As Americans reflected on the one-year anniversary of the COVID-19 pandemic earlier this month, just about all of us can conclude that this virus caused much more heartbreak, disruption and confusion than any of us could have imagined in March 2020.

We were told to stay home, not to go to public places, practice social-distancing, which means staying 6 feet away from another person and wear a mask. We were given daily reminders to wash our hands for 20 seconds, use hand sanitizer (if you could find any back then), frequently clean surfaces with disinfectant (if you could find any). We were cautioned not to allow anyone into our homes except immediate family and take a number of other common-sense precautions.

Things we took for granted - having dinner at our favorite restaurant, picking up a bottle of wine at the liquor store, socializing with family and friends, shopping, going to classes - were on hold for months. Some even a year later are restricted, although many of the draconian controls of a year ago are being loosened bit by bit.

As this occurs, however, we are starting to see the number of virus cases locally, statewide and in more than a dozen other states nationwide tick up again, and this is beyond troubling.

The simple pleasures of life - attending concerts and sporting events, taking part in church services or seeing our child’s or grandchild’s performance at a dance or piano recital - were no longer options.

Taking a trip to see relatives, planning a cruise, getting ready for summer vacation - they were all put on indefinite hold.

High school and college seniors, who typically were planning year-end events and celebrations - proms, graduations, class trips, parties - they all vanished, victims of the precautions put into place to stop the spread of the virus.

Businesses, which until just weeks prior to last March were recording record profits in an economy that was humming along at unprecedented levels, were shut down, and millions of employees were suddenly without jobs.

The stock market, which seemingly set records daily, plunged into bear market territory and beyond, and most financial experts believed that we were already into the early stages of a recession and feared we might even be talking about the dreaded “D” word - depression.

We now know that despite the trauma to the labor force, the downturn in the stock market was temporary, and stocks have been consistently hitting new highs for the past nine months. With the anticipation of the country gradually getting back to being open for business, financial analysts are predicting even higher numbers in the financial markets.

It seemed almost incomprehensible that in the blink of an eye our lives were turned upside down by a novel (new) virus for which then there was no vaccine and one was not expected for 12 to 18 months.

Thank goodness, new vaccines were developed in record time and given emergency approval, and these vaccines today are our beacons of hope of finally containing this virus which has killed more than 542,000 people in our country. A year ago at this time there were 130 deaths related to COVID-19 in the United States, including two in our area, and 20,000 worldwide.

We were in uncharted waters. Fear, anxiety and panic were our daily companions. Except for a few centenarians who survived the Spanish Flu of 1918-19, none of us had ever been through anything even remotely similar to this before.

Certainly we had disruptions in our lives. When weather forecasters warned of a major snowstorm, blizzard, ice storm or other dislocating events, we saw panic buying at grocery stores, but we knew that the emergency was going to be of relatively short duration.

With this contagion, we had no playbook to consult. We didn’t know whether the disruptions in our lives would last two weeks, two months or much longer. Some health experts were warning us to be prepared for up to six months of the types of challenges we were facing last month. We now know that those projections were overly optimistic. Even today, we are basically clueless as to how things will play out after the virus is no longer considered a worldwide pandemic.

What has unfolded with this virus is its breathtaking reach and scope. We have been asked to act in a manner to which we have never been accustomed. Living in a country such as ours, where we can basically come and go as we please, it has been shocking for us to face a new normal for an indefinite period of time.

We were told not to do some of the things that had become second nature - shake hands, hug, kiss, hold hands, touch our face, lick our finger to turn the page of a book or newspaper, etc.

We are told that there is light at the end of this tunnel, that we will get through this with sensible precautions, accepting the sacrifices we still have to make for the greater good and by following the instructions of our health care professionals and government leaders. We ignore their guidance at our peril, the peril of our loved ones and the community in general.

Let us also understand that we still need to conduct our lives with an abundance of caution at this critical moment. This is not a time for downplaying or minimizing what still faces us

We Americans have had an extraordinary track record for meeting challenges and conquering them. We’ve been reminded any number of times, but it bears repeating: We are all in this together.

By Bruce Frassinelli | tneditor@tnonline.com

The foregoing opinions do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editorial Board or Times News LLC.