Perspectives: A Year With the COVID-19 Pandemic

A year into the coronavirus pandemic, the enormous changes in our lives have become unremarkable: The collection of fabric masks. Visits with friends or family only in small outdoor gatherings. Working or learning from home. Downtowns deserted at noon on a weekday.

While some changes happened gradually, there was one day that marked the beginning of the new normal, though that wasn't clear as the day began.

March 11, 2020. On that day in the United States, the pandemic future arrived all at once.

March 11 was a Wednesday. Joe...

(CNN)Natalie Sanchez heard it in her children's voices when their birthday parties were canceled and saw it on their faces when they couldn't play with friends.

It was more than just simple disappointment. It was fear that the world they once knew might have changed forever.

"I think that it's something that's going to kind of scar them. I don't think that they'll forget," says the mom of three in Little Rock, Arkansas. "In our life, there was a before and an after this."

When the novel coronavirus started spreading,...