How COVID changed everything

NYU sociologist Eric Klinenberg reflects on lessons learned and not learned from the COVID pandemic and the ways it changed our lives, culture and politics.

Air Date: September 5, 2025 12:00 pm

(AP Photo/Phelan M. Ebenhack)

Five years ago, we were in the throes of the Covid pandemic. Many businesses were shuttered; employees were working from home or online. Essential workers were putting their lives at risk. Most schools had gone to remote learning. Hospitals were overwhelmed and bodies were literally piling up.

By the end of September 2020, over 200,000 Americans had died from the virus, which would eventually take more than one million lives in this country alone. While we shared this crisis with the rest of the world, the pandemic bred mistrust in our political system, our healthcare system, the media, and each other. Fights over masks devolved into disagreements over medical treatment and eventually the vaccine.

This week on The Connection--have we recovered from the pandemic, are we ready for the next one, and how did Covid change us? Our guest is sociologist Eric Klinenberg, author of 2020: One City, Seven People and the Year That Changed Everything.

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