The Brief

As we mark five years on from the start of the coronavirus pandemic this month, life has changed for many people, in ways both mundane and profound.

Dr. Kurt Papenfus is someone NPR interviewed in 2020. The CEO of a small hospital in rural Colorado, Papenfus first took care of COVID patients, then he became one. He told us the story of driving himself to Denver — with an escort of sheriff's deputies to make sure he made it — so he could get the intensive care he knew he needed for COVID pneumonia.

"The 'rona beast is a very nasty beast," he said back then. "It has a very mean temper. It loves a fight, and it loves to keep coming after you."

Papenfus now praises the investment in research that, he believes, advanced science by decades in just a few years. Personally, he has struggled with the brain fog of long COVID, and he has learned a lesson about conserving his energy.

"COVID was a harsh reminder that, 'Yeah, you better take care of yourself. If you can't take care of yourself, how are you going to take care of other people?'" Papenfus says.

Here are five more examples of lessons we have learned and things COVID changed permanently, though it is not an exhaustive list.

1. Video calls made the room bigger and distances shorter

Has this happened to you? You're watching something on Netflix from, say, 2018. There's a video conference call in the story line and it's presented as something odd, cool, unusual.

The pandemic changed that for everyone.

Zoom and other video conference apps became a common part of business and personal life.

Despite the occasional frozen screen glitches and folks joining calls in their ratty pajamas, there are upsides.

Beth Hendrix, executive director of the League of Women Voters of Colorado, said the use of remote conferencing led her group to become truly statewide. It allowed more meaningful participation for folks from the eastern plains to the west side of Colorado, called the Western Slope.

Before, all their meetings were in person, which "kept folks outside of the metro from really taking part in leadership actions. So that is one positive thing."

Michael Dougherty, Boulder County's district attorney, saw a similar silver lining: Virtual court proceedings allowed a lot more people to take part.

"We also have victims who are scared to be in the same room as a defendant or his loved ones," he said. "They now can attend court virtually without the defendant even knowing they're there."

2. Pandemic pups brought us two-legged friends too

Many people became pet owners for the first time during the pandemic. Grace Markley of Denver said one of the surprising and beautiful things of the crisis was "we ended up adopting a miniature bernedoodle."

She met neighbors who also adopted pandemic dogs. They hung out outside, socialized over potlucks and happy hours, connected over the canines and formed what they called their Doodlefest. It became a regular gathering, a holiday card featuring poodle-mix doggos, and a group chat. "And to date there are 22 of us on the chat," Markley said.

A bernedoodle is a dog that is a cross between a poodle and a Bernese mountain dog.

(

Cavan Images / iStockphoto

/

Getty Images

)

"This part of town is just alive with pandemic puppies. So that was something that was really special for us. And five years in, we are still going strong," Markley said.

3. Health inequities were exposed and so was vaccine hesitancy

COVID exposed stark inequities in both society and the health system.

Julissa Soto, a health equity consultant, helped both spotlight and address them at hundreds of clinics around Colorado.

One instance was at Ascension Catholic Parish in Denver's Montbello neighborhood, where in 2021, she told the masked congregation that COVID-19 vaccines are safe, effective and available.

"I'm on a mission to get my community vaccinated, and I will not stop until I get the last Latino vaccinated," she said at the time.

Over the course of the pandemic, she helped get about 60,000 people vaccinated, by her count, at more than 400 vaccine clinics and events like the one at Ascension Catholic Church.

A vaccination event in December 2021 in Denver's Montbello neighborhood organized by Julissa Soto. She estimates she helped 60,000 people get their COVID shots.

(

Hart Van Denburg

/

CPR News

)

Fast forward to 2025, and Soto says it's important to remember how many people were lost.

"Really sad, lots and lots of people died," she said in an interview.

In Colorado, the number of people who died surpassed 16,000, according to figures reported by the CDC. More than 1.2 million people died across the country.

Most Coloradans got vaccinated, but the Latino community, which was hit hard by the virus, barely got to a 50% vaccination rate, Soto said. The low rate provided her "an opportunity to highlight the inequities. They have always existed in public health."

During the 2024-25 respiratory virus season, less than 25% of Colorado adults got the updated COVID-19 vaccine.

Among the lessons Soto said she learned in the pandemic: to pivot, think on her feet, remove barriers, challenge the status quo.

"I believe that we're going to find solutions," she said. "Remember from every setback, it will be a comeback."

4. The classroom changed, and challenges set in

For some, the dark clouds of the pandemic still exist.

Melanie Potyondy, a public school psychologist in Fort Collins, says she's noticed a troubling trend with kids: "a lack of resilience, a lack of that grit, that I think I saw in previous cohorts of kids prior to the pandemic."

She says they're now quicker to give up, quicker to write off a teacher they don't click with. Add in a reliance on technology, which "compounds this diminished level of grit in that it's so easy to hide out behind a phone and to not have to have difficult conversations with people in person."

Schools have begun experimenting with cellphone bans during class, but the jury is still out on whether that will solve the learning challenges teachers and students have been reporting since the disruption of the pandemic.

5. Long COVID appears here to stay

"Hard to believe, five years later. Still in a little bit of recovery mode" is how Denver resident Clarence Troutman summed up his experience, both of getting COVID-19 and then long COVID.

Troutman was a broadband technician with CenturyLink, a telecom company, for 37 years. He caught the virus at the start of the pandemic, was hospitalized and on a ventilator for a time, and ended up staying in the hospital for two months.

Five years on, life is a mixed bag for Troutman, who had to retire from his job because of his health.

Clarence Troutman had to retire due to long COVID, but he is grateful today that he feels well enough to enjoy visits with his grandchildren who live in Atlanta.

(

John Daley

/

CPR News

)

"I don't have the neuropathy I used to have," he says, citing a bright spot. That's nerve damage causing pain, numbness or tingling.

"Kind of the psychological scars of everything have honestly kind of healed," he says, noting the positive side of the ledger.

But he still grapples with chronic fatigue, brain fog and diminished lung capacity. Troutman says a long COVID patient group he joined after he got sick still meets regularly, comparing their experiences, supporting each other.

"We're still a tight little group and we're getting better together," he says.

He's started working out at his local rec center, thanks to his improving health. And he said he's closer than ever to his son and two grandkids in Atlanta.

"I feel truly blessed every day when I think about the people that weren't able to make it through this thing or changed forever, even worse than I am. I know I'm blessed," he said. "I'm a very lucky guy."

Troutman said another good thing was his discovery of an inner power.

"You kind of tap into a strength or resiliency you didn't even know you had until all this happened," Troutman said. "So yeah, it's been quite the journey. Quite the journey."

Copyright 2025 NPR

ICE has released Cambodian Genocide survivor Sithy Yi from immigration detention following an order by a federal judge.

Yi, who fled the genocide and came to the U.S. with her family in 1981, was detained by ICE at a routine immigration check-in in Santa Ana on Jan. 8 and held at the Adelanto Detention Facility for almost two months.

In response to a lawsuit arguing that she was being held unconstitutionally, U.S. District Judge Cynthia Valenzuela issued an order Friday requiring ICE to “immediately release” Yi. The order also prevents the agency from deporting Yi without providing an opportunity to be heard by a neutral arbiter and bans ICE from transferring her outside the court’s jurisdiction.

The ruling says the government did not oppose Yi’s request for the court to order her released. Her attorney had alleged ICE failed to follow procedural requirements such as showing she violated any conditions of her release or proving that she would likely be deported in the “reasonably foreseeable future.”

Reunited with her family

Yi was released Monday and has returned to her family, according to her attorney. Yi’s family includes her mother and two sisters she helped to survive starvation and mass killings at the hands of the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia before they came to the U.S. as refugees.

Retaliation allegations against detention center staff

Yi’s attorney says that in addition to the court’s findings, she believes her client’s Eighth Amendment right against cruel and unusual punishment was violated while detained at Adelanto.

“ She was retaliated against by security and medical personnel because she had been communicating with her family, and through her family with me. And we've been reporting about these conditions to Sen. [Adam] Schiff, as well as other members of Congress. And somehow word got back and she was retaliated against,” her attorney Kim Luu-Ng told LAist’s AirTalk on Tuesday.

“She was verbally abused, but she was also punished. She was not allowed to use the bathroom. She was not allowed to shower,” Luu-Ng continued.

“It is absolutely freezing in the detention center, but they don't care. She said to me that she has to wrap herself in blankets, but they're still freezing.”

Yi and other detainees were regularly getting sick from spoiled food served at the facility.

“These are civil detainees. These are not criminal detainees. And there are laws in this country that are supposed to protect against this type of punitive and cruel treatment of detainees,” Luu-Ng added.

She said that in many ways, she feels “criminal detainees have even more rights than civil detainees. And so this is a real crisis.”

ICE has not responded to a request for comment.

Why Yi was released

Luu-Ng has represented Yi since her immigration case began in 2013. Yi was first brought to immigration court after a drug conviction her family says stemmed from untreated mental health issues from being tortured as a child and prolonged exposure to abuse into adulthood.

Her immigration case ended in 2016, with a judge ruling to withhold an order of removal due to concerns she would be tortured if she were deported to Cambodia.

Yi also applied for a U visa — a type of visa providing temporary immigration status to crime victims who have cooperated with law enforcement — in 2022. That visa application is still pending.

Judge Valenzuela explained her reasoning for the order, writing in the document that ICE did not oppose a motion by Yi’s lawyer requesting she be released. Luu-Ng claimed in the motion that ICE detained her client without following required steps, such as showing she violated any conditions of her release or proving that she would likely be deported in the “reasonably foreseeable future.”

Valenzuela also pointed to another case against ICE where she granted an order for Ramy Hakim to be released based on similar circumstances Jan. 22. Hakim was detained at a regular immigration check-in Dec. 19 despite receiving protections in 2004 against being deported to Egypt where he would likely be tortured. He was held at the same Adelanto facility as Yi.

ICE has not responded to LAist’s request for comment on Friday’s court order. In an emailed statement on Jan. 29, a spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security said Yi was ordered to be removed from the country in 2016 following a drug conviction and had “received full due process.”

Yi’s attorney says ICE kept her detained through the weekend despite the judge ordering her to be released immediately.

 ”ICE doesn't work on the weekends,” Luu-Ng said. “Any minute that my client was detained beyond the time that the order was issued was an unconstitutional detention.”

ICE spokespeople have not responded to a request for comment about this allegation.

Reza Arzanian has only been able to get in touch with his parents in Iran once since the U.S. and Israel began bombing the country over the weekend. Communication into the country is nearly impossible — he has to rely on them contacting him.

The Los Angeles resident isn’t yet sure how to think about the evolving attack on the country of 90 million people, where he lived until he was 25. Even when news came Saturday that Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed, Arzanian was unmoved.

“ I wasn't happy or I wasn't sad,” he said. “All I could think of was the last time I spoke with my mom and her voice was shaking and she was telling me her jaw was shaking because she was so scared.”

This is the reality for so many Southern Californians with ties to the Middle East. In the last few years, there has been a relentless barrage of news about tragedy and bloodshed: Iran’s Zan, Zendegi, Azadi movement in 2022; Hamas’ attack on Israel in October 2023 that killed about 1,200 people and Israel’s subsequent military assault on Gaza that killed more than 70,000 people; the fall of Bashar Al Assad’s regime in Syria; recent protests in Iran over economic conditions that the regime violently put down; and other headlines from Lebanon, Jordan, Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.

The unrelenting stories of destruction and tragedy from the region — which are inescapable on the news, social media and in group text message threads — are taking a toll.

Marwa Azab, a mental health expert and a professor at Cal State Long Beach, said people can go from a state of “hyperarousal” — or increased anxiety — in their nervous systems to “being disconnected from the body, feeling emotional numbness.”

 ”The misinformation, inciting and inflaming media has made our identity fragments fight each other, like parts of us are fighting each other, really making it very difficult, if not impossible, at this present moment to feel whole,” she said.  ”This numbness, this detachment from the body where the mind and body becomes separate, makes us further removed from who we are, from our identity, and gives us a sense of being fragmented.”

Arzanian, who is Iranian American, can relate.

“ It feels hard to exist in my body,” he said Monday. “Like yesterday, I didn't know what to do with myself. I cannot distract myself.”

Rachel Sumekh, an Iranian Jewish economic justice activist, told LAist she feels as though she is holding her breath, struggling to exhale.

“We have no idea what will happen. We pray that what happens next will be something that's good, will be something that brings freedom to the people of Iran,” she said.

And as a U.S. citizen with Iranian roots who is Jewish and has ties to Israel, Sumekh called the current moment “nuts.”

But her identity has also been politicized since she could remember.

“ I have avoided telling people I'm Jewish at times since Oct. 7, simply because I feel like then I need to qualify that I believe in human rights and whatever my international positions are,” she said.

But she added that this multifaceted identity has also helped her cope and navigate life in America, “designing and developing life here in America in a way that feels future-oriented as opposed to saddled with what the heaviness of those identities comes with.”

Sumekh has never set foot in Iran. Her father left before the Iranian Revolution, and her mother escaped a few years after the Revolution on the back of a camel. Israel was where her family escaped to as refugees when they left Iran. And her identity shows up in how she interacts with people and moves through life. Her activism, including organizing around ending campus hunger, she said, is rooted in Persian principles of hospitality, warmth and openness.

One way she copes with the heaviness of it all, she said, is deleting social media.

Arzanian said he has been avoiding social media, too. Instead, he relies on a Telegram channel for news updates. To get away from the news, he tries to stay active, do breath work and write in his journal.

“I  try to write before doing anything, and usually my writing is a mixture of how I'm feeling and prayers,” he said.

Shared reality 

Sandy Hamideh knows how Sumekh and Arzanian are feeling.

The last few years have left the Palestinian American who lives in Rowland Heights “overwhelmed.”

Her young children remind her of the children dying in Gaza, and as she prepares their food and helps them with homework, she’s reminded of the people back home.

“ I'm just stuck in this cycle, the same just recurring cycle,” Hamideh said. “We think it's going to get better, and here we are two and a half years later and still, stuck and confused and scared.”

Israel’s war on Gaza has changed her, she said. She's become a more grateful person, not overlooking the little luxuries. And, she said, she has been heartened by the outpouring of support she's seen for Palestinians. Before, Hamideh said, she would quickly brush past the fact that she was Palestinian.

“ Now, I'm more proud about it because people are out there like learning and loving your culture, so that's really nice,” she said.

But there is also a sadness that permeates everything she does, Hamideh said.

 ”The things I would get excited for before, now I look at it differently,” she said. “People across the world don't have these resources or have these moments of good times or these chances to go out and explore and just the freedom.”

Sumekh also identified with recent victims of violence. She said the news of Iranian protesters being killed earlier in the year as they called for regime change affected her more than the recent strikes.

“ Those were Iranians who could have been me there fighting for freedom,” Sumekh said. “What's happening now is just a bunch of strong men, politicians bombing each other.”

Survivor’s guilt 

Marwa Azab, a psychology professor at Cal State Long Beach.

(

Samanta Helou Hernandez

/

LAist

)

Cal State Long Beach’s Azab calls this survivor’s guilt “a beautiful thing.”

 ”It means that we are still human … that we have morality,” she said.

She cautioned that people should not let that fester into feeling responsible for the destruction and tragedy.

Instead, Azab advised, people should turn any guilt they feel into values. Remind yourself that feelings of guilt mean you value human life and relationships.

For people with ties to the Middle East, the images can be retraumatizing, she said. The danger that some people fled has not ended, so they keep reliving that trauma over and over again.

And, Azab said, the images of destruction can be more triggering for people with ties to the region because they share aspects of their identity.

How to prioritize conversation 

Andrea Hodos, associate director of NewGround: A Muslim-Jewish Partnership for Change, understands why people feel overwhelmed.

“ I'm worried about Israeli Jews, Palestinian citizens of Israel. I'm worried about Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. I'm worried about people in Saudi Arabia. I'm worried about people in UAE and Lebanon and all of these places. Jordan was hit because there are U.S. bases there and there are so many civilians who are impacted by Iranian leadership,” she said.

Her advice to people is to have deep conversations — and to do more listening than talking.

Even if you go into a conversation really wanting to share your perspective, she said, first be prepared to listen. You may find openings in someone else’s perspective and the other side will be open to hearing your side.

On Tuesday opening statements will begin for the federal antitrust trial against Live Nation, one of the largest entertainment companies in the world. In a New York City courtroom, prosecutors are expected to argue that Live Nation and its subsidiary, Ticketmaster, have engaged in anticompetitive practices that profoundly harm musicians, venues and ticket buyers.

The trial is the result of a lawsuit originally filed by the Justice Department in 2024, though calls for reforms to the ticketing industry have been building for much longer. Back in 2022, chaotic sales for Taylor Swift's blockbuster Eras Tour — which included high pricing, long queues and a crashing platform — resulted in outcry from the singer and legal action from coalitions of Swifties. That event led to scrutiny from government officials, laying the groundwork for this week's events. In recent years, artists including The Cure and Olivia Dean have also criticized Live Nation and Ticketmaster for its pricing models and fought for fans to receive partial refunds.

Despite Live Nation's repeated attempts to get the government's lawsuit dismissed, U.S. District Judge Arun Subramanian ultimately ruled to move forward with a trial. In response to questions from NPR, Live Nation stated that a majority of ticket prices in the U.S. are under $100 and referred to a breakdown of the Justice Department's claims written by Dan Wall, executive vice president of corporate and regulatory affairs at Live Nation.

Who's involved?

The federal government and 39 states, plus the District of Columbia, are suing Live Nation and its subsidiary, Ticketmaster.

Since its foundation under a different name in 1996, Live Nation has promoted live events and managed venues. Over the years, it acquired additional companies in the live entertainment space and became the top concert promoter in the U.S. Ticketmaster, which was founded by two Arizona State University staffers in 1976, started out selling hardware for ticketing systems and expanded into the leading ticket selling company in the country. (In 1994, Pearl Jam famously boycotted Ticketmaster, alleging the company's control over ticketing was driving up service charges, which prompted a Justice Department investigation that was later dropped).

In 2009, Ticketmaster and Live Nation announced plans to merge, sparking backlash from artists like Bruce Springsteen and lawmakers including Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer. The following year, the Justice Department approved the consolidation of the two companies under a number of conditions meant to ensure it would not monopolize the live music industry. Now, the Justice Department claims Live Nation has not held up its end of the bargain.

What is Live Nation being accused of?

The government alleges that Live Nation and Ticketmaster are unfairly wielding their power over concert promotion, artist management, venue operations and ticketing services to shut out competitors. According to the amended lawsuit, Live Nation manages more than 400 artists and owns or controls more than 265 venues in North America, while Ticketmaster controls around 80% of ticketing in the primary marketplace, plus a growing share of the resale market.

"The government and a bunch of state governments looked at what was happening and said, 'We think this company has too much control over too many different areas of the industry and it's using its different parts of the music business as weapons,'" says John Newman, a law professor at the University of Memphis who focuses on antitrust law. "When it's facing venues, it's using its control over promotion and ticketing as a weapon. Then, when it's turning around and dealing with artists, it's using its control over event venues as a weapon. There's just too much control over too many different areas."

The government alleges that artists are pressured to use Live Nation and Ticketmaster's promotion services in order to perform at its venues, especially major amphitheaters; on the other hand, venues are allegedly cornered into signing long term, exclusive contracts with Live Nation and Ticketmaster in order to gain a number of benefits, including being able to host lucrative shows. Ultimately, the government claims that both artists and venues lose the ability to make independent choices or work with competing promotion and ticketing companies without facing major financial risks or retaliation from Live Nation.

"These business practices can, and often do, work against the interests of those with relatively little power and influence, especially working musicians and fans," reads the lawsuit.

In a statement provided to NPR, Live Nation denied the government's claims.

"There is more competition than ever in the live events market — which is why Ticketmaster's market share has declined since 2010," reads the statement. "The outcome of this trial will do nothing to lower ticket prices for fans or address the industry issues they care about most."

It's hard to predict how federal prosecutors and Live Nation's defense attorneys will make their case in the courtroom or how it will be received by a jury of New Yorkers, but Newman says one thing's for sure: the government will likely have to acknowledge its own role in allowing the merger to occur in the first place.

"The government is put in the awkward position of saying, 'We made a mistake. We should have acted more forcefully back then, but we didn't,'" says Newman.

Now, it's up to a jury and judge to decide how to alter Live Nation's business model moving forward, if at all. If found guilty of violating antitrust laws, Ticketmaster and Live Nation could be broken up. "If that happens, it would radically reshape the live music industry in the U.S.," Newman says.

What could this mean for fans?

In February, Judge Subramanian dismissed several monopoly claims, including the government's argument that Live Nation's control over the industry is unfairly driving up ticket prices and causing significant harm to consumers. Judge Subramanian ruled that the government had not provided enough evidence to prove that current prices are above competitive rates. But even without a designated focus on how fans are impacted by the company's business practices, if Live Nation and Ticketmaster are forced to separate, ticket buyers will likely feel the difference.

"If you separate the two, it's going to increase competition," says Dustin Brighton, a spokesperson for the Coalition for Ticket Fairness, which advocates for increased transparency and consumer protections in the live events space. "Consumers will always benefit from a marketplace where there's a lot of competition and where they have more opportunity to get what they want."

Brian Berry is executive director of Ticket Policy Forum, an association of ticket sellers and resellers in the U.S. advocating for more competition across the industry. He says a wider array of choices not only has the potential to lower prices and fees, but also to improve the ways fans currently obtain tickets.

"If you've ever used the Ticketmaster app, you realize it was probably launched when the VCR and fax machine were coming on to the market," he says. "[There's] not a whole lot of innovation there. It's a terrible experience. It's broken. There are better platforms."

Are there other pending legal cases against Live Nation?

The antitrust trial is part of a larger web of legal actions taken against Live Nation in recent years.

In 2024, sales for the Oasis reunion tour in the U.K. — and particularly Ticketmaster's use of "dynamic pricing" — sparked an investigation by a U.K. government watchdog agency into whether the company breached consumer protection law. Ultimately, the agency found that Ticketmaster "may have misled Oasis fans." As a result, the company agreed to be more transparent about pricing tiers moving forward.

In September, the Federal Trade Commission filed a lawsuit against Ticketmaster and its parent company, Live Nation, alleging that the company willingly misleads consumers about ticket prices and cooperates with scalpers to markup resale prices — all at the expense of artists and music fans. 

There are still ongoing class-action and fan-led lawsuits against Live Nation and Ticketmaster, too, but the federal antitrust trial is the biggest legal action against the company so far, and has the most potential to change the status quo in the live entertainment industry.
Copyright 2026 NPR