The most atypical year of many of our lives is coming to an end.

2020 was a year for the history books, but to put it in perspective, history is full of years like this (and even bigger ones) – 1776 when the Declaration of Independence began the journey toward independence from Great Britain and the creation of the United States, 1945 when WWII ended, 1918 when WWI ended and the Spanish Flu killed 50 million, and countless others.

The Covid-19 pandemic has killed nearing 350,000 people in the U.S. and 1.8 million worldwide. Its economic toll has been immense, as well, with unemployment hitting record highs not seen since the Great Depression.

It is a year that all of us – whether Baby Boomers or school-aged children – will be talking about for the rest of our lives. Remember back in 2020 when …

In our Book of Lists this year, the PBT published a timeline of important events that occurred in 2020 as well as some key statistics, all with an eye toward what happened regionally and how it impacted local businesses.

Go to the following links to view a 2020 Year in Review:

Year in Review: When time stood still – a timeline of 2020

Year in Review: Through the lens of 2020

Market Facts: Unemployment hits records, may take years to recover

Market Facts: How the pandemic impacted the Port Authority

Market Facts: Airport grounded by pandemic, recovery slow

Market Facts: Construction starts down, but industry back to work

One part of what I do at the Business Times is awards programs. It’s something I’ve always enjoyed because we get the opportunity to honor really interesting people and companies who are doing great things.

Our most recent program was our Fast 50, a listing of the 50 fastest-growing companies in the region as ranked by revenue growth between 2017 and 2019.

That’s right – in this case, it was for revenue growth before Covid hit. When I first started working on this project, I was concerned about how things had changed for these companies.

Turns out, many have managed to turn lemons into lemonade. While there’s been plenty of challenges, these are the Fast 50 – to grow so fast, they’ve already honed valuable skills like adaptability, fast thinking and understanding the importance of pivoting to meet what customers need today. These skills are now serving them well in the midst of the pandemic, where adopting new ways of doing business is imperative to, well, staying in business.

I wrote about all of this in my column, but really it’s their own stories that are the most interesting (you can read those in the attached slide show and here – you also can read about how this year’s No. 1 grew so fast). One of my favorites is COE Distributing, a wholesale office furniture distributor that switched to making new products for a Covid office environment and had its best revenue month in August.

As another sign of how companies are adapting, the PBT has been doing these awards programs as virtual programs, including the Women of Influence program that was cancelled at the last minute in March. Updates on these winners and the video can be viewed on the PBT website.

In my last post back in March, I wrote at the bottom about how my next post would be about Women of Influence and not coronavirus.

Oh, how wrong I was. How life has changed for all of us in the past four months.

Not only did we not end up having that event, but we haven’t hosted in an-person event since then (although we did run the profiles in print that week).

I’ll never forget how fast things happened that week. I came down with a minor cold and ended up working from home that Thursday and Friday, so my last day of working in the office was that Wednesday. By the following Monday, everything in Allegheny County was shut down – work, restaurants, retail, and by Tuesday daycare for my son (we chose to keep him out that Monday).

Other than a couple of quick trips to pick up some stuff, I haven’t been back to the office since that fateful week in March. Instead, I’ve adapted to teleworking, managing a team remotely as we’ve covered all that 2020 has had to offer – coronavirus, George Floyd’s death, an economic recession the likes we’ve never seen, coronavirus part 2 and more.

At this point in time, Covid 19 cases are high nationwide, and higher here in Pittsburgh than they were back during the first peak in April. I’ve been lucky thus far in that I don’t personally know anyone who has gotten seriously ill with Covid yet. Restaurants are operating at 25% capacity dine-in (take-out is ok) and teleworking is strongly encouraged. The rules, particularly for restaurants, keep changing, as we highlighted in a recent cover story.

To link to every Covid-19 story we’ve written like I did in my last blog post would be far too arduous (and depressing) of a task – suffice it to say that it has consumed a large percentage of our coverage since March. In fact, it’s rare that the pandemic is not mentioned in a story because it has impacted every industry and everything that anybody does for a living.

The packages that we did early on are worth mentioning. In one, we followed eight small businesses as they navigate through Covid-19, and we will continue to follow them later this year. It was part of a national package coordinated by our parent company, American City Business Journals.

Here’s the first part, which ran in April: Navigating Coronavirus: Eight small business execs share their stories

And here’s part two, which was part of a big national package: Small Business, Big Mission: Navigating coronavirus Part II — Small business owners remain resilient in the face of adversity

The second package I’ll highlight is one we did back in April where we got thoughts from senior executives in the region. It’s called CEO Conversations: Senior executives talk about what’s changed, what’s next and how to manage all the uncertainty

Finally, the last one I’ll mention is Office of the Future. In June, some businesses started to return to the office after weeks of teleworking. While that has been dialed back some since then due to the rise in local cases, people still are wondering what will the office look like not only upon return, but also months down the road.

This package can be found here: Offices, reassembled: Here’s a primer on what offices may look like now and in the future as a new normal emerges

One thing that is certain is things are constantly in flux right now. And that’s bound to continue as Covid cases continue to rise and with a presidential election just around the corner.

With that said, I won’t try to predict my next post this time ….