It was five years ago this week that the World Health Organization called the COVID-19 outbreak

a pandemic. In the United States, officials declared a national emergency, triggering travel bans

for non-U.S. citizens and shutdowns nationwide. Now, many who lived through the pandemic,

including those who treated infected patients, are still

dealing with the fallout.

Ali Rogan has their story.

John, the events which began in 2020 changed people's lives.

Nearly 75% of people said the pandemic took a toll on them, according to a new Pew Research

survey.

We spoke with people across the country about how

the pandemic transformed their everyday lives. My name is Aubrey Nagel. I live in Philadelphia.

My name is Kristen Erkisa, and I live in San Francisco, California. My name is Meelani Air,

and I live in Seattle, Washington. My name is Steph Fowler, and I live in Chicago.

My name is Rachel Valdez, and I live in Portland, Oregon. Life before the pandemic for me was very

active. I was super busy. I loved hiking, doing things on the weekends, going to lots of concerts.

Before COVID started, I was finishing up graduate school.

My life before COVID, I was working as a software engineer. These are unprecedented times,

was the phrase. And it really was. There was no class in grad school that prepared you for

helping people through a pandemic.

At the same time, you're trying to cope with it yourself. That was a labor and delivery nurse.

And so the trauma of having pregnant people have COVID, get really sick and die,

and then trying to save the baby, it made me not want to be a labor and

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