Where to begin? It obviously wasn’t ephemeral for the people who suffered most. It wasn’t ephemeral for the kids who couldn’t go to school. It wasn’t ephemeral for the UK economy (ie borrowing). Not was it ephemeral - I suspect - re its deep political impact. Not also it’s psychological effect. - ThreadSky

columnist.bsky.social • 4 days ago

Where to begin? It obviously wasn’t ephemeral for the people who suffered most. It wasn’t ephemeral for the kids who couldn’t go to school. It wasn’t ephemeral for the UK economy (ie borrowing). Not was it ephemeral - I suspect - re its deep political impact. Not also it’s psychological effect.

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peterjosyph.bsky.social•4 days ago

The people I know for whom the pandemic was ephemeral are the four friend who died because of it. Until Governor Cuomo flattened the curve, a New Yorker was dying of it every two minutes. Now no one close to me gets sick without someone saying: “Did you get tested?” Rightly, for Covid is still here.

fathomdeep.bsky.social•4 days ago

The kids in particular will clearly be affected long term.

But most of all, and sorry to be morbid, it wasn't ephemeral for those who died, or for their families and friends.

mirandaemmerson.bsky.social•4 days ago

I know people still grieving. Two of the industries I work in were torn apart. It altered the development of millions of kids - hugely evident in schools. Had a profound effect on the medics who worked through it. The vaccines led to dozens of new treatment pathways and medicines. It was profound.

columnist.bsky.social•4 days ago

‘Almost all events are ephemeral.’

I mean. This is so obviously not true it’s almost absurd - even noting that this is specifically somehow aimed at journalists.

guitarmoog.bsky.social•4 days ago

Ephemeral? Every single aspect of my life changed, my working life over, plus 5 years of chronic illness, pain, fear, PTSD, tests, drugs, physical therapy and no end in sight. Ephemeral?

joxley.jmoxley.co.uk•4 days ago

Didn't realise Fernand Braudel had been given a column.

alpinemigrant.bsky.social•4 days ago

“Nothing matters very much and most things don’t matter at all.” ― Arthur Balfour.

Complacent, nihilistic bollocks, a world-view echoed by the supremely superficial Boris Johnson, and it seems, by this writer. The pandemic affected everyone I knew and not in a good way.

groda.eu•4 days ago

I guess it becomes philosophical. "Will it matter in five billion years when the sun becomes a red giant and boils the earth"
Well no it will not. The word has to have some sort of timescale attached to be meaningful

inigopurcell.bsky.social•4 days ago

The claim that the 2008 crash was ephemeral in its impact particularly feels like quite a bold claim to make, buried in there with everything else.

columnist.bsky.social•4 days ago

Yes…

columnist.bsky.social•4 days ago

This is big to say there aren’t some useful points in the column. Yes I think people are not great at determining what’s important / long lasting etc but that also goes the other way!

People also aren’t great at determining what’s unimportant!

northamptonian.bsky.social•4 days ago

The pandemic certainly changed things, especially how we think and experience the world. And the consequences are still shaking out.

columnist.bsky.social•4 days ago

I don’t mind the view per se but it really needs a bit of evidence.

northamptonian.bsky.social•4 days ago

All my evidence that it had a large negative impact is as evidential as the article’s. But as it’s mine, and I’ve been thinking about it for ages, I’ll stick with my opinion.

conmachiavel.bsky.social•4 days ago

I hope it proves to be ephemeral for those still hit hard by it.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/mar/08/five-years-on-britons-among-hardest-hit-by-covid-fallout?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

columnist.bsky.social•4 days ago

In that regard, perhaps the column ends up being a rather ironic comment on itself.

elainebracken.bsky.social•4 days ago

Agree. I mean, events have consequences that reverberate long after the immediacy of the event fades. Those consequences don't just dissipate.

kayfourbee.bsky.social•4 days ago

Or it's trivially true in that a very, very large number of events happen per hour, and most of them are very short.

northofcam.bsky.social•4 days ago

Agreed - obviously some people where affected a lot more than others - but had a big impact on my kids especially older one, contributed to the break up of my marriage, made my dad’s dementia worse - and I work in education and people still talk about a lot

yourfootmyface.bsky.social•4 days ago

I think for most people the largest residual is psychological and that the size of this is highly culturally and individually dependent. One of the things I really felt when we recently travelled from Sweden to visit friends in the UK, Singapore and Melbourne was how much the pandemic still ...

yourfootmyface.bsky.social•4 days ago

... haunts them and is probably the most important, life-defining event of the past decade of their lives. Whereas for us, it feels like a bit of an awkward intermission between the important bits

stejormur.bsky.social•4 days ago

Nor for the cinema industry, and certainly not for the conspiracy theory industry (even if Trump somehow lost 2020 and won 2024 in the no-COVID universe, RFK Jr certainly isn't his health secretary).

barleyscotch.bsky.social•4 days ago

Indeed. It meant myself and most of the rest of the world's musicians (among many other people) couldn't work for the better part of 2 years. I'm still catching up financially from it.

motomatters.com•4 days ago

Society seems to have a trauma response to pandemics which differs to other forms of disaster. Wars, famine, natural disasters, floods, become embedded in the national and international psyche. Pandemics are suppressed and forgotten. Even though they change societies in profound ways.

nlitchfield.bsky.social•4 days ago

He runs with the move from office to home working, the massive increase in public debt, and ongoing public health challenges as "vestiges", but the election of Trump is a societal change for all countries.

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