History will record 2020 as the year when a microscopicorganism brought the world to its knees and turned every plan for the year on its head.
Even if a vaccine defeats the coronavirus in the coming 12 months, the world and the way people live their lives may never be the same.
In the coming years it may have to be a case of getting used to the new normal because the bridge to the old one has been burned.
One of the most worrying aspects of the lockdowns has been the surge in domestic violence and an increasing number of people reporting mental health issues.
But our attempts to avoid spreading the virus have resulted in many social changes which will not be easily reversed.
The Irish public’s hands have never been so clean while the face mask will always remain the emblem of 2020.
As well as being a threat to human health, Covid-19 has been the great disruptor which put a stop to international travel and wiped out the tourist industries of many countries, including this one.
Where unions and bosses failed down the decades in dramatically changing the way people work, a microscopic organism succeeded in less than a year.
Social structures have been altered almost beyond recognition, affecting everything from family interaction to children’s education.
Families were denied the ancient right to give their deceased loved ones a proper send-off while couples could not properly celebrate the biggest day of their lives.
As well as being responsible for countless deaths, the coronavirus has also killed the commute. Now, because of the travel restrictions, many homes are the new workplace and in most cases the output has not suffered.
A year ago only a small minority used apps such as Zoom but now everyone from primary school pupils to pensioners is using it to keep in contact with family and friends.
Many people have experienced working at home and some of it works and some of it doesn’t.
The fact that the likes of hairdressers and physiotherapists can’t do their work remotely exposes the unpalatable reality that entire sectors are doomed unless close physical contact can be resumed.
The appearance of vaccines is perhaps the only hope that these businesses can go back across that bridge to normality.
It will take more than a vaccine to re-establish Ireland’s shattered tourist industry which has been all but wiped out by Covid-19.
The public realised early on that the pandemic had the capacity to change everything about how we live and this is mostly for the worst, but there was hope as well.
After decades of neglect and underfunding, those in power finally understood that the health service was the most important arm of the State. Healthcare workers here and abroad were rightly hailed as heroes while the funding denied in previous years was found to fight the virus.
For years the EU worked for closer integration and a Europe without national borders but while these goals are the key to free trade, it soon became clear it is the most efficient way to spread a highly-infectious virus.
It also emerged that there was little point in having a unified Europe if there was a patchwork of local and regional authorities making different rules and imposing different restrictions, or lack of them, in their areas.
This was apparent on this island which at times had totally different lockdown rules on each side of the border, which was wide open.
This deadly disease also exposed the incompetence of some leaders and governments who failed to meet the challenges and allowed the virus to spread out of control.
In the US, instead of setting a good example, President Trump refused to wear a mask, caught the virus and survived but over 230,000 died of the disease.
The coronavirus may have changed the course of political history because if he had tackled the pandemic early on when the virus was spreading, there is every chance he would have won the presidential election.
