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Inside Out

See the good

Jeanne Sager
Posted 12/28/21

It's around this time of year that we tend to start looking back at the year that was. Considering what we've all been through since first learning the word "coronavirus" 22 months ago, it's tempting …

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Inside Out

See the good

Posted

It's around this time of year that we tend to start looking back at the year that was. Considering what we've all been through since first learning the word "coronavirus" 22 months ago, it's tempting to skip it all this year.

We all started things off with hope. Surely things had to be better than 2020.

It only took six days for hope to be shattered into a million little pieces on the footsteps of our nation's Capitol building.

We shouldn't forget the worst of 2021.

But we shouldn't forget the good either.

What happened in 2021? How about ...

We saw the largest mass vaccination campaign in the history of the world: As of this writing, more than 8.82 billion doses of the COVID-19 vaccine have been administered across184 countries, according to data from Bloomberg.

NASA made oxygen on Mars. There may or may not be life on other planets, but NASA scientists announced a breakthrough they say “could pave the way for science fiction to become science fact."

Telehealth surged. Living in a community where a trip to the doctor can take an hour or more of travel — one way — the move to telemedicine when the world first shut down was a relief. But as things opened up, I know I wasn't the only one worrying that our access would go up in smoke. Good news: Telehealth is now 38 times what it was before the pandemic, and even Medicaid and Medicare has adjusted its coding system to allow for more remote access to care.

LEGO figured out the plastic bottle. Scientists at LEGO finally figured out how to turn all those plastic water bottles into little bricks parents will stumble on in the night. It's a small step for toys; a giant leap for sustainability.

This is only scratching the surface, of course.

But in a year that brought us a lot of pain and heartbreak, it's worth remembering, all was not lost.

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