A year ago it seemed to me that COVID would never end. Every day we watched the numbers around us rise as we worked tirelessly to keep another outbreak from our doors. I would lay awake in the middle of the night and think about vaccine, sending up a wordless prayer that we would soon have vaccine and that those shots in arms would mark the end of the pandemic and a return to normal.

In December we received the dates of our first vaccine clinic. I got the call late in the evening and remember the elation at the thought that the end was in sight. Our vaccine clinics, on both our campuses, were times of celebration and we clapped and cheered for every elder and every member of our team as they got their immunizations. Two weeks after our second vaccine our staff were boasting to each other “Got my COVID superpower now!”

Yet here we are, more than 20 months after COVID entered our lives, getting close to a year since vaccines became reality. We’ve watched in dismay as vaccines and masking went from being epidemiological to being political. We’ve watched as people we’ve known have refused vaccine with, for some, tragic consequences.

Today, in my organization, boosters began to go into arms. We’ve made vaccination a condition of employment since July 1 and boosters are part of the expectation. The fanfare of the initial vaccine was not there today. We are doing what we know we must, we are doing all we can to protect our elders and our staff, but the “this is the solution” feeling just isn’t there the way it was initially.

It feels to me as if it is a new phase in this fight. We battled the outbreaks, we pushed through to vaccination, we held the line with infection control and yet the war continues. We are in a place now where our strength is focused less on the day to day skirmishes and more on simply our need to endure. We are tired but we are resolute. We are worn but we stand strong. We are driven by our commitment to keep our elders and staff safe and well and we will not falter, we will not waver. We will endure.