So, you’re saying I’m reaping the benefits of being a cranky old antisocial SoB? 
It probably doesn’t hurt. 
I know that I’m also very extroverted, and that’s probably part of why the lack of face-to-face socialization is wearing me down.
Biggest inconvenience for me is that I can’t spend an hour or two browsing at the library – I have to somehow decide what I want to read, find out if the library has it, and reserve it for contactless pickup. Or dig through Project Gutenberg and read on the computer.
There’s also the fact that my wife lost her job. She’s home all day, and cooking more, so I’m eating more – I’ve gained almost 40 pounds since last March.
I do my socialising online – it’s been a good eight or nine years since we had anyone come by the house, and at least as long since we went to anyone else’s house other than my in-laws’ on holidays and my sister-in-law’s place for a couple days when my daughter graduated in the summer of '19.
To address the larger question, it depends on your job/income level. Low income people in service jobs have suffered a lot more than white collar workers.
As evidence of this, California was forecasting a gigantic income shortfall from layoffs. It didn’t happen, since those who did lose their jobs had low incomes and paid very little in taxes, while those who had high incomes have done pretty well. The stock market run up helped also, no doubt.
Personally being retired my only negatives have not being able to visit my grandchildren and having face-to-face (rather than Zoom) dinners with our friends. And not being able to go to the library.
There have been positives, like getting better speakers for our club since they don’t have to travel and can speak from New York just as easily as from the Bay Area.
Mostly just inconvenienced. No earnings issues. No one close to me had died of it, or even had a serious case so far. Can’t eat out like I’d like to. Working from home, mostly. Saved a good bit of money on gas, since I commute about 70 miles, round-trip.
I little in the way of negative impact from lack of socialization. I live with someone I like, and I don’t socialize much. I was little bit stir crazy the first couple weeks, but then it just became normal and a non-issue. I mostly miss eating out.
My grandmother died of an unrelated cause during this. Only one person could visit her in hospital, and that was my uncle (the child who hadn’t seen her in the longest time). She had been living with my parents for a while, and I know it bothered my mother that she couldn’t be there. Also, my grandmother did not get the funeral she wanted with the church service and songs. Which, I have to admit, was not an inconvenience to me, as I don’t like funerals and it would have been unpleasant to me.
The most negative thing for me is that I am a programmer and work in heath-ish industry and we’ve had to do a ton of work because of COVID, building new programs, etc. Thing that should take a couple years, and they want them in a few months, with no extra staff, little in the way of specifications from the team that was supposed to provide them (and the two senior members have left since COVID started, as has another member of my team, and I don’t blame her), and then they want everything changed as soon as we get one version done.
One thing to consider is that even highly transmissible and lethal pandemics (1918 Spanish Flu, Black Death) only infect about 1/3 of the population.
So it’s likely that a big chunk of that 70% who don’t get it may not ever encounter anyone with it.
Does that account for modern transportation, though? Might it be significantly higher if those past plagues were to happen today?
Well, the Spanish flu is probably a good first example of a pandemic with modern transportation. It came with all the troop movements.
Aussie here. I hate to say it but as a person who was living with serious illness before the pandemic it has in some ways been helpful. My doctor and specialists can now charge Medicare for phone and video consultations which are far easier on me than office or hospital visits. If I do need to go anywhere the adoption of masks and social distance makes it much safer as does the giving up of hand shakes and hugs.
My supermarket offered a very cheap annual deal on home delivery for pensioners to keep us out of stores. I have heard from friends that I haven’t in a long time because they were locked down and not so frantic. Public transport has been abandoned so it is safer for me to use, cheaper too as they try to entice people back unsuccessfully. The Government has given me a couple of bonus payments but my costs haven’t risen.
I have also been able to use our lockdown to explain my last decade to folks who finally seem to understand. That makes a difference in a life.
Of course if it does get me it will probably take me out and we did have the worry of a family member contracting it in the initial wave. He came through ok luckily.
I’m making more money, and I don’t know anyone other than an acquaintance that has died.
I’ve already reported that my mom died. That obviously is not relatively unharmed. If you didn’t know, I moved back home when my mental health issues started up.
However, I have to admit that my actual life situation hasn’t changed much during this pandemic. Dad did lose his job, which stressed him out, but we’ve had other sources of income that we didn’t expect.
I remind myself sometimes that, while I miss mom terribly, we’re otherwise somewhat blessed. And that sort of optimism is helpful.
I figure it balances out, between modern hygiene and modern transportation. I mean, back in the fourteenth century, you had markedly unsanitary practices and conditions, but much slower transportation. I mean, who gets flea bites from rat fleas these days?
But @fignorton’s right; 1918 was essentially the present day in terms of transportation. And the more recent pandemics (mostly flu) have been even more so.
Fundamentally, even pandemics are rarely things that everyone gets. When they are, they usually end up like measles or chicken pox, and people get them as children when they’re not so severe. (chicken pox for a kid = 2 weeks of itchy scabs and a fever, while chicken pox for an adult = potentially life threatening).
Measles probably started as one of the Roman plagues (that helped destroy the Roman empire). It only gradually turned into a “childhood disease” after we reached herd immunity.
So far, inconvenienced only (and every person in my immediate family has had it). My most notable symptom was complete loss of smell, I’ve had worse colds. Yes, I’m a lucky one, but everybody was quite nervous for me beforehand (I have common risk factors). I still do not personally know anyone who has died from it (knock on wood).
The only real significant issue I’ve had so far is with my son’s schooling. He’s in fifth grade and this has been a disaster of a school year for him.
We fall into the “inconvenienced” group, but I confess I am getting increasingly fed up with the inconvenience. I suspect that generally, here in the UK, the extent of lockdowns/restrictions has been rather more severe than the US. We’ve been effectively locked down since before Christmas - indeed, Christmas didn’t really happen. Mrs Trep and I spent the day alone. (Trep jr lives twenty odd miles away, and we’ve seen him 3 times in 3 months, 2 of those times being technically illegal because, with his gf, we made a group of 4.) Most shops are shut, as are schools*, bars, restaurants, markets, theatres and so forth. It’s illegal for us to leave to country. Hell, depending how you interpret the law, in many circumstances it may be illegal for us to leave the town. It’s very difficult to meet friends legally - meeting another couple breaks the law, even if its outdoors.
But we’re retired, we’ve (so far) dodged the virus, no particular financial problems, none of our friends has died. We’re unharmed. But I am feeling increasingly ground down. I never thought I would be desperate to go grocery shopping.
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(*) - schools are open to the children of key workers only.
My wife’s grandfather died from COVID over the summer. Besides that and the havoc that being confined with two children under 5 has been. We’ve been outrageously fortunate with the situation I got into the hand sanitizer business early in and not only has it kept me employed I came close to doubling my income since I’m still working my normal day job.
Of course, working two jobs with the wife working from home while trying to do homeschool and keep a 1 year old alive in the spring wore everyone down and our family relationship haven’t fully recovered even with the kids back in school this year. Overall, things are great but I worry what the stress and togetherness has done to our family we’re all permanently sick of each other and we need like 3 months separated to get back to feeling the love.
Retired recent widower living in an apartment and I have been financial rewarded by the stimulus payments and no real adverse effects at all. I bought a set of three masks last year and that has been my sole expense.
My guess is that the whole burden is on travel, leisure, food service and probably those who worked in building maintenance. I don’t know if most of them are eligible for unemployment comp or not, but if they are, then they are probably doing ok too. I know a person who works as a grocery clerk who has kept his job but he doesn’t make as much as the amount currently given to those unemployed.
I do indeed recognize that I am fortunate that I have not been harmed nor do I know anyone who has been.
Most of the building trades here (FL) are booming. Plumbers, HVAC, electricians, builders, landscapers, are all going full tilt. Both for new-build or maintenance of existing plant.
My local branch of a major regional grocery chain has had a home-made sign just inside the door since about April 2020:
Want to have an “essential” job? Work for us. We’re hiring. See the customer service desk for an application.
I doo see more turnover and more new faces there since COVID started than before. I don’t know what that difference represents.
I imagine @mundylion was thinking of office buildings. There probably is a little less work there but the buildings still need maintenance. As it happens, my wife’s career is in facilities management (not office buildings though, she’d hate that) and she hasn’t stopped. Switched to a new job during all this, in fact.