The ups and downs of the COVID-19 pandemic, as fall slides into winter

The ups and downs, the surges and uncertainties of the COVID-19 pandemic continued through the fall and winter of 2021 — leaving all of us as confused and concerned as we were when the pandemic began in March 2020.

But now we have a vaccine, which is a major difference. I wrote about incentive plans to get public employees to get vaccinated — those covered by the state of Utah’s insurance plan, and all Salt Lake County employees. I wrote about booster shots, the advice to take the one you got the first go-round (though don’t sweat it if you switch up), and the state of Utah expanding their availability. And I wrote it up when Dr. Andrew Pavia, who had seen what COVID-19 can do to kids in his work at Primary Children’s Hospital, urged parents to get their young children the vaccine — and I was in the room when some of the first Utah kids got their shots.

In September, Intermountain Healthcare hospitals started delaying surgeries that could be postponed, to save room in intensive care units for COVID-19 cases — and I talked to a man waiting for a kidney transplant who was briefly taken off a national registry because of the COVID-19 problems.

Also in September, my colleague Erin Alberty and I talked to families who had relatives who refused to be vaccinated against COVID-19 and then died from the disease — leaving their loved ones to process the blame and regrets.

In early October, public health experts in Utah held out hope that case counts had hit a plateau. By the end of October, case counts were spiking again (Erin and I again collaborated on a story about where that was happening). By the end of November, we had a new worry — the variant called omicron — though even as it arrived in the state, Utah doctors warned that the delta variant was still kicking our butts.

The pandemic took me in some odd areas this fall. I wrote about COVID-19 hitting the African lions at Hogle Zoo, and I wrote it up when Utah native Derek Hough came down with COVID-19 just ahead of the season finale of “Dancing With the Stars.”

And I got to meet (via Zoom) Whitney Call and Mallory Everton, the funny and charming alumnae of the BYUtv sketch comedy series “Studio C,” who made their first movie, “Stop and Go,” a road-trip comedy set during the early days of the pandemic. (Seek out the movie on demand; it’s really quite funny.)