♪♪ (soft music) Annc: This is the look of a woman who refused to let her world stop.

A woman whose failing heart was no match for her determination.

A woman who turned life altering surgery into life-changing strength.

With world-class surgeons who personalize care to meet your needs.

UC Davis Health is ranked among the nation's best in heart care.

UC Davis Health, discovering healthy.

(air whooshing) (birds chirping) Will: We cannot unsee what we have seen.

Everything we thought we knew just a precious few months ago, we move forward wondering how we can recapture it.

And at times, we wonder if we can find it again.

(upbeat music) The simple mundane moments, you know what they are.

We all know.

Groceries.

A full classroom at school.

A walk through town not having to watch your space.

(upbeat music) Are you guys gonna have some fun tonight?

(audience cheering) Will: Your mind wanders.

Everything is so close yet so far.

A memory appears on your social media feed and you see yourself in a crowd, at a ball game, a concert, on a plane, no masks in sight.

Hugging your friends, parents, your grandparents.

(upbeat music) What happened to our world?

Everything we took for granted, we walk on believing these freedoms will return because if we don't think that way, we'll go crazy.

At times, it's been a nightmare and we're living it right along with you.

My name is Will Frampton.

I'm Cristina Mendonsa.

And I'm Robert Ray.

We are all storytellers at heart.

Broadcasters with decades of experience.

But we're also solopreneurs.

Running our own businesses.

Freelancing, reporting wherever the story takes us.

We've seen this pandemic as broadcasters, but also outside the newsroom.

As business owners, spouses, and parents.

Trying to survive this just like you.

(upbeat music) Will: So here we are, more than one year into this pandemic.

What have we lost?

What have we learned?

And how can we move forward back to what we knew.

Over the next hour, we will chronicle the human and societal toll during this pandemic.

Kids and school.

(instrumental music) The music and entertainment industry, dramatic changes for law enforcement and mental health.

Fascinating people and stories from across the country and the world.

(upbeat music) This was the most horrible thing probably that could happen to a lot of people career-wise.

What can we do to keep communities safer?

I don't think there's been the same pushback in France that there has been in the States.

I live in Sydney, Australia.

COVID was a little bit of a blessing in disguise for me.

Undoubtedly throughout 2020, international travel was surreal.

It's a lot of chatter about what the road forward is.

Will: Through their eyes, we will look forward with hope and resolve.

We can't undo what we've been through but we can learn from it, grow and move on more prepared for what comes next.

We are RISE.

Reporters Inspired by Stories of Enterprise.

And we bring to you COVID Lost and Learned.

(upbeat music) Greetings.

We're glad to have you with us.

As we sit here filming this, it has been one year almost to the hour since life came to a grinding halt here in America.

But by the time you see this film, we think and we hope that life will find normalcy like it was before this global pandemic.

Yeah, so we put our heads together and thought, what are some stories we can tell to help truly bring perspective to this time in our history?

Rob, I think we have to start with you.

This time a year ago, you were packing your bags for what turned out to be months on the road, chronicling and COVID across America.

While the rest of us were huddled indoors, you were out in the middle of all this.

Will, Christina, you know, it was the responsibility of myself as a reporter to get out there and chronicle exactly what was happening.

It was unprecedented at the time.

I had fear of traveling just as the rest of the world had of coronavirus.

COVID-19, terms that most of us had never heard before.

And as I ventured out across the country, I realized that I wasn't the only one feeling anxiety.

(siren wailing) Early, March of 2020 in central Tennessee, a deadly EF4 tornado came down from the skies.

And I had kids right here and kids right here.

And we were just sitting in here as close as we could and holding tight to each other as we could, just stay safe.

Rob: Rumblings of a virus were also swirling on these devastated streets, but no one here really cared.

Humans can only take so much at one time.

(child crying) (vehicle engine revving) Rob: In the months ahead, I found myself reporting from small towns, cities, and farms, driving over 70,000 miles across 39 states.

Roaming through near deserted airports and staying in hotels where some nights I was the only guest.

From mountains to deserts to oceans, empty streets everywhere, uncertainty plaguing communities and personal thoughts.

Fear was 360.

That was my motivation to shed insight into the obstacles people were facing.

That's how I could understand this unknown and how I could try and help others riddled with anxiety and looking for answers.

Just pain and weakness, physical weakness in my legs and in my arms.

Rob: Words like that were common to hear and unsettling to digest.

(bell rings) Cities like New Orleans, usually loud, loaded with energy, were now silent.

Walking through the French quarter, I could hear myself breathe.

The historic streets no longer had that smell.

The laughter echoing from establishments that floated away weeks ago.

And now you can see here in the French quarter, all these businesses that are shuttered, not open, people are losing money.

Unemployment numbers are through the roof.

And the national guard are trying to get PPEs to hospitals and health workers by dropping off thousands of gloves, gowns and masks.

I remember shooting that segment thinking, how will all these restaurants and businesses make it through this?

Mindy: There's a lot of people just have nowhere to go.

They don't have the money to pay anything.

They're lucky they get to eat.

They go to their job if they have one so they can eat.

I mean, this is just absolutely devastating.

(instrumental music) Rob: So many people thinking the exact same thing.

Unemployment claims across America were skyrocketing.

In the most poverty stricken region of the United States, the Mississippi Delta where life is just plain hard, was getting even worse.

I haven't been in contact with nobody that has it.

I've been wearing face masks when I go out in public.

I wash my hands, I got hand sanitizer.

And this is the first time (indistinct) temperature.

I haven't had the temperature, this is the first time I've had it.

Rob: In El Paso, Texas, which sits on the Mexican border, nearly three miles of people and their vehicles lined up on the streets waiting for food.

So you running out of money?

Money, what's that?

Do you need food too?

Oh yeah.

She's got three kids, little ones, and they're eating all the time, all the time.

Rob: No matter the region, it was all the same, people in peril.

(man chanting) Rob: Then social unrest erupted in late May with the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

(crowd chanting) Rob: A boiling point took form.

How could it be a deadly virus, rampant unemployment, politicians publicly fighting, and in America, that an American had a hard time describing?

What was happening?

As fast as life seemed to be unraveling, how fast could we change it, get back to some peace?

Hurt people, hurt people.

So that's kinda how I'm looking at it.

Now people are feeling wounded and then people wanna go out and hurt somebody.

But at some point in time, somebody has gotta stop and show some love and some compassion.

Rob: Thousands of miles later from a desolate time square in New York city to the beaches of Florida, to the neon signs of Las Vegas, desperately awaiting an audience.

(instrumental music) I am certain that history will tell many different tales of this pandemic.

But what is fact, where there is chaos, there is common ground.

And where there is bravery, there is glory.

America is more complicated and more brilliant than I ever imagined before.

COVID-19 invaded our lives.

(upbeat music) Rob, I remember watching your stories as you filed them last year, thinking, he must be terrified that he's gonna bring this COVID back to his house.

Absolutely.

I didn't know.

No one did.

There was no one globally that truly understood this.

Every community, every state had a different take on it, and different feel.

That's what I thought was very interesting is the varying levels of fear.

One community very fearful and another community that seemed to be fairly open.

And then there are the people that had to go to work.

They had no choice.

Yeah, the medical workers, how about the people that drive trucks, teachers that were, I mean really consider the load that teachers were handling at that time, trying to teach via a computer.

I think the virus opened up many different wounds and something that for decades to come, we'll be learning from.

Well, Robert, thank you again for what you do, being out there in the middle of all this.

As we saw early on, this was not just a United States pandemic.

This was a global pandemic.

So throughout this hour, we're going to introduce you to some of our friends and colleagues from all over the world with new perspectives.

(instrumental music) Kia ora from New Zealand, I'm Pallas Hupé Cotter.

I'm talking to you on the porch of my home in Central Otago, which is at the very bottom of the South Island.

And we have been here as a family for the better part of 10 years.

And certainly, we're here for the pandemic itself.

This started with a lockdown and that really hard lockdown lasted for about two months, we weren't allowed out of our home for anything other than essential services.

But since then, we have lived a life that's generally been pretty free and clear.

It feels a lot like we're living in a parallel universe down here, and there are several reasons for this.

One is it's an island nation with hard borders.

Two, the government has been very strict about shutting down those borders.

This of course has had an economic impact with tourism levels down, but in general, the New Zealand economy is doing better than expected.

We only have to wear masks on public transport.

We are hopeful about the future.

We are aware that our government will lock down and crack down quite firmly if there is another danger of community transmission.

It's been an interesting time in history and certainly an interesting perspective from down here.

Wishing everyone continued health and safety and happiness from the Southern Hemisphere.

(instrumental music) (audience cheering) (audience cheering) (upbeat music) Turning back state side now, and as the pandemic surged, we saw a series of cases where people of color were killed during encounters with police.

Cries for police reform grew louder and have been ongoing with law enforcement leaders acknowledging that dramatic changes, even transformation is needed.

Will: This is not the sort of exercise you would have seen in a typical training class for police officers 10 years ago, even five years ago.

This is Brazilian jiujitsu, a form of martial arts developed in the early 20th century now being deployed by the Marietta Georgia Police Department to bring their officers more into the 21st century.

Jake: We recognize that our officers need a better education and training.

They learn respect, discipline, and confidence in dealing with people that are angry or upset or people that they're trying to arrest.

(crowd chanting) Will: As calls for police reform grow louder coast to coast, Major Jake King says these new skills are helping address some of those root concerns around use of force and deescalation.

We've been able to reduce injuries to officers by 48% and reduce injuries to people we're trying to arrest that are fighting by 53%.

Will: It is one step toward broader reform, a movement that every department will likely have to confront.

Erika: Law enforcement has to change how we do business.

And that goes to how we teach our officers to handle use of force.

Will: Louisville Kentucky Police Chief, Erika Shields, has gotten to know her new city and the aftermath of the Breonna Taylor shooting.

Formerly, Atlanta's Police Chief, Shields accepted the Louisville job in early 2021.

And she discovered damage and unrest from the Taylor case lingers.

It was a really solid gut punch and it really brought the city to its knees.

(siren wails) Will: Add to that, COVID restrictions, making it that much harder to build relationships with community leaders.

The traditional platforms that I would leverage to meet many people, they're not meeting, whether it's church groups, community groups, you name it, and you can do it virtually, but it's not the same.

This pandemic has changed a lot in terms of how we engage in our society.

Will: Dr. Cedric L. Alexander has a lifetime of perspective on law enforcement, from a street cop to a big city police chief, from the local level to collaboration with President Obama's White House.

Now in Pensacola, Florida, retired after more than 40 years in law enforcement, he consults with police departments nationwide.

COVID has affected law enforcement in ways he's never seen.

The virus has created a great deal of anxiety and fear of those in law enforcement.

In many communities, officers did not go to certain calls for service anymore.

We started asking people to meet us right outside the house as opposed to going into the house.

Less traffic stops, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

Will: But when it comes to reform, he says COVID can be no excuse, and there can be no delay.

Alexander says people expect police transformation to begin now.

What we should be doing is funding police.

So you can give them the education, training and experience to produce really good officers.

But at the same time, re-imagining policing in a way that's gonna be different than what we've been doing in the past.

Will: Certain ideas are starting to take hold in some cities, hiring psychologists and social workers to accompany officers on certain calls, focusing on deescalation and alternative forms of subduing suspects, such as jujitsu.

Hiring more officers so that departments can be proactive with the community policing mindset, not just responding when someone calls 911.

What do you need to do so you don't have to use force?

It's a paradigm shift.

It starts with police chiefs, and you have to hammer this home to your instructors, but understand this.

It's a culture change.

You're going against not just the police culture, but you're also going against those communities that believe everybody should be locked up.

So we cannot move fast enough because we're so far behind.

Will: Through all of the turmoil of 2020 and the years proceeding it, Shields remains an optimist as do Alexander and King.

I'm hopeful that true reform will come down in the part of education and training.

It is a profession where you can help people and you can make a difference.

I think that we can find some resolve.

I think the American people will understand that we're not talking about taking away police.

We're not talking about defunding police.

We're talking about pushing policing into the 21st century in a way that the communities are telling us in which they want and need help.

It's a risky job.

It takes courage to do the job and no one should have to apologize for doing the job.

Let's just do it a little differently.

(upbeat music) When the pandemic lockdowns started in March of 2020, many students left for spring break and never went back to school.

High school seniors lost those last senior moments, things like prom and graduation ceremonies and the class right behind them was watching carefully.

The class of 2021 says in many ways they feel like the forgotten class.

We talked to six high school seniors who say the pandemic changed the direction of their lives.

For more than a year, solo workouts have been more the norm than the exception for high school senior, Lucas Ramsey.

I thought I was gonna and get track scholarship and go straight to a four year college.

And that not happening because I didn't have a junior season, which is kind of critical for recruiting.

Christina: Running gives him time to think about what he's lost.

Lucas: For a lot of people in my grade, there was a huge like mental effect that the whole quarantine had on them.

Katherin: And nothing's really clear for us.

And I think that's just been the summary of the entire year.

Christina: For Katherin Poon, choir and costume design with our high school theater company, her passions vanished, as one event after another was canceled.

(upbeat music) And Toby Burroughs who dreams of a career in music is haunted by that surreal day in March, 2020.

So we packed up everything mid rehearsal and then proceeded to leave.

So I was still kinda in shock.

Christina: It would be his last in-person rehearsal.

While the class of 2020 lost their last two months and graduation, the class of 2021 lost their entire senior year.

Students say they feel forgotten.

Well, I tried to go in with lower expectations because I didn't wanna be let down.

And of course, we've gotten nothing.

Christina: With each loss, came the loneliness and depression so many of us felt.

But to feel it at 16 or 17.

'Cause everyone's always like, just reach out to somebody and say something.

But it's hard when you know the situation can't change.

Zelbee: It was just like struggling really hard.

Christina: After losing part of her junior and all of her senior volleyball season, Zelbee Raider says her anger turned briefly self-destructive.

I went through depression and partying and drinking and doing things I said I would never do when we had athletics.

I've lost a scholarship to Oregon State being able to get offered that because of the new rules through NCAA.

And I just feel like I've lost all motivation to even do anything that I used to do being in school.

I don't have the motivation to get up and log on to school and stare at a screen for like six hours a day.

Christina: Despite the hardships, there is hope, hope of college and new futures on the horizon.

We asked these high school seniors to think about not only what they've lost, but what they've learned.

I've learned how much I miss things.

Thinking about high school and these experiences that I thought I would be having.

The way I look at it as I get to be with my family more, I'm leaving for college soon, I get to spend more time with them.

I think this class is going to be more resilient just because we've had to adapt to all these different circumstances.

Christina: Life after high school will look a lot different for the class of 2021.

For Zelbee, a spiritual calling will take her on missionary work around the world instead of Oregon State.

Zelbee: I remember one day I was just like, we're gonna see if you know Jesus is who people really say he is, and I went to a youth night and that night, yeah, I just gave my life to God and have never turned back.

Christina: For Toby, the lockdowns gave him time to delve deeper into his love of music.

Toby: I think being a music teacher would be cool and I've had the time to actually practice and possibly get into a lot of these higher end music schools.

Christina: Katherin discovered she's not done with the performing arts.

I am realizing how sad I am without all that stuff.

And so in college, I plan to pursue a minor in drama and theater.

Christina: And Lucas will pursue track at junior college, keeping his eyes set on a scholarship to a four-year university.

If you really wanna do something it's probably not gonna go the way you want it to.

But there's always been these obstacles, there's always ways to get around them.

And it might be to the full extent that you wanted to do it but you can always get something done.

(whimsical music) Hi, my name is Chloe Hardy and I'm here in London, England.

I think people are now a lot more hopeful in London just because we know when everything is going to open up fully.

And I think it's given people a lot of hope, but I know that a lot of people here are getting quite tired just because we're living the same weekend over and over again.

There's only so much we can do.

There's only so many walks you can go on.

There's only so many bike rides you can go on.

And I know a lot of people now are trying to find ways to just meet with their friends for dinner and try to live your life.

Especially when you're in your early 20s and London is supposed to be this really vibrant place.

I think people are trying to recreate that in a space of their own home whilst being safe and whilst keeping their community safe as well.

When I first moved in September, my expectation was that everything with COVID would be finished at least by the end of the year.

In the end what happened, I stay home a lot with my friends, with my flatmates.

I think young people are quite eager to follow the rules because it means that the number of cases will go down and things will open a lot sooner.

So we're doing it for other people, but we're also doing it because we want to live our life.

(upbeat music) Hello, everyone.

I'm Kerry Halferty Hardy.

I live here in Paris, France.

The mood here in Paris, I would say is one of resignation.

I think people are frustrated, but most of all simply used to it.

Unhappily, but used to it.

Whether I think things will ever return to normal.

I don't think people have an expectation that that's going to happen anytime soon.

Without being political about it, I think people are just resigned to the fact that they have to get through it.

It's like Churchill.

If you're going through hell, you just keep going.

And that's pretty much the sense that people have.

Hopefully, at some point in the future, we're going to be able to go outside again and live a life like Parisians want to live it again, in cafes, on the streets, (Kerry speaking in foreign language) to be able to embrace one another again.

I hope that comes again.

It's difficult to say whether it will at this point.

(upbeat music) As states grappled with the question of how to reopen safely, when to reopen, should they stay shut down for longer?

Houses of worship found themselves in the middle of these debates at almost every step.

I know in my case, I wanted to get back to church.

I missed seeing people in those pews.

Finally, we got back, but the question remained, how do we gather safely?

How do we return to worship?

(man preaching) Will: For Pastor Cody Busby, this moment, this gathering would never have qualified as anything besides normal, business as usual, but COVID has a way of playing with our perceptions.

Redefining normal.

Cody: Everything had to be reinvented.

We don't worship the same way.

We don't care for each other the same way.

Everything's had to be done with a different lens.

Will: Busby is the senior pastor at South Shore Baptist Church in Hingham, Massachusetts.

Along with associate pastor Steve Grissom and their leadership staff, they have faced what's felt like one impossible choice after another.

First, the shell shock of an empty sanctuary.

For 11 weeks, they navigated lockdown through online worship services and virtual fellowship meetings.

Happy Easter.

I want you to help me with something.

I'm gonna say He is risen.

Will: And when at last the governor gave permission to reopen with so many health and safety conditions, the return to worship came with unprecedented stress.

How can we gather safely?

And what does it look like to gather with masks and physical distancing?

Will: Blocking off every other pew, limiting capacity, splitting up services and deep cleaning after each service, keeping the Sunday childcare closed for months.

We've not had any cases of transmission within a service.

Will: And yet still-- It felt like whatever decision we made, there were going to be people who disagreed with it.

Will: And sure enough, other churches, some just a few blocks away chose to stay closed throughout 2020.

And so goes the deep divide during COVID.

Cody: Church has been ripped apart.

That forced out their pastors over masks.

That's not why a pastor should leave a church or be forced out of a church.

Robert: It's a mixture of politics and religion, which rarely goes well.

Will: No one was more saddened over shutting down than Rabbi Robert Slosberg.

For 40 years, he has led the Adath Jeshurun Synagogue in Louisville, Kentucky.

And there was no preparation for this.

So I feel a sense of loss not being able to hug, shake hands, kiss.

Their sign in the doorway untouched more than a year after it was placed there, says it all.

Everything is virtual.

Not a soul in the building other than a central office staff.

Robert: I'm pretty much pushing that our doctors tell us when it's safe and what can be done that is safe.

I have some colleagues who never shut down.

They continue to have services and I respect them.

I'm sure it's based on medical advice.

Will: In the COVID era, no leader in any religion has been spared of walking this fine line.

Rizwan: If we just continued practices like normal, then we're potentially putting people at risk.

Will: Dr Rizwan Ali is religious director of the Islamic Center of Naperville, Illinois.

35 miles west of Chicago, they're made up of 4,000 families across three locations.

The virus not only shut down gatherings at their mosques for four months, but when they returned, it changed part of the fabric of their worship.

We've been taught since the time we were young that you have to stand shoulder to shoulder, foot to foot while you pray.

Now to pray six feet apart from somebody, it seems strange.

Even within our Islamic community, there are different mosques that have different policies.

It's easy to judge, but at the end of the day, everybody's just trying to figure it out and everybody's doing their best.

So I try to give people the benefit of the doubt.

Will: Ali says, they've come through this stronger discovering previously untapped ways of worshiping with people online.

And we were reaching out to people that perhaps we might have overlooked in the past.

Will: And that is a revelation he shares in common with his colleagues across all religions.

What we've all had to do is learn to virtually connect.

People love to talk bad about Zoom, but it's been a really valuable tool for people who are isolated, people who are in strict quarantine.

We had our high holidays done virtually.

It was amazing.

We've rallied and stayed connected.

Our religion teaches us that we may face setbacks, but we have to get back up and we have to be optimistic and we have to move forward.

As the country continues to reopen, cases go down.

There's reason to be optimistic.

We haven't had the drop in membership that a lot of people were predicting.

It's like these church leaders are walking through the valley of the shadow of death but they know on the other side of it, there's life.

(upbeat music) This is Tina from Denmark.

I live just outside of Copenhagen.

We had a rough winter.

We just had a new national lockdown.

Since Christmas, the numbers were rising quickly.

So we had to lock down the country again.

Kids had to go back to homeschool.

We had to work from home again.

All the restaurants, shops have been closed but we are looking at some positive numbers and the smaller kids have been back to school.

And at the moment, the political parties are negotiating the next plan of reopening the country.

It is positive for us that nearly 10% of the population is now vaccinated.

So this gives us hope.

We look forward for summer because we believe that it will normalize a lot during the summer period.

It has been rough because it's cold, it's windy, rainy.

So we are just looking forward for spring, summer so we could go outside again.

(whimsical music) Logistics and supply and demand are part of all of our lives.

But for businesses around the world, every day has been a new challenge during the global pandemic, for farmers especially.

We visited the sweeping hills of the Southwest and the Lyman family who run a ranch and have reinvented themselves in the past year.

In Central Arizona, the high desert is where the Lyman family live.

Cassie: We're a six generation cattle ranching operation.

We raise about 400 head of mother cows.

And then we have about 60,000 acres of federal lands.

You can get more out of there and you're welcome to do it.

Rob: The global pandemic changed the way the Lyman's operate here on the range.

Cassie: Last spring as COVID hit, the cattle market took a big dive.

And that's right when we sell our calves as feeders, we had our heifers and our steers that we were sending to market.

And we took our load of heifers down and we lost money.

And so we decided to retain our steers and feed them out.

A lot of folks started wanting direct from farmer rancher product because they were having short supply in the supermarkets.

And so that increased our demand for people wanting beef directly from us on our whole,halves and quarter beef.

Rob: With their destiny in their own hands, they reinvented their business.

We started a little store front and started selling our product directly, from there, in individual cuts as well.

We've been doing that a little bit but this is full on business mode now.

And taking a whole different model.

Whether it's a pandemic or a drought, you just need to keep going and you need to change your business model and adapt to be able to survive and sustain.

We're six generation, my kids, seventh generation, and we wanna continue that.

We wanna keep that legacy alive.

There's something about being a rancher and being on the range and taking care of God's creation.

And so to be able to continue to do that for our family and we do it because we want to.

We could throw our hands up and give up because it's too hard.

The drought is hard.

The pandemic is hard.

The cattle prices being down, having to restructure our debt and our loans is hard.

Rob: If anything, the journey through the pandemic was a blessing in disguise.

The lessons learned and a renewed perspective on life.

Cassie: Creating food and feeding the world, you can't put a dollar amount on that.

There's no value on that.

Right?

It's pretty amazing opportunity to get to be part of.

So just keep adapting, keep changing and stick to it.

Rob, my first reaction in meeting Cassie the first time around, and then also seeing her again just now, COVID found them.

No matter what you are, COVID will find you.

It did.

And it hit them very hard in the pocket.

And so they had to reinvent themselves and create that next step of business and trade.

And I think ultimately, supply and demand and logistics in business have changed really for the better moving forward.

(upbeat music) This past March, 2021, there wasn't a single psychiatric bed available in New York city for an adolescent.

They were all full.

Raging under this COVID pandemic is a mental health pandemic and therapists are starting to see the results.

We talked to one who said, she believes this is actually going to turn out to be a pandemic of loneliness.

(air whooshing) Sarah: In the beginning, I thought it was really the adults who would struggle, all the people who had to renegotiate their work and figure out how can I work from home?

Will I lose my business?

How do I deal with my kids?

What I will say is, I have never had these many teenagers and young adults in all of my years of practice.

Christina: Sarah Kara works with couples, teenagers and young adults.

Like therapists around the country, her days are packed with appointments.

I am that therapist I thought I'd never be where I struggled just to return people's calls and say, "I'm so sorry, I'm full.

Christina: Prolonged lockdowns started with her adult clients reaching out, then reaching out again for their children.

A lot of us figured out how to go to work, but teenagers and young adults, they in many ways lost their lives.

Christina: Sarah says the pandemic has been harder for teens who can't drive or hold a job.

When we look at this age, which is I'm supposed to be developing my sense of autonomy and your, say, 14, it's really hard to get that.

Your new best friend is your mom and dad.

Christina: As the pandemic unfolded, and Sarah saw clients virtually, the faces staring back at her through the computer screen were striking.

Sarah: This is a pandemic of loneliness.

When I talk to people, single biggest issue is isolation and loneliness.

Christina: And for couples, moments of truth during lockdown.

Sarah: You really got to find out how your relationship was.

I will always say to couples, look, I know you love each other, but you gotta like each other.

And a lot of us have kinda had moments where we've got to figure out, okay, how much do I like you?

Christina: In the meantime, it's the kids in school she worries about most.

Sarah: One of them said to me, "It's school without any of the parts I liked."

The level of people's loneliness is probably the thing that worries me the most.

When they talk to me about their mood or their anxiety, underneath it is this sense of disconnection.

(upbeat music) How many of us over the last year have again seen those social media feeds remind us of a concert we were at some time in the past, and then they all just went away, it happened just like that?

So we visited some of these musicians and artists who have been still looking for work.

Where will it come from, they wonder?

When can large crowds gather again?

Questions they try to tackle as they try and find their way through this, to when the music will play again.

(instrumental music) Will: For 80s tribute band, Electric Avenue, this once a week time together in a studio on Atlanta's Northeast side has come to represent some of the only flashes of normalcy they've known during COVID as an ensemble.

And as people trying desperately to hold on to their livelihoods.

(upbeat music) Kevin: I spent most of the last 25, 27 years touring as a musician.

It's the only job I've ever had.

Will: On that March night, when the country shut down and life came to a halt, their concert schedule was all but wiped out.

Determined to adapt to and survive the earthquake of COVID, band leader, Kevin Spencer, channeled his panic into action.

So I couldn't sleep and I stayed up all night long, learning about upload, download, streaming, everything I could on the technological side about it.

Got up the next morning and we purchased a bunch of equipment so we could actually start live streaming immediately.

Will: For a while, it worked.

Thousands of people from across the country and the world tuned in to the first few virtual shows.

Sincerely know that you guys need to have some distraction.

You need to have some fun-- Will: Because of Copyright Law, we were not able to share their performances of classic 1980 songs, but when they played, donations poured in and helps to sustain band members for a few weeks.

And it was great, it felt celebratory, but it was also terrifying.

Honestly, we love what we do, but this is our job.

Will: As lockdown dragged on, it became clear that a virtual only concert schedule was not sustainable.

I'm not gonna try and sugarcoat it.

It's the worst experience I've gone through as a human.

Will: A thousand miles to the north in Boston, the feeling is mutual.

(upbeat music) Lee: The pervasive mood is that this was the most horrible thing probably that could happen to a lot of people career-wise.

Will: For Lee Moretti and her band, The Furies, spent much of lockdown working on their new album, a way to stay busy and build for the future.

♪ Send me away ♪ ♪ Keep me away ♪ ♪ Come in between ♪ Will: But for so many of their industry colleagues, the mental anguish has only grown with each canceled show.

well, I haven't played a gig in a year.

Am I even a musician?

Like, do I even have a future in this business?

(instrumental music) Joe: A lot of people have that question, will we ever get back to where we were?

I'm kind of a firm believer that will be cool at some point, but how long can we hang on not making a living, not making any money?

(instrumental music) Will: While their fellow musicians in the Northeast faced ongoing restrictions, Atlanta-based jazz musicians, Joe Gransden and Kenny Banks counted themselves lucky, when the state of Georgia allowed venues to reopen with limited seating in the summer of 2020.

I'm doing two or three things a week, which feels like a lot after doing nothing.

Will: Still, it wasn't enough.

Venues were going dark.

Even if they've been allowed to open on some level and with a smaller capacity, it's just not the same.

They can't meet the bills.

There are clubs that are closed that may not be coming back.

Our favorite venue here in Atlanta called The Vista Room closed permanently.

It's now a gym.

Will: Empty chairs at empty nightclub tables.

(instrumental music) And yet, in these times of loneliness and anxiety, performers have discovered silver linings and signs of hope during COVID.

(instrumental music) Very nice.

Musicians have learned how to teach students virtually.

So, very slow spiccato.

(instrumental music) Will: Virtual concerts also have taken hold.

A potential long lasting option for people who can't make the in-person event.

Creativity and inspiration have not been defeated.

People have had the opportunity to really hunker down.

Taking this time to record how they're feeling about all this.

And make records.

(upbeat music) There's been a question recently of whether like live music, it's like, well, now that it's live music's been gone, are we gonna get it back?

Are people gonna wanna do it?

My answer is yes.

The experience of being in a club or a concert hall with people everywhere and the band swinging really hard, I think is a necessity in our world.

And I think people are gonna want to be in clubs and at festivals more than they did before because the community aspect of live music is essential to sort of us keeping our humanity.

And it's making me emotional just thinking about it.

And I'm like getting the weld up, but like, there's something about the human connectivity that I miss, I long for.

What's going on, Atlanta!

(audience cheering) And to have all of that in so many ways ripped apart and taken away from you.

We're not out of this yet, just because there's a vaccine, we've got a long way to go together.

But it's the together part that I think we need to focus on.

Are you guys gonna have some fun tonight?

(audience cheering) (whimsical music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) As if traveling the United States has not been tough enough over the course of this pandemic, can you imagine having to get on a plane and go to a different country?

Well, meet Peter Radcliffe.

(plane engine roaring) Undoubtedly, throughout 2020, international travel was surreal.

And the very first time I arrived at Terminal 5 Heathrow and I actually counted it when I walked in.

There were 20 people checking in and just one aircraft sitting there to fly me to New York.

I'm only able to travel to the US because I have a 12-year-old son who lives in Flagstaff, Arizona.

The government is very kind and lets me in providing I've gone through all the tests to actually get here.

Heathrow is one of the busiest airports in the world and definitely the busiest one in Europe.

Now take a flight which I made last November.

I got to the gate and there was nobody there.

And this was on a flight to Dallas.

And I could see the triple seven, but there was nobody there.

I said, where is everybody?

And they said, well, there's only six of you on the flight.

And the other five have already boarded.

So what we are seeing is far less people flying internationally because basically they can't.

So since COVID started, I have made five round trips.

Now to travel showing that you've been vaccinated and be that once or twice is gonna become imperative.

I think we need to remember though that once you're on the plane, the air is changed every 90 seconds.

It is one of the safest places.

And bear in mind that everybody who is sitting near you has already been tested themselves within the last 72 hours.

So the likelihood of catching COVID actually on an aircraft or in your journey is very, very slim.

But I think we will be getting back to normal over this year, but I think it will be probably towards the end of '22, '23, before we get back to much more air travel as the way we knew it before.

(upbeat music) Hi, I'm Stephanie and I currently live in Singapore, where right now I'm walking down the historic and very famous Haji Lane.

Now this road is known for its eccentric fashion, boutiques, really cool bespoke bars and restaurants.

The mood overall here in Singapore is actually good.

We've sort of adapted into this new normal, and we're currently in the midst of our phase three transition to this new normal, where we can gather up to eight people in one group.

And this was out from five a couple months before.

Everyone started wearing masks pretty much the moment this was listed as a pandemic but overall, I mean, things are starting to pick up.

Things are starting to feel more a bit more happening.

People's needs are becoming more uplifted.

And hopefully, we'll be able to travel soon 'cause gosh, we just miss the sea, miss the sand.

Singapore is a small place, it gets a little claustrophobic.

So this is it.

This is Singapore.

We're doing all right, we're doing all right.

(upbeat music) It's not often that a shot in the arm will bring tears of joy to someone's eyes.

But we've seen that a lot with the rollout of the vaccine.

I spent time with a nurse in rural, Northern California, as she brought a shot of hope to her community.

Gena: I was gonna say, you know I got another needle over here.

So when the vaccine first came out, the healthcare field kinda described it as the light at the end of the tunnel.

And instead of waiting for the light, it feels like we're running out, we're running towards the light, really getting out here and getting the shots in all the arms.

I wanna make sure you drink a lot of liquids today.

You wanna take Tylenol.

Okay.

Just use Tylenol.

Don't use anything else.

It's so great that they organized it here.

A lot of people at one time in this park could get their shot And now we're all protected from each other.

A lot of these people can't drive.

Don't have transportation.

They don't have computers to sign up for these links.

So for us to come out to here to them is really giving them hope and they didn't know how they were gonna get this vaccine.

All right, here we go.

There's the full range of emotion, but I have to say, the biggest one that I'm finding is the emotion of hope.

This one shot, well then two, when you get the second one is gonna move us forward so that we can get through this mess that we're currently in.

All the other people I've talked to have just been kind of excited about it.

You have no idea what this is doing for our community.

Getting it done so they can get back to hugging their grandkids or hugging their kids.

Gena: I bet you barely even felt that.

All right, there you go.

You just got a shot.

Thank you.

Who'd have ever thought before the pandemic, that when someone gets a shot in the arm, that they would feel such emotion, that it would perhaps change their life.

Right, there's so much emotion attached to that vaccination.

And not only for the people getting the vaccination, but for her too.

I mean, she says, she goes home every night feeling so good about the fact that she is protecting people.

(upbeat music) Hello, everyone.

My name is Steve Inouye.

I am living here in Hokkaido, it's in the Northern part of Japan.

We get a lot of tourists from all over the world.

So that could be one of the reasons why COVID hit here pretty early on back in February of 2020.

During those times, there was no really strict lockdown.

People were just urged to stay home or work from home.

And most people were compliant with these measures.

As far as masks, Japanese people already wear masks when they have a cold.

So when COVID came, nobody had a problem with wearing a mask.

Japanese people are also good at social distancing.

It comes natural to them because culturally, there's not a lot of physical contact, no hugging, no shaking hands.

The general mood of the people here in Japan is just weariness because it's lasted so long.

And a lot of people have emotional stress but there is hope because of the vaccine.

It came here in February but the rollout has been pretty slow.

We really hope COVID will end soon.

Our family and friends, a lot of them live far away from us.

So we just want to travel and see them again and give them a hug.

And I just hope this ends and we pray that it will end soon.

Thank you so much.

(upbeat music) Hi, my name is Shannon Clark.

And I live in Sydney, Australia.

COVID was a little bit of a blessing in disguise for me.

During our first lockdown, I was working as a freelance dance teacher and all the institutions I worked for kind of closed their doors.

So I started some online Zoom classes and they became quite popular during the lockdown period.

I had a really strong student base and was able to pretty much earn my normal income during that period, working 50% less hours.

And so when I was able to start face-to-face teaching again, I decided to open my own dance studio.

And I opened the doors to my studio in July, 2020, with 25 students.

I now have 55 students and I seem to get more enrollments each week.

Everything is business as usual, no masks, just learning, dance, having fun, growing, evolving.

For me personally, the COVID situation forced me to make some decisions which ultimately have led me to a much richer, more fulfilling work life.

And I'm tremendously grateful for that.

(upbeat music) As we close out, we leave you with the kind of images that we've all been missing through COVID.

Those moments that perhaps we always took for granted.

Slowly and depending on where you live, they are coming back.

So now, as we say goodbye.

We'll let the pictures do the talking.

(upbeat music) ♪ Happy birthday to you ♪ ♪ Happy birthday ♪ (upbeat music) (audience cheering) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) This is the look of a boy who had three open heart surgeries by the age of three.

A boy who weathered some of his toughest storms before he could speak.

A boy who now has the heart to change the world and a lifetime to do it.

For extraordinary breakthroughs and everyday childhoods, UC Davis Health is the region's only nationally ranked comprehensive children's hospital.

UC Davis Health, discovering healthy.

♪♪