weight of those memories. At this point, the journal is a smattering of notes cobbled together from news articles, personal photos, and isolated memories. I've made several attempts to shape this into something meaningful, hoping to extract lessons for… myself? Another generation? I’m not sure. Either way, I haven’t been able to. Maybe that's fitting, given how I'm still grappling with what it meant to face the pandemic from the front lines. Although hospital life has returned to its pre-pandemic hum, I'm not ready to simply move on. The COVID-19 disaster still sits uneasily with me, a restless presence in my mind that refuses to be ignored.

COVID-19 newspaper headlines | image credit: zimmytws | stock.adobe.com

I had few direct patient care responsibilities, but even still, I have many memories that leave me unsettled. I remember the claustrophobic, slow motion train wreck feeling in early 2020 as cases spread out across the world and closed in on the US. I remember the chaos as exponential growth overwhelmed my hospital and most of the country. I remember the eerily empty hospital corridors, the vacant highways on my morning commute, the virtual calls with friends and family that never quite provided the support I needed. It's hard to describe that hopeless feeling, weeks into the initial wave of infections, as the number of available ventilators dwindled, and you had no idea when it would come to an end. I remember dull, constant aching in my teeth. Clenching my teeth was how I held back my own despair, usually while responding, “I don’t know,” to another distraught coworker asking how to treat these patients. I'm also haunted by those weeks when I would walk in and out of work past the trailers full of dead bodies in the parking lot, because there was no room in the morgue.

At the same time, angry talking heads would rage about how it was just the flu on TV, trying to convince me not to believe what I was seeing with my own eyes. I remember how the friends and family who valued my opinion as an infectious disease pharmacist early in the pandemic were skeptical weeks later. As politics overtook the pandemic, my firsthand experience and years of infectious diseases expertise wasn’t needed, they had other sources of information.

But amidst the darkness of those memories, there were also moments of light that I won’t forget. The crushing weight of the pandemic also revealed our incredible resilience and compassion. I remember how my colleagues, regardless of their training or concerns about their own safety, stepped up when called upon. The frontline nurses, physicians, pharmacists, and other staff took care of their patients, no matter how many came through the door and no matter what exhaustive personal protective equipment and infection prevention measures were required. I remember the pediatric intensivist who became an adult intensivist. The investigational drug pharmacist who became a critical care pharmacist. The medical students who were called into action in so many areas of care. The enormous efforts to vaccinate our communities and the globe. I remember how more and more and more was asked of health care workers. We were exhausted, shaken, distraught. But each time, we stepped up to the task because we had to, for our patients.

There was some recognition on a broad scale, like the health care heroes signs on front lawns, the letters and posters sent from classrooms, and the donations of food and sanitizer from local businesses. At my hospital, we had a parade of first responders who drove through the campus to express their gratitude. We got a bonus and a pin that said “COVID-19 Heroes.” But I struggle to remember moments of individual recognition, perhaps because singling out one person felt wrong when everyone was going above and beyond. But neglecting to celebrate individual heroics fails to truly honor the remarkable efforts. It leaves the recognition feeling hollow.

When I look around the hospital today, I see many new faces. I think about how they experienced COVID-19 in a very different way, maybe a massive disruption to school and social life. Their presence tells another story, too, about those they replaced. A story of burnout and mass exodus from hospital medicine. The pandemic didn't just take lives; it took careers, aspirations, and in many cases, the passion that drew people to health care in the first place. These colleagues weathered the storm, carried the weight of impossible decisions, and then, in the aftermath, they left. Burnt out and underappreciated, who could blame them? To my other colleagues, whose COVID-19 scars look similar to mine, we’ve pushed forward. But I wonder, have you really processed and accepted what happened? Or are you simply not talking about it, like me?

I remember my own experiences pretty well. They were extraordinary, but no more extraordinary than my colleagues. More importantly, there are so many stories of my colleagues that I don't know. That's because I haven’t heard them. As I wrote the feelgood paragraph above attempting to highlight our many heroics, it struck me how woefully inadequate that section is. Where are the stories of the individual heroics of nurses and respiratory therapists and infection preventionists and patient care techs and medical residents? Of pharmacists in the community and other settings? But my ignorance on these perspectives is precisely why I feel so compelled to write this. At the time, who had the bandwidth to appreciate or even understand all that everyone was doing? And when things were past the peak, everyone was ready to move on. So, when exactly is the right time to reflect and share these stories? It will not manifest on its own. It must be created. For a field that prides itself on science and concepts like reflection, learning, and self-improvement, I find it shocking how little our field has done to recognize and learn from what we went through. How is it that we can go through this harrowing and once-in-a-lifetime experience and just…move on?

I don't know that I will ever be completely at peace with my COVID-19 experience, but I know how we can move toward it: the same way we get over anything tragic. Remembrance. Recognition. And reflection. We were tested in a way that none of our predecessors were. No colleague, mentor, distinguished veteran, or hallowed hospital legend went through what we went through. I need to mourn the tragic human suffering that so many experienced, including those who made sacrifices in service of others. I need to celebrate the tremendous efforts we put forth to better our patients’ and each other’s lives. From the enormous efforts to find treatments and vaccines to the small-scale heroic individual sacrifices like staying an extra shift and comforting a patient, loved one, or coworker, I want to embrace these stories and take pride in our field.

Healthcare workers, generated with AI | Image credit: Sasint | stock.adobe.com

I will also never find peace until we find lessons that make us better prepared for next time. In the not-so-distant past, the idea of a global pandemic was a thing of science fiction. A scary story that the infection preventionists told you to compel you to wash your hands. But that is no longer the case. We have the experience of a devastating global pandemic under our belt. We will hope that this was a once-in-a-lifetime event, but if not, we must not repeat the same mistakes. We must use our experience to prepare for the next pandemic. There is no shortage of essential lessons from COVID-19 that can save lives: themes like clinical humility, public health communication, the resilience borne from collective support, and others. If you look, stories of recognition and valuable lessons aren’t that hard to find. But these stories shouldn’t require searching in order to be found. They should be held up, celebrated as the very best of what we do, and highlighted as the path toward being even better.

The impact of COVID-19 on health care workers and our communities cannot be overstated. A COVID-19 Memorial Day would provide an opportunity for remembrance of those we lost, recognition of health care workers' efforts, and reflection on lessons learned for future preparedness. A resolution to designate the first Monday in March as Covid-19 Memorial Day has been introduced to Congress. Regardless of the resolution’s fate, there is nothing stopping hospitals, organizations, or individuals from observing it if they so choose. What I would call on others to do is to simply speak up. Just as we managed the pandemic through collective effort, we can rally support for this memorial day. March 2025 will be the fifth anniversary of the initial COVID-19 pandemic wave in the US. It's overdue. Let’s shine the spotlight on ourselves, and let’s begin to heal.