April 13, 2022

During President Biden's State of the Union address, he pointed to great progress against the COVID pandemic. Since its first major surge, there has been a dramatic reduction in cases, along with readily accessible vaccines and the likelihood of new tests and therapeutics soon to become more available.

He explained how America's response to COVID since the pandemic began has been mostly to put out fires and remain in constant emergency mode. His new plan, he announced, is a roadmap to help fight COVID in the future as we move from crisis mode to a more measured plan for prevention and treatment of, and protection against, the potentially deadly virus that has claimed more than 800,000 American lives. In other words, a "new normal."
 
The Pasadena Senior Center is glad to see the Biden administration making the transition from jumping from constant crisis mode to putting new knowledge about COVID to work in a more methodical way. PSC staff and volunteers have been working in a reasoned, methodical mode since COVID began. 

For example, PSC traditionally offered dozens of activities onsite every month. When the pandemic hit in 2020, many senior centers across the country canceled activities altogether. At PSC, however, we sprang into action, learned about Zoom and began offering most of these same activities virtually. 

For more than 60 years the Pasadena Senior Center has answered the call to meet challenges head-on. Ensuring the success of our "new normal" in 2020 was a matter of encouraging instructors and other activity hosts to embrace this change from tradition to technology and provide activities in a whole new way; and reaching out to our members and other older adults who had never experienced live video communications to help them understand how simple Zoom is to use. Most learned to adapt to Zoom and once they did, they were hooked. In the past two years, they have been able to stay connected to PSC and their regular activity mates, make new friends and transition comfortably from Boomers to Zoomers.

We have begun gradually bringing back some onsite activities, and participants now have options: attend activities in person at PSC while adhering to COVID protocols, joining the Zoom audiences or, in some cases, both.

"I want to continue to use Zoom for Senior Center classes and events even if the pandemic ever comes to an end," said Connie O., 81 and a PSC member. "It's a wonderful thing." In the meantime, the Pasadena Senior Center will continue to deliver services as we have done for two years now in our "new normal."