So then let me hit on a few key points with Joel (point #3)
1. Joel describes God declaring a worldwide sabbath. A sabbath in the Bible is when you shut down business, you are prohibited from doing business. There was also a limit to travel on the sabbath.
The prophecy that tells us that the Covid Pandemic was a fulfillment of Joel's prophecy is not that there was a pandemic, it was that there was a worldwide shutdown of commerce and travel. So yes, there have been pandemics before but never in human history has there been a worldwide shutdown of commerce and travel before.
And, that is also what Joel says. He makes it clear that when this happens it will never have happened before. So you cannot assume that OK, this will happen again in the future and that will be the real fulfillment because at that time no one will be able to say it has never happened before.
Yes, there were extremely limited quarantines in the past, never an entire city. London and Toronto come to mind, but they only quarantined houses and streets. What we saw during Covid we have never seen before in human history when it comes to quarantines, shutting down business and shutting down travel.
But there is more, Joel describes this plague as a super bug that is spliced together from four other bugs. That is how Covid19 has been described. Once again, we did have the black plague and the bubonic plague, and we did have Genghis Khan using dead infected bodies as projectiles, but never have we had a plague that was spliced together in the lab before.
Also, Joel specifically mentions the offerings to the churches being cut off. Never in US history have they shut down churches before.
Joel 1:2 Hear this, ye old men, and give ear, all ye inhabitants of the land. Hath this been in your days, or even in the days of your fathers? 3 Tell ye your children of it, and let your children tell their children, and their children another generation.
Joel then tells us that when we see these things the Day of the Lord is nigh and the Day of the Lord is at hand. It is a sign to tell us where we are in a timeline.
Joel 2:1 Blow ye the trumpet in Zion, and sound an alarm in my holy mountain: let all the inhabitants of the land tremble: for the day of the Lord cometh, for it is nigh at hand;