“This Is So Dystopian” — Teacher Posts Throwback Video of School COVID Announcement

An elementary school teacher named Ms. Decorah (@msdecorah) is going viral on TikTok after posting a blast-from-the-past video that marked a moment in our society that, at the time, few people arguably could've understood the implications of. Her clip captures a loudspeaker announcement that lets students know of the government-issued mandates that were implemented as a result of COVID-19.

In the video — which the TikToker captioned "WILD, I forgot I videotaped this announcement" — a voice reverberating over the school's PA system states: "I have an important announcement to make for all of our school. Today we will be packing up a lot of our things, everything, that includes bike helmets, snow pants, coats, boots, hats, gloves, we will be bringing it all home in our backpacks because our school will be closing for a couple of weeks. There is a virus that is going around and we want to make sure that everybody is well and stays healthy."

The woman over the speaker continued: "We know you are all healthy, but we are going to be staying home for a couple of weeks so that means that [redacted] will be closing and we'll be coming back to school on April 13, OK, so everybody needs to pack up all of their things today to bring home."

Commenters were quick to share their thoughts on the haunting video.

"I was a senior and I asked my teacher if he thought we’d get an extra long spring break and he scoffed and then I never went to high school again," one person wrote.

"My office was the same way. Remote working for 'two weeks' turned into forever. Walked in a year later to finally clear our desks. All the calendars were stuck on March 2020," another person wrote.

"I work as a custodian at a university. We didn't get time off. We had to show up to maintain the buildings even though hardly anyone was there," another TikTok user noted.

"I can’t believe it’s already been almost 4 whole years 😭 it feels like it’s only been a few months, and I still feel the same age when it happened," another commenter said.

"As a library science major I highly recommend you actually save this somewhere and have it for future history," someone else recommended.

"My kids were on spring break. They had staff empty all the lockers and put things in trash bags. We drove up to the school where a staff dressed in an inflatable dinosaur suit greeted us with the bags," someone recalled.

"This is so dystopian," someone else plainly stated.

"This sounds like the beginning of a horror film," noted another.