Do people in your area say "post-covid" when referring to present day?

No. We're deep in Omicron right now. I went to get tested on December 23 and there was a 1 hour line to get an appointment and then I waited 6 hours to get texted so I could go back and actually get tested.

I was positive despite being vaccinated (I was scheduled for a booster but had to cancel because of the positive test.) As you may be able to guess I did not die, but plenty of people still are. Almost 2,000 per day in the US right now.

I don't really understand why anyone would say we're in a post-covid world in the middle of a massive surge but they...shouldn't.

No, but some variation of “back in the pandemic” is pretty common. Sometimes in the same sentence as some variation of “COVID’s getting pretty serious again.”

The US is currently like Most-COVID.

No, people here seem to agree that covid is still among us. A very vocal part of the country has however felt like we have made tremendous sacrifices in the last 2 years and that we can no longer keep living like that and have to keep society open from here on out. Especially with the preliminary findings that suggest that Omikron might cause milder symptoms and the population at large has been vaccinated & boostered by now.

I feel like i'm starting to get to a place where i agree with that (personally i don't mind the lockdowns and the closing of public life,but i can see how damaging it is for others) , but i feel like masks, ventilating and staying home with illness are things that we should keep intact. I also think we need to wait till we see how Omikron interacts with the elderly. Right now most of the infections here are spreading around the young adults and the data from South Africa is mostly based on their quite young population after all. We shouldn't get to a place where hospitals are flowing over with vulnerable people naturally.

Most of my work group has been claiming it’s been post-COVID since April 2020 (I work in the construction field). I’m betting my coworkers skew a little more delusional than most, though.

Despite David Cage wreaking havoc and bringing infection rates to an all-time high, I wouldn't be surprised if people started referring to the present day as "post-covid."

Despite my Omikron: The Nomad Soul reference, I'm not going to be nice about it: Those people are fucking idiots.

Most of the actual people I talk to still very much agree that we remain deep in it, but just about every ad I encounter has some variation of "now that Covid is OVER, it's time to SPEND" so I can kind of understand that rubbing off on some people.

There are some people I work with who are at the stage where they've just given up on caring since they feel that society as a whole has moved on regardless of the actual situation and I can't really fault that.

I feel like post-covid could also refer to everything that has changed since it began, like march 2020 being an inflection point a la post-9/11

i think the meaning depends on the context. i work in a hospital, and 9 times out of 10 i'm hearing the phrase via someone saying it through a facemask, so no one in that situation believes 'we're past covid.' in fact i don't think i've ever heard someone use the term to describe a situation as if we're no longer living with the virus every day.

however i will hear people say things like, 'post-covid these meetings are now virtual' or 'post-covid we're no longer requiring candidates to interview in person.' so in these examples, the phrase 'post-covid' is shortform for 'due to policies enacted to deal with pandemic.' i've also heard it used to describe any period of time generally occurring after mid-march 2020.

I've heard people say it in regards to a non-specific time in the future. eg "I plan to travel to NYC with the family post covid." But have never heard someone say it in regards to the present day.

In general no. I have run into some people (including family) that try to downplay the severity of things but it's not that many people. Most people I know are pretty reasonable.

Yeah this is mostly where I've heard it too. I was watching a DVR recording of an F1 race from a bit ago that had ads in it. There were at least half a dozen ads that referenced "getting back together" or "now that we can meet up again". Things like that. One was an Airbnb style company that was basically saying "please rent properties and have big get-togethers now that we can again" and this was while the delta variant was very bad in most of Canada and was killing a bunch of people each day. It seemed quite irresponsible and tone-deaf. Though advertisers were also like that in parts of 2020 as well. It's really not cool watching advertisers trying to normalize pretending that the pandemic is no longer dangerous just so people will spend money.

Yeah, I get the need for something to mean "now that covid has changed the world" when you're referring to things that are now done differently, but generally "post-covid" seems like a confusing choice for that. It could mean "post-Feb-2020-advent-of-covid", but you're also seeing headlines like "What will the post-covid world look like?", assuming there is some future date where covid is not a daily global concern for the world's population. The context I'm seeing it used in feels more like the latter, like some kind of "now that it's behind us and things are getting back to normal."

Granted, the exact meaning of the voicemail caller from VMDT could've meant either of those meanings, as they both work in the story he was relaying.

@bisonhero: yeah that's all fair. it might well end up being a 'biannual' or 'bimonthly' situation where due to the plasticity of language, no one can agree on a single meaning.

Living in an area where it's a mix, some people pretty much think it's done and doesn't matter and others still take it really seriously, the only thing that effects us is masking and some mandatory vaccinations depending on what you do.

Even then, masking is barely enforced.

No. Covid's effects are nowhere near as permanent to society.

Living in the DC metro area, I don't meet many (if any) people who refer to the present as post-covid. I get some people may be pointing to the initial covid-wave and the lockdown that went with it, but for others I figure it's wish projection to just make this their reality through language choice. And hey, they can do them; I'm past being invested in others standing in solidarity to rid ourselves of the virus. This is, of course, selfish since I don't have any underlying co morbidities to be concerned with or immunity issues that would have kept me from getting a vaccine... but fuck man, I too wanna move on with my life even if it's severely compromised from what it was pre-March 2020.

As far as I'm concerned, everything is either pre-covid era or covid era and that won't likely end before I'm dead and I've made peace with that.

For some people the restrictions/lockdowns caused by the pandemic are more meaningful to their lives than the potential physical illness - considering a lot of countries are moving away from restrictions and lockdowns (despite Omicron running rampant and every medical professional advising against it) it's easy to see why for a lot of people the end of lockdown == the end of the pandemic.

I think there's also plenty of people who have suffered extreme trauma and are acting as though the worst is over as a form of denial. Can't fault people for that. It's not been easy.

Anyone saying that is why we can't.

This is how I've heard it used.

I hear is rarely, and when I do it’s not by anti-Vader’s or deniers, it seems intended to just mean post-the start of Covid, not that it’s over.

I’m lucky to live alone, work from home and only go out for groceries, the occasional dinner with a friend at their home and my reduced size improv class.even that has been feeling a little risky, as the vibe of the city is that we are in self enforced lockdown. Just outside of portland is a contingent of deniers and they stream into the city here and there, but they are vastly outnumbered by those of us taking it seriously.

I haven't heard anyone say it but i can understand someone saying it because they've gotten used to it, or because things are relatively normal now when compared to the beginning, we're definitely "post the worst of it"... at least i hope so.

The first time I saw it was in this article from January 2021.

When the shoot returned to Ladysmith in a post-COVID world, “there was a line up and down the block” for the bakery “because of the social distancing,” McLean remembers.

Dave apparently thinks the internet is over:

People must be using 'post', which specifically means 'after', to mean 'during'.

Yes I hear it here in England, but not in the context of it being over, just when referring to something that has changed due to covid.

I believe the 'post' is not meant to say 'after something stops' it is meant to say 'after it started to exist'

It makes sense to me but English is a funny language and varies around the world.

Covid-19 will moves from pandemic where people are still dying all over the world, to an Endemic infection that flairs up here or there. Hopefully, these flair up will be a less lethal OR less easily caught mutated form. So, post Covid-19 might be a very long time in coming.

@eccentrix: I really need post-internet to bring to mind images of Mad Max, but maybe people have spray painted Twitter hashtags onto the side of their cars or something.

In retrospect, it is kinda messed up that English has a prefix for "before" and "after" but not for anything like "during." They covered past tense and future tense, but if there is a Latin prefix for present tense then I guess it never made its way into modern English.

Still, if enough people start using "post-" this way that the meaning shifts from "after the thing" to "maybe after the thing is over, or maybe after the thing has started," then I just give up on English altogether.

"Who is your favourite post-Beatles rock band?" "Hmmm, tough question, I would have to say The Beatles."

"What was the most serious post-Cold War international dispute?" "Definitely the Cuban Missile Crisis."

These sentences make me want to die.

For a brief time, a few people did in my immediate circle. That same week it felt like we didn't need to wear masks anymore. All of which quickly ended.

@bisonhero: I use it and mean it in a world changed by COVID. There's no good quick vocabulary for it otherwise. It's kind of odd that people take it to mean COVID is over. Like? Obviously not? But language is werid that way, like you point out. I think it's mostly a semantic instinct thing but it should be easy to suss out the context.

The real answer has already been provided by Gears of War but we don't have our equivalent to E-Day.

@bisonhero: I think the prefix for during is just 'during'.

I'm a simple man literacy wise though, so its a bit above me.

I don't think that the prefix 'post' has changed meaning though, its just context sensitive.

I stopped paying attention to the rest of the world in regards to covid by the beginning of 2021 but at least in NA we are still in the middle of omicron and stories of packed hospitals are very much a thing.

@bisonhero: People around me say it, but they mean, "Post the start of COVID & lockdown" or "post COVID changing things and people stopped caring even though it's worse now than when it was new" not, "COVID being over."