Looking back at how COVID-19 changed the world five years ago

CTV News Edmonton's Jeremy Thompson takes a look back at the COVID-19 pandemic and the uncertainty and fear it brought to Alberta.

It’s been five years since the COVID-19 pandemic was declared across the world.

Albertans' daily lives were suddenly thrown into chaos trying to keep themselves safe from the deadly and contagious virus.

“I remember we had an event on the Monday, a 250 person event, and on the Friday, we were sent home with all of our things, and I actually never stepped foot back into that office ever again,” said Edmontonian Gwendoline Hunka.

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In the early days of the pandemic, public spaces closed or had restrictions on the number of people that could be inside, major events were cancelled and airplanes were grounded.

“There have been past public health emergencies like SARS and H1N1, but in terms of the scope and the scale of the public health measures and the length that it carried on for COVID-19 really was unprecedented,” said Lorian Hardcastle, an associate professor at the University of Calgary.

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Eventually, social distancing and wearing face masks outside became the norm as days turned to weeks, months and years.

Major events returned slowly and carefully, like the NHL playoff bubble in Edmonton in 2020.

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The pandemic changed the way people lived and some habits that formed over the past five years haven’t gone away.

“My family and I started wearing masks immediately, as soon as they were recommended,” said Hunka, who has an underlying health condition.

“I’ve traveled the world during and since the pandemic and I still wear a mask everywhere. I especially wear a mask on the plane - if I wasn’t grossed out by plane germs before, I certainly am now.”

She believes wearing a mask these days shows a level of care for the community.

“When I see people out and about … I don’t question why they’re wearing it, whether it’s for themselves, whether it’s for someone else, whether they are just doing it because they still feel that it’s the right thing to do,” Hunka said.

“Having that sense of community and community safety and protection really means a lot to vulnerable people and to those with underlying conditions.”

Another big change is in how people work, or where they work from. Many workers were sent home during the pandemic and while a lot have returned to the office, working from home full-time or part-time has become more common.

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Before 2020, Edmonton’s downtown business population was around 65,000, according to the Edmonton Downtown Business Association (DBA).

“The city did just do a business census last year, and we now have 73,000 people working downtown, but those numbers don’t mean the same thing that they used to mean,” said Puneeta McBryan, the CEO of the Edmonton DBA.

“Most of them are only here three days a week on average, and that really changed the patterns of how people use our downtown, when restaurants are busy, when retailers can expect traffic, how traffic moves through our downtown. It’s a permanent change.

“It’s that way in every major city, and it just really emphasized the importance of needing more residential (space) in downtowns.”

Businesses themselves also had to grapple with ever-changing rules, regulations and recommendations.

“It feels like a fever dream now, things like the vaccine passport, letting people eat outside on the patio, but not able to dine inside the restaurant, or you’d have to wear your mask when you walked in but then you could take your mask off when you sat down at the table,” said McBryan.

“The lasting impact of all that pivoting and all of that reacting is (that) I think our business owners are more resilient than they ever were before.

“A lot of business owners feel like now that they survived that, they can survive anything.”

In 2025, COVID-19 still causes hospitalizations and death, with more than 340 deaths reported from it during the 2024-25 flu season in Alberta so far.

“Unfortunately, we know that these public health emergencies aren’t once-in-a-lifetime things, and we’re likely to see another public health emergency,” said Hardcastle.

“In addition to looking back, I think it’s important to look back with a view to looking forward.

“What happened? What can we learn from that, so that we’re better prepared the next time we have a public health emergency?”

Over the course of the pandemic, more than seven million deaths worldwide due to COVID-19 were reported to the World Health Organization since the start of 2020. In Canada, 55,282 people died from the virus.

“What we would want to be happening right now is for policy makers to be doing inquiries into (COVID-19), to be reforming their long term care, continuing care legislation, to look at infection control standards to make sure that we’re better prepared for the next pandemic,” said Hardcastle.

“It would be a real shame if all of those people died, all of those people got sick, all of those businesses suffered, and from that, we don’t actually learn anything or make any improvements.

“Following SARS, there was an inquiry at the provincial level, and then there was a federal report as well … and we did see improvements to the public health system as a result of those, but we aren’t seeing that same desire to study and learn from COVID-19.”

With files from CTV News Edmonton’s Jeremy Thompson