Covid Fatigue as a ’25
Written by Lauren Azrin
Dear Dartmouth,
And just when Dartmouth students thought maybe they’d be able to have a normal term, winter term and all of its new and exciting restrictions hit them like a truck. There was no indoor dining, constant mask mandates, and surges of cases, from close friends, to roommates, and to many, eventually ourselves. It wasn’t looking too normal for 22W at all. And it hasn’t been.
Although a reflection from Week 8 makes me happy to have survived the first few weeks of this term, it still makes me wonder when we will ever be fully back to normal. As a ’25, I’ve never actually experienced a mask-free, restriction-free Dartmouth, and I don’t know when the day is that I ever will.
Even now, as the term comes to a close, we still can’t sit in FFB, we have to worry about contract tracing, and wear masks everywhere, including places like the gym. Another inconvenience is that many classes, like my poetry class, moved online permanently and spontaneously. It felt really unfair, especially since we didn’t find out about changes until after we signed up and even had started courses.
Because this class was online, it didn’t hit me how much I missed out on until I saw a classmate for the first time last week in person when walking around campus. We both smiled immediately, and couldn’t wait to say hi. It was sad to know that all this time we could have been walking into class together, and discussing pieces in person, but instead only knew each other as a box on a screen. It was disappointing to have the realization of all of these missed opportunities.
Everyone craves having this feeling of normalcy, and before the new variant hit, that was a lot of people’s expectation for this term. It’s hard to even expect a time when we can return to this “normal.” It constantly feels like one step forward three steps back and like we’ll never reach a no-restriction world.
I think I’ve come to coin this feeling as “COVID fatigue.” And I think every one of us on campus has a major case of it. The question for me then becomes, will that fatigue just become a permanent part of our lives for years to come, or will next term finally be the term where we aren’t constrained by these restrictions anymore? It looks like only time will tell.
Sincerely,
Lauren ’25
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