Monday will mark the two-year anniversary of Illinois’ stay-at-home order, implemented after a surge of COVID-19 cases began to hit the state.
Since then, around 1,165 Kane County residents have died with the virus.
After a massive health care effort featuring testing, vaccinations and boosters, COVID-19 rates in the county are down to a level not seen since last summer.
However, that doesn’t mean the impact of the pandemic is over. From housing to education to business, Fox Valley residents’ lives have been permanently altered over the past two years, with some of the changes enacted due to the pandemic set to continue for years to come.
In the housing industry, some people saw themselves moving from cities and out of apartments and looking for their own space to stretch out as they quarantined. Aurora real estate broker Dianne Yelm said the biggest struggle over the past two years has been a lack of inventory of houses, because some sellers froze and were too scared to move, while buyers wanted to close deals as fast as possible.
Most homes under $300,000 receive multiple offers now and some housing costs have gone up 20% since the beginning of the pandemic, Yelm said.
“I think it’s harder for a first-time homebuyer in the FHA (mortgage loan) bracket because they are competing with people who already have a home to sell and can do conventional loans and it edges them out,” Yelm said. “I really have to sit down with buyers first and educate them that we will find something, but it is a process and much more time-consuming than ever before.”
Some couples are frustrated because they want to take their time and discuss a home after seeing it, but in same cases the house is already bid on by someone else by the time they make a decision, Yelm said.
People looking for a home now have to move much more quickly, she said.
Due to experiences during the pandemic, Yelm sees people investing in their back yards and making it more of an extension of the home.
“People are looking for a decent yard and someplace they can be outdoors more often because after they were forced to quarantine, they want the opportunity to not feel trapped in their own place again,” Yelm said.
While just 23% of Americans worked from home occasionally before the pandemic according to a Pew Research Center survey, now more people see themselves turning their guest bedrooms into home offices and using video platforms to communicate for business.
Marianne Renner, an Aurora-based leadership coach and trainer, was using the Zoom platform before COVID-19 hit, but many of her clients two years ago did not know what it was. Some were uncomfortable with it and still preferred to just talk on the phone, she said.
But after they were forced to begin using it with the start of the pandemic, many discovered it was a timer saver and a way to connect with people that is more personal than over the phone, she said.
“It’s not the same as being in person, I want to be clear on that, but with the convenience of a virtual environment, it was the next best thing to being in person,” Renner said.
Renner said using Zoom or Teams can save time - it eliminates travel time - and also saves money. For instance, when someone hires her to travel to a site for group training, they pay her room and board. That expense doesn’t exist with a virtual event, she said.
During the pandemic, she did a seven-hour virtual training session for 100 educators at one point, and the feedback she got was that is was one of the best training sessions the participants had ever had.
Revenue for her business doubled during 2021, and she said overall her business “grew exponentially.”
“I’m very grateful we had that option,” she said of virtual meetings. “It is a phenomenal supplement.”
The experience has been a little different for Cassandra Choronzy, who opened her business Yoga Six at 577 Third St. in Geneva during the pandemic. She tried streaming classes, but saw over time that more and more people would drop out.
“We are really an in-person business,” Choronzy said, prompting her to install a special air system and increase cleaning between sessions to make participants feel safe and comfortable during classes.
For restaurants in the area, the pandemic pushed the idea of outdoor dining to the forefront.
Up and down the Fox Valley, restaurants and the cities they were in collaborated to find more spaces to put outdoor dining, and white plastic domes started popping up, as well as outdoor heaters, to create more outdoor dining spaces during the colder months.
In Aurora, the city expanded plans it already had to create outdoor dining spaces in parking lots, and even in street right-of-ways, a push that is likely to continue after the pandemic is over.
The pandemic also brought lasting changes for schools, making virtual learning a part of the educational scene.
With the convenience of video learning, most students will likely never see a typical snow day again, East Aurora School District Superintendent Jennifer Norrell said.
Due to the pandemic, schools were pushed to use more technology than ever before, officials said.
Norrell said East Aurora School District moved three to five years earlier than planned to expand its use of technology. For instance, the district now uses a learning management system where student assignments are always posted online.
The acceptance of technology has also changed the way a number of groups offer services, sometimes for the better.
Family Counseling Services, a nonprofit organization that offers a wide range of counseling services in Aurora and Oswego, is now welcoming a majority of its staff back into the office, but Executive Director Eric Ward said he expects “telehealth” sessions with patients to continue because it makes it easier for some of them to connect.
Currently, around 35% of patients use a virtual option for sessions, he said.
“We got to see the kids in their natural environments so to speak and some of our younger kids were introducing their therapists to their stuffed animals and giving guided tours of their bedroom,” Ward said of virtual sessions. “We also got to see the more challenging parts that we wouldn’t normally be able to see like what their home life looked like or if there are extended family members who are adding difficulty, and it is something we can start to address right away.”
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March 20, 2022 at 03:46AM
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After two years, COVID-19 pandemic has left lasting changes on Fox Valley - Chicago Tribune
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