A year of COVID-19: Asking experts and readers 'What lessons will we carry forward?,' and compiling a timeline of how Utah reacted to the pandemic

Sometimes it feels like an instant. Sometimes it feels like a decade.

Yes, the Utah Department of Health confirmed the state’s first case of COVID-19 on March 6, 2020 — one year ago Saturday.

On Thursday, it will be one year since Utah Jazz center Rudy Gobert tested positive before a game against the Oklahoma City Thunder — leading to the cancellation of that game, and then pretty near every other group gathering or event across the country for months on end.

In Sunday’s Salt Lake Tribune, I ask the question: What have we learned from a year of COVID-19? And what will we carry over from this year into the future?

I asked the experts, who said, among other things, that face masks would be a good thing to keep around. And I got comments from Tribune readers about what they noticed in their lives this year.

And, if you’re feeling nostalgic or just need to process what just happened, The Tribune has an interactive timeline detailing what happened in the last 12 months. (I wrote the text, and my colleague Christopher Cherrington did the heavy lifting of making it work online.)

I urge everyone to read all the stories my Tribune colleagues and I have written about COVID-19. They’re easy to find: Just go to sltrib.com/coronavirus.

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It’s been a couple months since I compiled all of my COVID-19 stories on this site, so here’s a round-up of what I’ve been doing:

• The University of Utah’s first COVID-19 patient is, they believe, a 75-year-old Californian whose son works as a doctor at University of Utah Hospital. Here is his story.

• Last week, the Utah Department of Health announced 14 new mass vaccination sites — teaming up with Intermountain Healthcare, University of Utah Health and Nomi Health. Here’s where those sites are located.

• I’ve sat in on Gov. Spencer Cox’s Thursday COVID-19 briefings. This week, Cox announced the minimum age to be eligible for a vaccination dropped to 50. (Personal note: That means I was able to get my first dose of the Moderna vaccine on Friday.) The week before, Cox stressed the need for volunteers to staff the state’s mass vaccination sites.

• Let the music play! Salt Lake County announced it would reopen its four downtown Salt Lake City arts venues on March 24.

• News from the medical front: Doctors warn people not to let COVID-19 precautions keep them from getting critical care; a pediatrician reports that pediatric flu and RSV, two viruses that usually hit children hard in the winter, are practically nonexistent this year, in part because we’re all wearing masks; and experts say that women should postpone routine mammograms if they’ve had the COVID-19 vaccine, because of a side effect that can mimic a symptom of breast cancer.

• As Salt Lake City’s schools reopen to in-person classes, don’t expect a big surge in cases, experts say.

• An explanation of how the Utah Department of Health was changing the way it counts the test positivity rate — the measure of how far the virus is spreading. Here’s a story from January that explains why the rate matters.

• Intermountain Healthcare marked its millionth COVID-19 test, and how the hospital system ramped up from 14 tests a day to thousands a day.

• Utah’s Primary Children’s Hospital takes the co-lead in a national study of how a mystery illness affects children after they recover from COVID-19.

• A University of Utah study looks at the challenges front-line health care workers face to their mental health.

• Saying goodbye to two Utahns who died from COVID-19: Rufino Rodriguez, a respiratory therapist who died in the same Provo hospital where he worked; and Courtney Isaiah Smith, a gifted keyboardist who was co-founder of Salt Lake City’s Jazz Vespers Quartet and chief pianist for Calvary Baptist Church.