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My Experience During The Covid-19 Pandemic

• Categories: Covid 19

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Words: 440 |

Published: Jan 30, 2024

Words: 440 | Page: 1 | 3 min read

Table of contents

Introduction, physical impact, mental and emotional impact, social impact.

• World Health Organization. (2021). Coronavirus (COVID-19) Dashboard. https://covid19.who.int/
• American Psychiatric Association. (2020). Mental health and COVID-19. https://www.psychiatry.org/news-room/apa-blogs/apa-blog/2020/03/mental-health-and-covid-19
• The New York Times. (2020). Coping with Coronavirus Anxiety. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/11/well/family/coronavirus-anxiety-mental-health.html

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Read these 12 moving essays about life during coronavirus

Artists, novelists, critics, and essayists are writing the first draft of history.

by Alissa Wilkinson

The world is grappling with an invisible, deadly enemy, trying to understand how to live with the threat posed by a virus . For some writers, the only way forward is to put pen to paper, trying to conceptualize and document what it feels like to continue living as countries are under lockdown and regular life seems to have ground to a halt.

So as the coronavirus pandemic has stretched around the world, it’s sparked a crop of diary entries and essays that describe how life has changed. Novelists, critics, artists, and journalists have put words to the feelings many are experiencing. The result is a first draft of how we’ll someday remember this time, filled with uncertainty and pain and fear as well as small moments of hope and humanity.

• The Vox guide to navigating the coronavirus crisis

At the New York Review of Books, Ali Bhutto writes that in Karachi, Pakistan, the government-imposed curfew due to the virus is “eerily reminiscent of past military clampdowns”:

Beneath the quiet calm lies a sense that society has been unhinged and that the usual rules no longer apply. Small groups of pedestrians look on from the shadows, like an audience watching a spectacle slowly unfolding. People pause on street corners and in the shade of trees, under the watchful gaze of the paramilitary forces and the police.

His essay concludes with the sobering note that “in the minds of many, Covid-19 is just another life-threatening hazard in a city that stumbles from one crisis to another.”

Writing from Chattanooga, novelist Jamie Quatro documents the mixed ways her neighbors have been responding to the threat, and the frustration of conflicting direction, or no direction at all, from local, state, and federal leaders:

Whiplash, trying to keep up with who’s ordering what. We’re already experiencing enough chaos without this back-and-forth. Why didn’t the federal government issue a nationwide shelter-in-place at the get-go, the way other countries did? What happens when one state’s shelter-in-place ends, while others continue? Do states still under quarantine close their borders? We are still one nation, not fifty individual countries. Right?

• A syllabus for the end of the world

Award-winning photojournalist Alessio Mamo, quarantined with his partner Marta in Sicily after she tested positive for the virus, accompanies his photographs in the Guardian of their confinement with a reflection on being confined :

The doctors asked me to take a second test, but again I tested negative. Perhaps I’m immune? The days dragged on in my apartment, in black and white, like my photos. Sometimes we tried to smile, imagining that I was asymptomatic, because I was the virus. Our smiles seemed to bring good news. My mother left hospital, but I won’t be able to see her for weeks. Marta started breathing well again, and so did I. I would have liked to photograph my country in the midst of this emergency, the battles that the doctors wage on the frontline, the hospitals pushed to their limits, Italy on its knees fighting an invisible enemy. That enemy, a day in March, knocked on my door instead.

In the New York Times Magazine, deputy editor Jessica Lustig writes with devastating clarity about her family’s life in Brooklyn while her husband battled the virus, weeks before most people began taking the threat seriously:

At the door of the clinic, we stand looking out at two older women chatting outside the doorway, oblivious. Do I wave them away? Call out that they should get far away, go home, wash their hands, stay inside? Instead we just stand there, awkwardly, until they move on. Only then do we step outside to begin the long three-block walk home. I point out the early magnolia, the forsythia. T says he is cold. The untrimmed hairs on his neck, under his beard, are white. The few people walking past us on the sidewalk don’t know that we are visitors from the future. A vision, a premonition, a walking visitation. This will be them: Either T, in the mask, or — if they’re lucky — me, tending to him.

Essayist Leslie Jamison writes in the New York Review of Books about being shut away alone in her New York City apartment with her 2-year-old daughter since she became sick:

The virus. Its sinewy, intimate name. What does it feel like in my body today? Shivering under blankets. A hot itch behind the eyes. Three sweatshirts in the middle of the day. My daughter trying to pull another blanket over my body with her tiny arms. An ache in the muscles that somehow makes it hard to lie still. This loss of taste has become a kind of sensory quarantine. It’s as if the quarantine keeps inching closer and closer to my insides. First I lost the touch of other bodies; then I lost the air; now I’ve lost the taste of bananas. Nothing about any of these losses is particularly unique. I’ve made a schedule so I won’t go insane with the toddler. Five days ago, I wrote Walk/Adventure! on it, next to a cut-out illustration of a tiger—as if we’d see tigers on our walks. It was good to keep possibility alive.

At Literary Hub, novelist Heidi Pitlor writes about the elastic nature of time during her family’s quarantine in Massachusetts:

During a shutdown, the things that mark our days—commuting to work, sending our kids to school, having a drink with friends—vanish and time takes on a flat, seamless quality. Without some self-imposed structure, it’s easy to feel a little untethered. A friend recently posted on Facebook: “For those who have lost track, today is Blursday the fortyteenth of Maprilay.” ... Giving shape to time is especially important now, when the future is so shapeless. We do not know whether the virus will continue to rage for weeks or months or, lord help us, on and off for years. We do not know when we will feel safe again. And so many of us, minus those who are gifted at compartmentalization or denial, remain largely captive to fear. We may stay this way if we do not create at least the illusion of movement in our lives, our long days spent with ourselves or partners or families.

• What day is it today?

Novelist Lauren Groff writes at the New York Review of Books about trying to escape the prison of her fears while sequestered at home in Gainesville, Florida:

Some people have imaginations sparked only by what they can see; I blame this blinkered empiricism for the parks overwhelmed with people, the bars, until a few nights ago, thickly thronged. My imagination is the opposite. I fear everything invisible to me. From the enclosure of my house, I am afraid of the suffering that isn’t present before me, the people running out of money and food or drowning in the fluid in their lungs, the deaths of health-care workers now growing ill while performing their duties. I fear the federal government, which the right wing has so—intentionally—weakened that not only is it insufficient to help its people, it is actively standing in help’s way. I fear we won’t sufficiently punish the right. I fear leaving the house and spreading the disease. I fear what this time of fear is doing to my children, their imaginations, and their souls.

At ArtForum , Berlin-based critic and writer Kristian Vistrup Madsen reflects on martinis, melancholia, and Finnish artist Jaakko Pallasvuo’s 2018 graphic novel Retreat , in which three young people exile themselves in the woods:

In melancholia, the shape of what is ending, and its temporality, is sprawling and incomprehensible. The ambivalence makes it hard to bear. The world of Retreat is rendered in lush pink and purple watercolors, which dissolve into wild and messy abstractions. In apocalypse, the divisions established in genesis bleed back out. My own Corona-retreat is similarly soft, color-field like, each day a blurred succession of quarantinis, YouTube–yoga, and televized press conferences. As restrictions mount, so does abstraction. For now, I’m still rooting for love to save the world.

At the Paris Review , Matt Levin writes about reading Virginia Woolf’s novel The Waves during quarantine:

A retreat, a quarantine, a sickness—they simultaneously distort and clarify, curtail and expand. It is an ideal state in which to read literature with a reputation for difficulty and inaccessibility, those hermetic books shorn of the handholds of conventional plot or characterization or description. A novel like Virginia Woolf’s The Waves is perfect for the state of interiority induced by quarantine—a story of three men and three women, meeting after the death of a mutual friend, told entirely in the overlapping internal monologues of the six, interspersed only with sections of pure, achingly beautiful descriptions of the natural world, a day’s procession and recession of light and waves. The novel is, in my mind’s eye, a perfectly spherical object. It is translucent and shimmering and infinitely fragile, prone to shatter at the slightest disturbance. It is not a book that can be read in snatches on the subway—it demands total absorption. Though it revels in a stark emotional nakedness, the book remains aloof, remote in its own deep self-absorption.

• Vox is starting a book club. Come read with us!

In an essay for the Financial Times, novelist Arundhati Roy writes with anger about Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s anemic response to the threat, but also offers a glimmer of hope for the future:

Historically, pandemics have forced humans to break with the past and imagine their world anew. This one is no different. It is a portal, a gateway between one world and the next. We can choose to walk through it, dragging the carcasses of our prejudice and hatred, our avarice, our data banks and dead ideas, our dead rivers and smoky skies behind us. Or we can walk through lightly, with little luggage, ready to imagine another world. And ready to fight for it.

From Boston, Nora Caplan-Bricker writes in The Point about the strange contraction of space under quarantine, in which a friend in Beirut is as close as the one around the corner in the same city:

It’s a nice illusion—nice to feel like we’re in it together, even if my real world has shrunk to one person, my husband, who sits with his laptop in the other room. It’s nice in the same way as reading those essays that reframe social distancing as solidarity. “We must begin to see the negative space as clearly as the positive, to know what we don’t do is also brilliant and full of love,” the poet Anne Boyer wrote on March 10th, the day that Massachusetts declared a state of emergency. If you squint, you could almost make sense of this quarantine as an effort to flatten, along with the curve, the distinctions we make between our bonds with others. Right now, I care for my neighbor in the same way I demonstrate love for my mother: in all instances, I stay away. And in moments this month, I have loved strangers with an intensity that is new to me. On March 14th, the Saturday night after the end of life as we knew it, I went out with my dog and found the street silent: no lines for restaurants, no children on bicycles, no couples strolling with little cups of ice cream. It had taken the combined will of thousands of people to deliver such a sudden and complete emptiness. I felt so grateful, and so bereft.

And on his own website, musician and artist David Byrne writes about rediscovering the value of working for collective good , saying that “what is happening now is an opportunity to learn how to change our behavior”:

In emergencies, citizens can suddenly cooperate and collaborate. Change can happen. We’re going to need to work together as the effects of climate change ramp up. In order for capitalism to survive in any form, we will have to be a little more socialist. Here is an opportunity for us to see things differently — to see that we really are all connected — and adjust our behavior accordingly. Are we willing to do this? Is this moment an opportunity to see how truly interdependent we all are? To live in a world that is different and better than the one we live in now? We might be too far down the road to test every asymptomatic person, but a change in our mindsets, in how we view our neighbors, could lay the groundwork for the collective action we’ll need to deal with other global crises. The time to see how connected we all are is now.

The portrait these writers paint of a world under quarantine is multifaceted. Our worlds have contracted to the confines of our homes, and yet in some ways we’re more connected than ever to one another. We feel fear and boredom, anger and gratitude, frustration and strange peace. Uncertainty drives us to find metaphors and images that will let us wrap our minds around what is happening.

Yet there’s no single “what” that is happening. Everyone is contending with the pandemic and its effects from different places and in different ways. Reading others’ experiences — even the most frightening ones — can help alleviate the loneliness and dread, a little, and remind us that what we’re going through is both unique and shared by all.

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Writing about COVID-19 in a college admission essay

by: Venkates Swaminathan | Updated: September 14, 2020

Print article

For students applying to college using the CommonApp, there are several different places where students and counselors can address the pandemic’s impact. The different sections have differing goals. You must understand how to use each section for its appropriate use.

The CommonApp COVID-19 question

First, the CommonApp this year has an additional question specifically about COVID-19 :

Community disruptions such as COVID-19 and natural disasters can have deep and long-lasting impacts. If you need it, this space is yours to describe those impacts. Colleges care about the effects on your health and well-being, safety, family circumstances, future plans, and education, including access to reliable technology and quiet study spaces. Please use this space to describe how these events have impacted you.

This question seeks to understand the adversity that students may have had to face due to the pandemic, the move to online education, or the shelter-in-place rules. You don’t have to answer this question if the impact on you wasn’t particularly severe. Some examples of things students should discuss include:

• The student or a family member had COVID-19 or suffered other illnesses due to confinement during the pandemic.
• The candidate had to deal with personal or family issues, such as abusive living situations or other safety concerns
• The student suffered from a lack of internet access and other online learning challenges.
• Students who dealt with problems registering for or taking standardized tests and AP exams.

Jeff Schiffman of the Tulane University admissions office has a blog about this section. He recommends students ask themselves several questions as they go about answering this section:

• Are my experiences different from others’?
• Are there noticeable changes on my transcript?
• Am I aware of my privilege?
• Am I specific? Am I explaining rather than complaining?
• Is this information being included elsewhere on my application?

If you do answer this section, be brief and to-the-point.

Counselor recommendations and school profiles

Second, counselors will, in their counselor forms and school profiles on the CommonApp, address how the school handled the pandemic and how it might have affected students, specifically as it relates to:

• Grading scales and policies
• Graduation requirements
• Instructional methods
• Schedules and course offerings
• Testing requirements
• Your academic calendar
• Other extenuating circumstances

Students don’t have to mention these matters in their application unless something unusual happened.

Writing about COVID-19 in your main essay

Write about your experiences during the pandemic in your main college essay if your experience is personal, relevant, and the most important thing to discuss in your college admission essay. That you had to stay home and study online isn’t sufficient, as millions of other students faced the same situation. But sometimes, it can be appropriate and helpful to write about something related to the pandemic in your essay. For example:

• One student developed a website for a local comic book store. The store might not have survived without the ability for people to order comic books online. The student had a long-standing relationship with the store, and it was an institution that created a community for students who otherwise felt left out.
• One student started a YouTube channel to help other students with academic subjects he was very familiar with and began tutoring others.
• Some students used their extra time that was the result of the stay-at-home orders to take online courses pursuing topics they are genuinely interested in or developing new interests, like a foreign language or music.

Experiences like this can be good topics for the CommonApp essay as long as they reflect something genuinely important about the student. For many students whose lives have been shaped by this pandemic, it can be a critical part of their college application.

Want more? Read 6 ways to improve a college essay , What the &%$! should I write about in my college essay , and Just how important is a college admissions essay? .

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COVID-19 Lockdown: My Experience

When the lockdown started, I was ecstatic. My final year of school had finished early, exams were cancelled, the sun was shining. I was happy, and confident I would be OK. After all, how hard could staying at home possibly be? After a while, the reality of the situation started to sink in.

The novelty of being at home wore off and I started to struggle. I suffered from regular panic attacks, frozen on the floor in my room, unable to move or speak. I had nightmares most nights, and struggled to sleep. It was as if I was stuck, trapped in my house and in my own head. I didn't know how to cope.

However, over time, I found ways to deal with the pressure. I realised that lockdown gave me more time to the things I loved, hobbies that had been previously swamped by schoolwork. I started baking, drawing and writing again, and felt free for the first time in months. I had forgotten how good it felt to be creative. I started spending more time with my family. I hadn't realised how much I had missed them.

Almost a month later, I feel so much better. I understand how difficult this must be, but it's important to remember that none of us is alone. No matter how scared, or trapped, or alone you feel, things can only get better.  Take time to revisit the things you love, and remember that all of this will eventually pass. All we can do right now is stay at home, look after ourselves and our loved ones, and look forward to a better future.

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I Thought We’d Learned Nothing From the Pandemic. I Wasn’t Seeing the Full Picture

M y first home had a back door that opened to a concrete patio with a giant crack down the middle. When my sister and I played, I made sure to stay on the same side of the divide as her, just in case. The 1988 film The Land Before Time was one of the first movies I ever saw, and the image of the earth splintering into pieces planted its roots in my brain. I believed that, even in my own backyard, I could easily become the tiny Triceratops separated from her family, on the other side of the chasm, as everything crumbled into chaos.

Some 30 years later, I marvel at the eerie, unexpected ways that cartoonish nightmare came to life – not just for me and my family, but for all of us. The landscape was already covered in fissures well before COVID-19 made its way across the planet, but the pandemic applied pressure, and the cracks broke wide open, separating us from each other physically and ideologically. Under the weight of the crisis, we scattered and landed on such different patches of earth we could barely see each other’s faces, even when we squinted. We disagreed viciously with each other, about how to respond, but also about what was true.

Recently, someone asked me if we’ve learned anything from the pandemic, and my first thought was a flat no. Nothing. There was a time when I thought it would be the very thing to draw us together and catapult us – as a capital “S” Society – into a kinder future. It’s surreal to remember those early days when people rallied together, sewing masks for health care workers during critical shortages and gathering on balconies in cities from Dallas to New York City to clap and sing songs like “Yellow Submarine.” It felt like a giant lightning bolt shot across the sky, and for one breath, we all saw something that had been hidden in the dark – the inherent vulnerability in being human or maybe our inescapable connectedness .

More from TIME

Read More: The Family Time the Pandemic Stole

But it turns out, it was just a flash. The goodwill vanished as quickly as it appeared. A couple of years later, people feel lied to, abandoned, and all on their own. I’ve felt my own curiosity shrinking, my willingness to reach out waning , my ability to keep my hands open dwindling. I look out across the landscape and see selfishness and rage, burnt earth and so many dead bodies. Game over. We lost. And if we’ve already lost, why try?

Still, the question kept nagging me. I wondered, am I seeing the full picture? What happens when we focus not on the collective society but at one face, one story at a time? I’m not asking for a bow to minimize the suffering – a pretty flourish to put on top and make the whole thing “worth it.” Yuck. That’s not what we need. But I wondered about deep, quiet growth. The kind we feel in our bodies, relationships, homes, places of work, neighborhoods.

Like a walkie-talkie message sent to my allies on the ground, I posted a call on my Instagram. What do you see? What do you hear? What feels possible? Is there life out here? Sprouting up among the rubble? I heard human voices calling back – reports of life, personal and specific. I heard one story at a time – stories of grief and distrust, fury and disappointment. Also gratitude. Discovery. Determination.

Among the most prevalent were the stories of self-revelation. Almost as if machines were given the chance to live as humans, people described blossoming into fuller selves. They listened to their bodies’ cues, recognized their desires and comforts, tuned into their gut instincts, and honored the intuition they hadn’t realized belonged to them. Alex, a writer and fellow disabled parent, found the freedom to explore a fuller version of herself in the privacy the pandemic provided. “The way I dress, the way I love, and the way I carry myself have both shrunk and expanded,” she shared. “I don’t love myself very well with an audience.” Without the daily ritual of trying to pass as “normal” in public, Tamar, a queer mom in the Netherlands, realized she’s autistic. “I think the pandemic helped me to recognize the mask,” she wrote. “Not that unmasking is easy now. But at least I know it’s there.” In a time of widespread suffering that none of us could solve on our own, many tended to our internal wounds and misalignments, large and small, and found clarity.

Read More: A Tool for Staying Grounded in This Era of Constant Uncertainty

I wonder if this flourishing of self-awareness is at least partially responsible for the life alterations people pursued. The pandemic broke open our personal notions of work and pushed us to reevaluate things like time and money. Lucy, a disabled writer in the U.K., made the hard decision to leave her job as a journalist covering Westminster to write freelance about her beloved disability community. “This work feels important in a way nothing else has ever felt,” she wrote. “I don’t think I’d have realized this was what I should be doing without the pandemic.” And she wasn’t alone – many people changed jobs , moved, learned new skills and hobbies, became politically engaged.

Perhaps more than any other shifts, people described a significant reassessment of their relationships. They set boundaries, said no, had challenging conversations. They also reconnected, fell in love, and learned to trust. Jeanne, a quilter in Indiana, got to know relatives she wouldn’t have connected with if lockdowns hadn’t prompted weekly family Zooms. “We are all over the map as regards to our belief systems,” she emphasized, “but it is possible to love people you don’t see eye to eye with on every issue.” Anna, an anti-violence advocate in Maine, learned she could trust her new marriage: “Life was not a honeymoon. But we still chose to turn to each other with kindness and curiosity.” So many bonds forged and broken, strengthened and strained.

Instead of relying on default relationships or institutional structures, widespread recalibrations allowed for going off script and fortifying smaller communities. Mara from Idyllwild, Calif., described the tangible plan for care enacted in her town. “We started a mutual-aid group at the beginning of the pandemic,” she wrote, “and it grew so quickly before we knew it we were feeding 400 of the 4000 residents.” She didn’t pretend the conditions were ideal. In fact, she expressed immense frustration with our collective response to the pandemic. Even so, the local group rallied and continues to offer assistance to their community with help from donations and volunteers (many of whom were originally on the receiving end of support). “I’ve learned that people thrive when they feel their connection to others,” she wrote. Clare, a teacher from the U.K., voiced similar conviction as she described a giant scarf she’s woven out of ribbons, each representing a single person. The scarf is “a collection of stories, moments and wisdom we are sharing with each other,” she wrote. It now stretches well over 1,000 feet.

A few hours into reading the comments, I lay back on my bed, phone held against my chest. The room was quiet, but my internal world was lighting up with firefly flickers. What felt different? Surely part of it was receiving personal accounts of deep-rooted growth. And also, there was something to the mere act of asking and listening. Maybe it connected me to humans before battle cries. Maybe it was the chance to be in conversation with others who were also trying to understand – what is happening to us? Underneath it all, an undeniable thread remained; I saw people peering into the mess and narrating their findings onto the shared frequency. Every comment was like a flare into the sky. I’m here! And if the sky is full of flares, we aren’t alone.

I recognized my own pandemic discoveries – some minor, others massive. Like washing off thick eyeliner and mascara every night is more effort than it’s worth; I can transform the mundane into the magical with a bedsheet, a movie projector, and twinkle lights; my paralyzed body can mother an infant in ways I’d never seen modeled for me. I remembered disappointing, bewildering conversations within my own family of origin and our imperfect attempts to remain close while also seeing things so differently. I realized that every time I get the weekly invite to my virtual “Find the Mumsies” call, with a tiny group of moms living hundreds of miles apart, I’m being welcomed into a pocket of unexpected community. Even though we’ve never been in one room all together, I’ve felt an uncommon kind of solace in their now-familiar faces.

Hope is a slippery thing. I desperately want to hold onto it, but everywhere I look there are real, weighty reasons to despair. The pandemic marks a stretch on the timeline that tangles with a teetering democracy, a deteriorating planet , the loss of human rights that once felt unshakable . When the world is falling apart Land Before Time style, it can feel trite, sniffing out the beauty – useless, firing off flares to anyone looking for signs of life. But, while I’m under no delusions that if we just keep trudging forward we’ll find our own oasis of waterfalls and grassy meadows glistening in the sunshine beneath a heavenly chorus, I wonder if trivializing small acts of beauty, connection, and hope actually cuts us off from resources essential to our survival. The group of abandoned dinosaurs were keeping each other alive and making each other laugh well before they made it to their fantasy ending.

Read More: How Ice Cream Became My Own Personal Act of Resistance

After the monarch butterfly went on the endangered-species list, my friend and fellow writer Hannah Soyer sent me wildflower seeds to plant in my yard. A simple act of big hope – that I will actually plant them, that they will grow, that a monarch butterfly will receive nourishment from whatever blossoms are able to push their way through the dirt. There are so many ways that could fail. But maybe the outcome wasn’t exactly the point. Maybe hope is the dogged insistence – the stubborn defiance – to continue cultivating moments of beauty regardless. There is value in the planting apart from the harvest.

I can’t point out a single collective lesson from the pandemic. It’s hard to see any great “we.” Still, I see the faces in my moms’ group, making pancakes for their kids and popping on between strings of meetings while we try to figure out how to raise these small people in this chaotic world. I think of my friends on Instagram tending to the selves they discovered when no one was watching and the scarf of ribbons stretching the length of more than three football fields. I remember my family of three, holding hands on the way up the ramp to the library. These bits of growth and rings of support might not be loud or right on the surface, but that’s not the same thing as nothing. If we only cared about the bottom-line defeats or sweeping successes of the big picture, we’d never plant flowers at all.

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What Life Was Like for Students in the Pandemic Year

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In this video, Navajo student Miles Johnson shares how he experienced the stress and anxiety of schools shutting down last year. Miles’ teacher shared his experience and those of her other students in a recent piece for Education Week. In these short essays below, teacher Claire Marie Grogan’s 11th grade students at Oceanside High School on Long Island, N.Y., describe their pandemic experiences. Their writings have been slightly edited for clarity. Read Grogan’s essay .

“Hours Staring at Tiny Boxes on the Screen”

By Kimberly Polacco, 16

I stare at my blank computer screen, trying to find the motivation to turn it on, but my finger flinches every time it hovers near the button. I instead open my curtains. It is raining outside, but it does not matter, I will not be going out there for the rest of the day. The sound of pounding raindrops contributes to my headache enough to make me turn on my computer in hopes that it will give me something to drown out the noise. But as soon as I open it up, I feel the weight of the world crash upon my shoulders.

Each 42-minute period drags on by. I spend hours upon hours staring at tiny boxes on a screen, one of which my exhausted face occupies, and attempt to retain concepts that have been presented to me through this device. By the time I have the freedom of pressing the “leave” button on my last Google Meet of the day, my eyes are heavy and my legs feel like mush from having not left my bed since I woke up.

Tomorrow arrives, except this time here I am inside of a school building, interacting with my first period teacher face to face. We talk about our favorite movies and TV shows to stream as other kids pile into the classroom. With each passing period I accumulate more and more of these tiny meaningless conversations everywhere I go with both teachers and students. They may not seem like much, but to me they are everything because I know that the next time I am expected to report to school, I will be trapped in the bubble of my room counting down the hours until I can sit down in my freshly sanitized wooden desk again.

“My Only Parent Essentially on Her Death Bed”

By Nick Ingargiola, 16

My mom had COVID-19 for ten weeks. She got sick during the first month school buildings were shut. The difficulty of navigating an online classroom was already overwhelming, and when mixed with my only parent essentially on her death bed, it made it unbearable. Focusing on schoolwork was impossible, and watching my mother struggle to lift up her arm broke my heart.

My mom has been through her fair share of diseases from pancreatic cancer to seizures and even as far as a stroke that paralyzed her entire left side. It is safe to say she has been through a lot. The craziest part is you would never know it. She is the strongest and most positive person I’ve ever met. COVID hit her hard. Although I have watched her go through life and death multiple times, I have never seen her so physically and mentally drained.

I initially was overjoyed to complete my school year in the comfort of my own home, but once my mom got sick, I couldn’t handle it. No one knows what it’s like to pretend like everything is OK until they are forced to. I would wake up at 8 after staying up until 5 in the morning pondering the possibility of losing my mother. She was all I had. I was forced to turn my camera on and float in the fake reality of being fine although I wasn’t. The teachers tried to keep the class engaged by obligating the students to participate. This was dreadful. I didn’t want to talk. I had to hide the distress in my voice. If only the teachers understood what I was going through. I was hesitant because I didn’t want everyone to know that the virus that was infecting and killing millions was knocking on my front door.

After my online classes, I was required to finish an immense amount of homework while simultaneously hiding my sadness so that my mom wouldn’t worry about me. She was already going through a lot. There was no reason to add me to her list of worries. I wasn’t even able to give her a hug. All I could do was watch.

“The Way of Staying Sane”

By Lynda Feustel, 16

Entering year two of the pandemic is strange. It barely seems a day since last March, but it also seems like a lifetime. As an only child and introvert, shutting down my world was initially simple and relatively easy. My friends and I had been super busy with the school play, and while I was sad about it being canceled, I was struggling a lot during that show and desperately needed some time off.

As March turned to April, virtual school began, and being alone really set in. I missed my friends and us being together. The isolation felt real with just my parents and me, even as we spent time together. My friends and I began meeting on Facetime every night to watch TV and just be together in some way. We laughed at insane jokes we made and had homework and therapy sessions over Facetime and grew closer through digital and literal walls.

The summer passed with in-person events together, and the virus faded into the background for a little while. We went to the track and the beach and hung out in people’s backyards.

Then school came for us in a more nasty way than usual. In hybrid school we were separated. People had jobs, sports, activities, and quarantines. Teachers piled on work, and the virus grew more present again. The group text put out hundreds of messages a day while the Facetimes came to a grinding halt, and meeting in person as a group became more of a rarity. Being together on video and in person was the way of staying sane.

In a way I am in a similar place to last year, working and looking for some change as we enter the second year of this mess.

“In History Class, Reports of Heightening Cases”

By Vivian Rose, 16

I remember the moment my freshman year English teacher told me about the young writers’ conference at Bread Loaf during my sophomore year. At first, I didn’t want to apply, the deadline had passed, but for some strange reason, the directors of the program extended it another week. It felt like it was meant to be. It was in Vermont in the last week of May when the flowers have awakened and the sun is warm.

I submitted my work, and two weeks later I got an email of my acceptance. I screamed at the top of my lungs in the empty house; everyone was out, so I was left alone to celebrate my small victory. It was rare for them to admit sophomores. Usually they accept submissions only from juniors and seniors.

That was the first week of February 2020. All of a sudden, there was some talk about this strange virus coming from China. We thought nothing of it. Every night, I would fall asleep smiling, knowing that I would be able to go to the exact conference that Robert Frost attended for 42 years.

Then, as if overnight, it seemed the virus had swung its hand and had gripped parts of the country. Every newscast was about the disease. Every day in history, we would look at the reports of heightening cases and joke around that this could never become a threat as big as Dr. Fauci was proposing. Then, March 13th came around--it was the last day before the world seemed to shut down. Just like that, Bread Loaf would vanish from my grasp.

“One Day Every Day Won’t Be As Terrible”

By Nick Wollweber, 17

COVID created personal problems for everyone, some more serious than others, but everyone had a struggle.

As the COVID lock-down took hold, the main thing weighing on my mind was my oldest brother, Joe, who passed away in January 2019 unexpectedly in his sleep. Losing my brother was a complete gut punch and reality check for me at 14 and 15 years old. 2019 was a year of struggle, darkness, sadness, frustration. I didn’t want to learn after my brother had passed, but I had to in order to move forward and find my new normal.

Routine and always having things to do and places to go is what let me cope in the year after Joe died. Then COVID came and gave me the option to let up and let down my guard. I struggled with not wanting to take care of personal hygiene. That was the beginning of an underlying mental problem where I wouldn’t do things that were necessary for everyday life.

My “coping routine” that got me through every day and week the year before was gone. COVID wasn’t beneficial to me, but it did bring out the true nature of my mental struggles and put a name to it. Since COVID, I have been diagnosed with severe depression and anxiety. I began taking antidepressants and going to therapy a lot more.

COVID made me realize that I’m not happy with who I am and that I needed to change. I’m still not happy with who I am. I struggle every day, but I am working towards a goal that one day every day won’t be as terrible.

Coverage of social and emotional learning is supported in part by a grant from the NoVo Foundation, at www.novofoundation.org . Education Week retains sole editorial control over the content of this coverage. A version of this article appeared in the March 31, 2021 edition of Education Week as What Life Was Like for Students in the Pandemic Year

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News from the Columbia Climate School

Personal Reflections on Education During the Pandemic

Steven Cohen

I have a number of jobs at Columbia University: I teach professionally-oriented graduate students; I direct two master’s programs and one concentration in environmental sustainability policy and management and for the past two years I’ve served as senior vice dean of Columbia’s School of Professional Studies. While I’ve taken time out for government service and consulting, for the past four decades I’ve mainly been an educator, teaching while managing programs, schools and even a research institute. In all that time, I’ve never seen anything like the months since March 2020. It has been challenging, difficult, sad and at times, oddly rewarding.

Teaching in cyber-space and in what we call hyflex has been a technical and pedagogical challenge. In hyflex, we teach from a classroom with a skilled student video-aid operating a TV camera. The students include socially distant, masked students in the classroom along with students Zooming in from home. All sessions are taped and preserved on the course website. The new format created real challenges to teaching: How do I communicate to people in two dimensions who look like contestants on a game show? How do I combine classroom with distant instruction and dialogue? I teach case-based courses that require two-way communication. In fact, when we teach face-to-face, we prefer case classrooms where the seating is in a semi-circle so students can see each other. How do I encourage participation and ensure that students remain engaged? Student presentations and Zoom breakout rooms provided some opportunities for student involvement. For students in different time zones, I set up half-hour discussion sections where I addressed questions and tried to connect to those students who typically viewed the class via videotape. My class in Sustainability Management had about 80 students and encouraging dialogue can often be difficult, but this year it often felt like we were in uncharted waters. We all did our best, but it was definitely a challenge for everyone.

In the environmental management simulation workshop I teach, the class is much smaller, and my engagement with the group was easier since everyone could see each other on a single Zoom screen. Just as I miss social engagement with friends, colleagues and family, I missed that in this class, but the sense of mission and generosity of spirit I felt from my students made the experience particularly profound. Compliments in the chat box after student presentations and smiles and visible manifestations of teamwork were common. In the fall, when we shifted from all virtual to hyflex, a few students came into the classroom most weeks and it was great to see them walk out together connecting (masked) in real-time and space.

One of the most interesting aspects of my courses this past summer and fall were that students performed as well or better than students in past semesters. I know that students in K-12 education had less positive learning outcomes, but graduate professional education has a different dynamic. I think students were grateful for the sense of structure and purpose they found in continuing their education, and the classes were in some way a method of breaking up the monotony of pandemic life. Without the distraction of New York City’s night life and dynamism, they seemed to spend more time on coursework. Some, of course, seemed and likely were depressed, but the sense of mutual support and caring practically jumped off the screen with regular frequency. Students went the extra mile to be mutually supportive and that was wonderful beyond words.

This is not to say that I prefer this form of teaching and learning. I don’t. But I know that it is demonstrating our resilience and creativity and I believe that learning how to use this technology will have a long-term, positive impact on teaching and learning. I give enormous credit to the technical assistance staff at Columbia, who supported my teaching and to the people who developed Zoom, an application so simple even I could figure it out. Assuming I remain healthy, I will look back on this time as a type of battle that we waged to continue staying positive despite the pain and suffering that enveloped us constantly. I suppose new terms like: “I’ll share my screen” and “you’re muted” are now permanent additions to our language.

My experience as a teacher influenced the way I’ve tried to provide leadership as an educational administrator. In a time of incredible abnormality, I thought it vital to provide a sense of normalcy and purpose. At Columbia, the School of Professional Studies manages the summer session, and when we moved to online education last March, we quickly decided to move the summer session online as well. Amy Hungerford, our new dean and vice president for Arts and Sciences convened a working group of senior administrators from her office and from most of the undergraduate and graduate schools in the Arts and Sciences to plan a high quality and exciting online summer session. Her leadership resulted in a team effort unlike any I had ever experienced before at Columbia. Working together, we created a summer session that had more enrollments than any summer session had before. Our high school program enrolled over 1,000 more students than the summer before, and both graduate and undergraduate enrollments increased over previous summers. We had originally projected significant drops in enrollment, but we were proven wrong. In retrospect, I realized that many normal summer activities like travel, camp and field-based internships, were impossible and so, a high-quality educational experience seemed like a reasonable thing to do.

Unfortunately, the picture changed as we entered the fall semester. Our biggest problem was that international students could not get visas to travel to New York because embassies stopped issuing them. In addition, there were travel restrictions related to health concerns. At the School of Professional Studies, nearly 1,800 students had sent deposits committing them to begin in one of our 17 master’s programs in the fall, but over 600 of them (mainly international) asked to defer admission until January or September 2021. But there were bright spots despite that setback. We were able to launch an online weekend high school program this fall that enrolled about 700 students, and commitments for graduate study in January are now higher than they were last year at this time. Interestingly, over 200 of the 300 students who had deferred until January have recommitted and plan to begin next semester.

My analysis of all of this is that education provides people with a sense of normalcy and forward progress even during the horrific time we are now enduring. The socialization aspects of higher education are very important, and its absence is very real and a huge cost of the pandemic. We have learned that for young children, the need for face-to-face education is far greater than for older students. It is not trivial for graduate students, but for a few semesters, we can operate this way. For my three-year-old granddaughter, it is a different story and her parents have resumed her attendance in pre-school. But as the disease spikes again in New York, and with indoor dining closing again here in the city, we need to be prepared for a second lockdown like the one we had last spring.

I now know we can teach and learn in this environment, but I worry that everyone is getting a little screen weary. Time is less distinct than it once was. Weekends do not revolve around social engagements and are mainly recognizable by the absence of Zoom meetings. My friends who teach younger students are concerned about the ability of their students to learn in this environment. I understand that, but for graduate students, the formal part of their education is succeeding. The work I am seeing is spectacular. But I am certain the informal part of education is suffering. I always say that in graduate school I learned more from my classmates in bars and cafes than I ever learned in classrooms. In some way, the classes were just the excuse for the transformational educational experience I was enjoying. And so, I am happy for what we have accomplished, but I long for what we’ve lost. Like everyone else, I am eager for the vaccine to be distributed and for the infection rate to go down so we can all exhale and return to the real world. A world I know I will never again take for granted.

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I manage a few different websites and forums related to education and parenting, and I can tell you that people are hurting – badly. I totally agree that another lockdown is coming, but I very much hope this vaccine can work wonders.

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How Your Perspective on the Pandemic Affects Your Well-Being

Research suggests that covid's impact is based on our perception of it..

Posted February 26, 2021

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We are almost to a full year of living in a COVID-infected world. Not only has the pandemic had major medical and economic implications, but it also has impacted individuals psychologically and emotionally. In this interview, Hannes Zacher shares his research on what the onset of the pandemic has done for our well-being based on our response and perspective to the outbreak.

Hannes Zacher is a professor of work and organizational psychology at Leipzig University in Germany. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Giessen in 2009 and subsequently worked in academic positions in Australia and the Netherlands. In his research program, he investigates aging and career development, occupational health and well-being, and proactive and adaptive work behavior. His research is well supported through competitive grants and industry funding. Together with Dr. Cort W. Rudolph (Saint Louis University), he received a major grant from Volkswagen Foundation to conduct a longitudinal study across two years on the COVID-19 pandemic, work, and well-being.

Jamie Aten: How did you first get interested in this topic?

Hannes Zacher: We initially wanted to conduct a large-scale longitudinal survey study to investigate the role of work conditions and leadership for successful aging and health, with four measurement points across nine months. The first two surveys took place as planned, in December 2019 and March 2020. More than 1,500 full-time employees from all over Germany, who were representative in terms of age, gender , and industry, initially participated in our study.

As the COVID-19 pandemic gained momentum in Germany and worldwide in March 2020, we decided to adapt our study and to collect survey data at the beginning of every month. To understand how a major crisis influences people and their social and work environment, we dropped some of the original questions and instead added questions on participants’ experiences and behaviors related to the COVID-19 pandemic to each monthly survey.

My collaborator Dr. Cort W. Rudolph (based at Saint Louis University) and I also applied for funding to continue the longitudinal study until the end of 2021, and the Germany-based Volkswagen Foundation (which is independent of the car manufacturer) fortunately enabled us to do so. At the beginning of March 2021, we are collecting the 14th survey and a large proportion of the initial participants are still part of the study.

JA: What was the focus of your study?

HZ: Our focus is on full-time employees from various industries and how they experience and deal with the challenges imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic. We were particularly interested in how participants’ health and well-being changed due to the pandemic, including the first national “lockdown” in Germany between mid-March and early May 2020.

We focused on life satisfaction as well as positive and negative mood as established indicators of subjective well-being. In addition, we wanted to know how people’s appraisals of the pandemic, for instance, as a challenge or as a threat, and their coping strategies to deal with the pandemic, including more or less functional ones, are associated with their well-being.

A unique characteristic of our study is that we collected survey data from employees several months before the pandemic gained momentum in Germany, as early as December 2019, and then throughout the early stages of the pandemic. In the published study, we included data from December 2019 to May 2020. By now, we have followed up on participants at the beginning of every month and we are planning to continue the study until the end of 2021. In contrast to the many studies that started only during the pandemic, our study design allows us to examine how the pandemic and the various measures implemented by government and organizations actually change people’s well-being and behavior.

JA: What did you discover in your study?

HZ: The results of our study showed that, on average, life satisfaction, positive mood, and negative mood did not change in the time period before the pandemic gained momentum in Germany, that is, between early December 2019 and early March 2020. However, between March 2020 and May 2020, all three indicators of subjective well-being decreased on average.

This suggests that the onset of the pandemic, and particularly the first national “lockdown” in Germany between mid-march and early May 2020 led to lower life satisfaction and positive mood, but also, surprisingly, to lower negative mood. People who perceived the pandemic crisis as a controllable challenge, dealt actively with problems, and attempted to see changes in a positive way, had higher life satisfaction and a more positive mood during the early stages of the pandemic.

In contrast, people who perceived the pandemic as central to their well-being and as a threat reported lower life satisfaction and positive mood. People who perceived the pandemic as central and as a threat, who perceived it as uncontrollable, and who engaged in denial , substance use, and self-blame had higher negative moods.

JA: Is there anything that surprised you in your findings, or that you weren't fully expecting?

HZ: A surprising finding was that the average changes in subjective well-being outcomes during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic and due to the first national “lockdown” were relatively small in size. This suggests that, for the whole sample, well-being declined during this time. However, there were also strong individual differences — some people’s well-being did not change at all, and other people’s well-being even improved during this time. Our study shows that these differences depend on how people perceive and deal with the pandemic.

Another surprising finding was that negative mood decreased, not increased during the early stages of the pandemic. A possible explanation for this finding is that people did not feel more of the high-arousal negative emotions that we measured, such as anger or irritation, but lower-arousal emotions such as feeling tired or sad.

JA: How might readers apply what you found to their lives during COVID-19?

HZ: Our findings suggest that the COVID-19 pandemic represents not only a major medical and economic crisis, but also has a psychological dimension, as it can be associated with declines in key facets of people’s subjective wellbeing. Our findings imply that to experience higher well-being, people should try to perceive the pandemic as a controllable challenge and not as an uncontrollable threat. Moreover, they should use corresponding coping strategies, such as solving problems, seeing the opportunities in the crisis, and avoiding dysfunctional behaviors such as alcohol and drug use or denial. Psychological practitioners could address potential declines in subjective well-being with their clients and attempt to enhance clients’ general capability to use functional stress appraisals and effective coping strategies.

JA: What are you currently working on that you might like to share?

HZ: Our longitudinal study is ongoing, and we will collect the 14th survey at the beginning of March. We are currently working on a paper that examines changes in family demands and satisfaction with family life during the pandemic, and the role of young children and partners. We have published another study on the role of personality differences in the perceived stressfulness of the COVID-19 pandemic. In this study, we show that more extraverted and more neurotic people experience higher levels of COVID-related stress than more introverted and emotionally stable people. In addition, together with co-authors from different universities in the United States and Europe, we have published a paper on the implications of pandemics for research and practice in industrial and organizational psychology. Finally, Dr. Cort W. Rudolph and I have written a paper that cautions against the declaration and labeling of a “COVID-19 Generation,” as this might lead to stereotypes and discrimination .

Zacher, H., & Rudolph, C. W. (2021). Individual differences and changes in subjective wellbeing during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. American Psychologist, 76(1), 50–62. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/amp0000702

Jamie Aten , Ph.D. , is the founder and executive director of the Humanitarian Disaster Institute at Wheaton College.

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Sticking up for yourself is no easy task. But there are concrete skills you can use to hone your assertiveness and advocate for yourself.

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Seven short essays about life during the pandemic

The boston book festival's at home community writing project invites area residents to describe their experiences during this unprecedented time..

My alarm sounds at 8:15 a.m. I open my eyes and take a deep breath. I wiggle my toes and move my legs. I do this religiously every morning. Today, marks day 74 of staying at home.

My mornings are filled with reading biblical scripture, meditation, breathing in the scents of a hanging eucalyptus branch in the shower, and making tea before I log into my computer to work. After an hour-and-a-half Zoom meeting, I decided to take a long walk to the post office and grab a fresh bouquet of burnt orange ranunculus flowers. I embrace the warm sun beaming on my face. I feel joy. I feel at peace.

I enter my apartment and excessively wash my hands and face. I pour a glass of iced kombucha. I sit at my table and look at the text message on my phone. My coworker writes that she is thinking of me during this difficult time. She must be referring to the Amy Cooper incident. I learn shortly that she is not.

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I Google Minneapolis and see his name: George Floyd. And just like that a simple and beautiful day transitions into a day of sorrow.

Nakia Hill, Boston

It was a wobbly, yet solemn little procession: three masked mourners and a canine. Beginning in Kenmore Square, at David and Sue Horner’s condo, it proceeded up Commonwealth Avenue Mall.

S. Sue Horner died on Good Friday, April 10, in the Year of the Virus. Sue did not die of the virus but her parting was hemmed by it: no gatherings to mark the passing of this splendid human being.

David devised a send-off nevertheless. On April 23rd, accompanied by his daughter and son-in-law, he set out for Old South Church. David led, bearing the urn. His daughter came next, holding her phone aloft, speaker on, through which her brother in Illinois played the bagpipes for the length of the procession, its soaring thrum infusing the Mall. Her husband came last with Melon, their golden retriever.

I unlocked the empty church and led the procession into the columbarium. David drew the urn from its velvet cover, revealing a golden vessel inset with incandescent tiles. We lifted the urn into the niche, prayed, recited Psalm 23, and shared some words.

It was far too small for the luminous “Dr. Sue”, but what we could manage in the Year of the Virus.

Nancy S. Taylor, Boston

On April 26, 2020, our household was a bustling home for four people. Our two sons, ages 18 and 22, have a lot of energy. We are among the lucky ones. I can work remotely. Our food and shelter are not at risk.

As I write this a week later, it is much quieter here.

On April 27, our older son, an EMT, transported a COVID-19 patient to the ER. He left home to protect my delicate health and became ill with the virus a week later.

On April 29, my husband’s 95-year-old father had a stroke. My husband left immediately to be with his 90-year-old mother near New York City and is now preparing for his father’s discharge from the hospital. Rehab people will come to the house; going to a facility would be too dangerous.

My husband just called me to describe today’s hospital visit. The doctors had warned that although his father had regained the ability to speak, he could only repeat what was said to him.

“It’s me,” said my husband.

“It’s me,” said my father-in-law.

“I love you,” said my husband.

“I love you,” said my father-in-law.

“Sooooooooo much,” said my father-in-law.

Lucia Thompson, Wayland

Would racism exist if we were blind?

I felt his eyes bore into me as I walked through the grocery store. At first, I thought nothing of it. With the angst in the air attributable to COVID, I understood the anxiety-provoking nature of feeling as though your 6-foot bubble had burst. So, I ignored him and maintained my distance. But he persisted, glaring at my face, squinting to see who I was underneath the mask. This time I looked back, when he yelled, in my mother tongue, for me to go back to my country.

In shock, I just laughed. How could he tell what I was under my mask? Or see anything through the sunglasses he was wearing inside? It baffled me. I laughed at the irony that he would use my own language against me, that he knew enough to guess where I was from in some version of culturally competent racism. I laughed because dealing with the truth behind that comment generated a sadness in me that was too much to handle. If not now, then when will we be together?

So I ask again, would racism exist if we were blind?

Faizah Shareef, Boston

My Family is “Out” There

But I am “in” here. Life is different now “in” Assisted Living since the deadly COVID-19 arrived. Now the staff, employees, and all 100 residents have our temperatures taken daily. Everyone else, including my family, is “out” there. People like the hairdresser are really missed — with long straight hair and masks, we don’t even recognize ourselves.

Since mid-March we are in quarantine “in” our rooms with meals served. Activities are practically non-existent. We can sit on the back patio 6 feet apart, wearing masks, do exercises there, chat, and walk nearby. Nothing inside. Hopefully June will improve.

My family is “out” there — somewhere! Most are working from home (or Montana). Hopefully an August wedding will happen, but unfortunately, I may still be “in” here.

From my window I wave to my son “out” there. Recently, when my daughter visited, I opened the window “in” my second-floor room and could see and hear her perfectly “out” there. Next time she will bring a chair so we can have an “in” and “out” conversation all day, or until we run out of words.

Barbara Anderson, Raynham

My boyfriend Marcial lives in Boston, and I live in New York City. We had been doing the long-distance thing pretty successfully until coronavirus hit. In mid-March, I was furloughed from my temp job, Marcial began working remotely, and New York started shutting down. I went to Boston to stay with Marcial.

We are opposites in many ways, but we share a love of food. The kitchen has been the center of quarantine life —and also quarantine problems.

Marcial and I have gone from eating out and cooking/grocery shopping for each other during our periodic visits to cooking/grocery shopping with each other all the time. We’ve argued over things like the proper way to make rice and what greens to buy for salad. Our habits are deeply rooted in our upbringing and individual cultures (Filipino immigrant and American-born Chinese, hence the strong rice opinions).

On top of the mundane issues, we’ve also dealt with a flooded kitchen (resulting in cockroaches) and a mandoline accident leading to an ER visit. Marcial and I have spent quarantine navigating how to handle the unexpected and how to integrate our lifestyles. We’ve been eating well along the way.

Melissa Lee, Waltham

It’s 3 a.m. and my dog Rikki just gave me a worried look. Up again?

“I can’t sleep,” I say. I flick the light, pick up “Non-Zero Probabilities.” But the words lay pinned to the page like swatted flies. I watch new “Killing Eve” episodes, play old Nathaniel Rateliff and The Night Sweats songs. Still night.

We are — what? — 12 agitated weeks into lockdown, and now this. The thing that got me was Chauvin’s sunglasses. Perched nonchalantly on his head, undisturbed, as if he were at a backyard BBQ. Or anywhere other than kneeling on George Floyd’s neck, on his life. And Floyd was a father, as we all now know, having seen his daughter Gianna on Stephen Jackson’s shoulders saying “Daddy changed the world.”

Precious child. I pray, safeguard her.

Rikki has her own bed. But she won’t leave me. A Goddess of Protection. She does that thing dogs do, hovers increasingly closely the more agitated I get. “I’m losing it,” I say. I know. And like those weighted gravity blankets meant to encourage sleep, she drapes her 70 pounds over me, covering my restless heart with safety.

As if daybreak, or a prayer, could bring peace today.

Kirstan Barnett, Watertown

Until June 30, send your essay (200 words or less) about life during COVID-19 via bostonbookfest.org . Some essays will be published on the festival’s blog and some will appear in The Boston Globe.

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Coronavirus: My Experience During the Pandemic

Anastasiya Kandratsenka George Washington High School, Class of 2021

At this point in time there shouldn't be a single person who doesn't know about the coronavirus, or as they call it, COVID-19. The coronavirus is a virus that originated in China, reached the U.S. and eventually spread all over the world by January of 2020. The common symptoms of the virus include shortness of breath, chills, sore throat, headache, loss of taste and smell, runny nose, vomiting and nausea. As it has been established, it might take up to 14 days for the symptoms to show. On top of that, the virus is also highly contagious putting all age groups at risk. The elderly and individuals with chronic diseases such as pneumonia or heart disease are in the top risk as the virus attacks the immune system. 

The virus first appeared on the news and media platforms in the month of January of this year. The United States and many other countries all over the globe saw no reason to panic as it seemed that the virus presented no possible threat. Throughout the next upcoming months, the virus began to spread very quickly, alerting health officials not only in the U.S., but all over the world. As people started digging into the origin of the virus, it became clear that it originated in China. Based on everything scientists have looked at, the virus came from a bat that later infected other animals, making it way to humans. As it goes for the United States, the numbers started rising quickly, resulting in the cancellation of sports events, concerts, large gatherings and then later on schools. 

As it goes personally for me, my school was shut down on March 13th. The original plan was to put us on a two weeks leave, returning on March 30th but, as the virus spread rapidly and things began escalating out of control very quickly, President Trump announced a state of emergency and the whole country was put on quarantine until April 30th. At that point, schools were officially shut down for the rest of the school year. Distanced learning was introduced, online classes were established, a new norm was put in place. As for the School District of Philadelphia distanced learning and online classes began on May 4th. From that point on I would have classes four times a week, from 8AM till 3PM. Virtual learning was something that I never had to experience and encounter before. It was all new and different for me, just as it was for millions of students all over the United States. We were forced to transfer from physically attending school, interacting with our peers and teachers, participating in fun school events and just being in a classroom setting, to just looking at each other through a computer screen in a number of days. That is something that we all could have never seen coming, it was all so sudden and new. 

My experience with distanced learning was not very great. I get distracted very easily and   find it hard to concentrate, especially when it comes to school. In a classroom I was able to give my full attention to what was being taught, I was all there. However, when we had the online classes, I could not focus and listen to what my teachers were trying to get across. I got distracted very easily, missing out on important information that was being presented. My entire family which consists of five members, were all home during the quarantine. I have two little siblings who are very loud and demanding, so I’m sure it can be imagined how hard it was for me to concentrate on school and do what was asked of me when I had these two running around the house. On top of school, I also had to find a job and work 35 hours a week to support my family during the pandemic. My mother lost her job for the time being and my father was only able to work from home. As we have a big family, the income of my father was not enough. I made it my duty to help out and support our family as much as I could: I got a job at a local supermarket and worked there as a cashier for over two months. 

While I worked at the supermarket, I was exposed to dozens of people every day and with all the protection that was implemented to protect the customers and the workers, I was lucky enough to not get the virus. As I say that, my grandparents who do not even live in the U.S. were not so lucky. They got the virus and spent over a month isolated, in a hospital bed, with no one by their side. Our only way of communicating was through the phone and if lucky, we got to talk once a week. Speaking for my family, that was the worst and scariest part of the whole situation. Luckily for us, they were both able to recover completely. 

As the pandemic is somewhat under control, the spread of the virus has slowed down. We’re now living in the new norm. We no longer view things the same, the way we did before. Large gatherings and activities that require large groups to come together are now unimaginable! Distanced learning is what we know, not to mention the importance of social distancing and having to wear masks anywhere and everywhere we go. This is the new norm now and who knows when and if ever we’ll be able go back to what we knew before. This whole experience has made me realize that we, as humans, tend to take things for granted and don’t value what we have until it is taken away from us. 

Articles in this Volume

[tid]: dedication, [tid]: new tools for a new house: transformations for justice and peace in and beyond covid-19, [tid]: black lives matter, intersectionality, and lgbtq rights now, [tid]: the voice of asian american youth: what goes untold, [tid]: beyond words: reimagining education through art and activism, [tid]: voice(s) of a black man, [tid]: embodied learning and community resilience, [tid]: re-imagining professional learning in a time of social isolation: storytelling as a tool for healing and professional growth, [tid]: reckoning: what does it mean to look forward and back together as critical educators, [tid]: leader to leaders: an indigenous school leader’s advice through storytelling about grief and covid-19, [tid]: finding hope, healing and liberation beyond covid-19 within a context of captivity and carcerality, [tid]: flux leadership: leading for justice and peace in & beyond covid-19, [tid]: flux leadership: insights from the (virtual) field, [tid]: hard pivot: compulsory crisis leadership emerges from a space of doubt, [tid]: and how are the children, [tid]: real talk: teaching and leading while bipoc, [tid]: systems of emotional support for educators in crisis, [tid]: listening leadership: the student voices project, [tid]: global engagement, perspective-sharing, & future-seeing in & beyond a global crisis, [tid]: teaching and leadership during covid-19: lessons from lived experiences, [tid]: crisis leadership in independent schools - styles & literacies, [tid]: rituals, routines and relationships: high school athletes and coaches in flux, [tid]: superintendent back-to-school welcome 2020, [tid]: mitigating summer learning loss in philadelphia during covid-19: humble attempts from the field, [tid]: untitled, [tid]: the revolution will not be on linkedin: student activism and neoliberalism, [tid]: why radical self-care cannot wait: strategies for black women leaders now, [tid]: from emergency response to critical transformation: online learning in a time of flux, [tid]: illness methodology for and beyond the covid era, [tid]: surviving black girl magic, the work, and the dissertation, [tid]: cancelled: the old student experience, [tid]: lessons from liberia: integrating theatre for development and youth development in uncertain times, [tid]: designing a more accessible future: learning from covid-19, [tid]: the construct of standards-based education, [tid]: teachers leading teachers to prepare for back to school during covid, [tid]: using empathy to cross the sea of humanity, [tid]: (un)doing college, community, and relationships in the time of coronavirus, [tid]: have we learned nothing, [tid]: choosing growth amidst chaos, [tid]: living freire in pandemic….participatory action research and democratizing knowledge at knowledgedemocracy.org, [tid]: philly students speak: voices of learning in pandemics, [tid]: the power of will: a letter to my descendant, [tid]: photo essays with students, [tid]: unity during a global pandemic: how the fight for racial justice made us unite against two diseases, [tid]: educational changes caused by the pandemic and other related social issues, [tid]: online learning during difficult times, [tid]: fighting crisis: a student perspective, [tid]: the destruction of soil rooted with culture, [tid]: a demand for change, [tid]: education through experience in and beyond the pandemics, [tid]: the pandemic diaries, [tid]: all for one and 4 for $4, [tid]: tiktok activism, [tid]: why digital learning may be the best option for next year, [tid]: my 2020 teen experience, [tid]: living between two pandemics, [tid]: journaling during isolation: the gold standard of coronavirus, [tid]: sailing through uncertainty, [tid]: what i wish my teachers knew, [tid]: youthing in pandemic while black, [tid]: the pain inflicted by indifference, [tid]: education during the pandemic, [tid]: the good, the bad, and the year 2020, [tid]: racism fueled pandemic, [tid]: coronavirus: my experience during the pandemic, [tid]: the desensitization of a doomed generation, [tid]: a philadelphia war-zone, [tid]: the attack of the covid monster, [tid]: back-to-school: covid-19 edition, [tid]: the unexpected war, [tid]: learning outside of the classroom, [tid]: why we should learn about college financial aid in school: a student perspective, [tid]: flying the plane as we go: building the future through a haze, [tid]: my covid experience in the age of technology, [tid]: we, i, and they, [tid]: learning your a, b, cs during a pandemic, [tid]: quarantine: a musical, [tid]: what it’s like being a high school student in 2020, [tid]: everything happens for a reason, [tid]: blacks live matter – a sobering and empowering reality among my peers, [tid]: the mental health of a junior during covid-19 outbreaks, [tid]: a year of change, [tid]: covid-19 and school, [tid]: the virtues and vices of virtual learning, [tid]: college decisions and the year 2020: a virtual rollercoaster, [tid]: quarantine thoughts, [tid]: quarantine through generation z, [tid]: attending online school during a pandemic.

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“What Has Your Pandemic Experience Been Like?”

Fourteen alumni tell us how COVID-19 has shaped their lives.

I n March, when we were considering CCT’s Summer 2020 issue, we knew that we wanted to address the shockwave that had upended and overtaken all of our lives. The COVID-19 pandemic was — is — that rare event that affects everyone with ties to the College. Even as this introduction is written, its vast, global story continues to evolve, expanding and deepening in ways that resist easy comprehension.

Against this backdrop, we knew we could tell a more personal story, create a record of how the coronavirus and its many ripple effects had been experienced by our community. And so, in April and early May, we asked 14 alumni to offer a keyhole into their daily lives: What did their new routines look like? How had work changed? What had been challenging, and where were they finding their joys?

The responses were varied, shaped by age, profession, location and all the personal variables that distinguish one life from the next. And what began as a kind of time capsule became, slowly, so much more. The reflections enlarged our view beyond the walls that had all too literally been hemming us in. They invited us to exercise our empathies, take comfort in shared experiences and — with so many of us social-distanced into solitude or small groups — feel the warmth of connection.

It will be a long time before we can fully reckon with all that’s happened and is happening during this pandemic. But we are going through it together, and we hope that our contribution can help.

— The Editors

Editor-at-large, iHeartMEDIA; chief content officer at Nineteen Twenty Media

“T hough I was an English lit major at Columbia, these days I find myself immersed in the sciences, living out Einstein’s definition of insanity on the regular: watching the news, then instantly regretting it; begging/bribing/browbeating my kids to sit for home-schooling, only to surrender an hour later; channeling Alice Waters for breakfast, Chester Cheetah by lunch. Our days here at Casa Goldman (me, two grade-schoolers, one eye- rolling husband) are — wait, what day is it, again? We ditched the skim for half-and-half. We subscribed to Hulu. We pray to the broadband gods to keep our signal strong. We are, as the kids say, hashtag blessed.

“As a writer, I wrestle with a strange new tension: I have never felt more creative and yet so hard-pressed to eke out the time and focus to write. But I’ve still managed to bank a win or two. I launched a podcast called Hazmat Hotel , in which I interview interesting people about how coronavirus has upended their professions. (Hit me up if you’d like to be a guest.) I finished my one-woman show about Jim Comey. I am knee-deep in a new screenplay. In the past eight weeks, one of my boys has discovered Seinfeld, the other ‘Shark Week,’ so that Hulu subscription is basically paying for itself now. The news from Casa G is that we are all OK, hanging in and enormously grateful, thank you for asking.”

Policy analyst, NYC Mayor’s Office of Policy and Planning; volunteer coordinator, Bowman for Congress

“I work for the Office of the Mayor in New York City full-time and coordinate volunteers on Jamaal Bowman’s congressional campaign in NY-16 part-time. With local government on the front lines of the coronavirus crisis and, as I write, the June 23 primary less than two months away, I am busier than I have ever been.

“I try my best to work out a few times a week and use Friday evenings to catch up on TV shows and work on crafts. I rediscovered my pottery tools when quarantine began and ordered polymer clay and embroidery floss to make earrings. A friend recommended that I order a weaving loom to make tapestries and rugs — it just arrived, so I am going to try that this week. My roommate’s mom might drop off an old sewing machine so I can try my hand at that, too.

“Work can be a bit overwhelming, so using my hands to make things for myself, family and friends is a welcome reprieve from corona madness.”

COURTESY AMARI HAMMONDS ‘09

Associate deputy solicitor general, Office of the Solicitor General in the California Department of Justice

“W hat if I had to go about my life not knowing the next time it’d be OK to touch another person? I’m single and I live alone, so this has become an abiding question in the weeks, now months, since March 16, when the Bay Area announced its first-in-the-nation shelter-in-place order.

“I’ve learned that isolation makes the memory of my last human contact more indelible — a Kid ’n Play-inspired kickstep as my friend Colin left what would be our last Sunday pancakes together. We now connect through FaceTime meals; from afar, he’s taught me how to make a poached egg. But I’ve also learned that regardless of health orders, video calls won’t cut it. I’m grateful to have cultivated relationships with a select few who, like me, crave connection in the absence of the pandemic-friendly community offered by roommates or romantic partners ‘adjacent’ to their households. A conversation while biking 6 ft. apart is critical nourishment. I once petted a gentle old dog named Loki after one such ride to the Sausalito waterfront, and it was like oxygen for me — though for her, probably more about the hot pastrami sandwich in my hand.

“Most importantly, I’ve learned to be gentle with myself for the swirl of feelings this all brings. It is possible to feel at once abandoned by friends who have hunkered down with the privilege of companionship, while also compassionate toward their choice — one I’d likely make, if given the option. It’s OK to spend one night crying myself to sleep, wishing I could join my mom across the country, then the next cutting up playing Codenames over Google Hangouts as if I’d lived my life this way all along.

“Until ‘normal’ returns at some indeterminate point, in some indeterminate form, I’m learning what that looks like for now and receiving sweetness in every form. My friend and her husband recently invited me for a socially distant picnic, and to meet their puppy. I’ll be there with a fashionably colorful mask and hand sanitizer at the ready.”

COURTESY BRENDON JOBS ‘05

Director of diversity and inclusion, The Haverford School; social studies methods instructor at the Penn Graduate School of Education

“S chool closed suddenly in March as the threat of pandemic became a real crisis. Like many, I’ve been going through a grieving process for the life, vigor and human connection that the schoolhouse offered me in all my years of teaching.

“At the start, I was overwhelmed with the multitude of tasks needed to make the transition [to remote learning] work for my students, faculty and other communities that I serve. Fear and duty defined my feelings in that moment. But it wasn’t long before anger and resentment grabbed hold of me. Hopeful proclamations that ‘we’re all in this together’ came from official channels; they offered encouragement that if we adhered to social distancing we could flatten the curve and ‘get back to normal.’ It wasn’t long afterward that nasty disparities in race and class, in keeping with pre-COVID-19 patterns, magnified. As an educator, I wondered: How can I explain this to kids? How does what they’re witnessing shape their understanding of how the world works?

“As a black queer man growing up in the 1990s, I remember living with the fear of the AIDS virus. Implicitly, I was fed the message that I lived with greater risk of contracting the disease in a way that stigmatized me. Those old feelings have reemerged as I have witnessed COVID-19 transform from a foreign threat into a health crisis disproportionately infecting and killing Black and Brown people; meanwhile, violent, armed calls to reopen businesses rage from white protestors in Michigan and Pennsylvania despite these deaths. My mother and sister still report to their jobs as ‘essential workers,’ and my father lost his job abruptly as an early casualty of the predicted economic crash. These disparities will only grow as long as we continue to allow politics and business interests to make us willfully ignorant to wild differences in the human experience of this moment. I often struggle to imagine a different, more hopeful outcome.

COURTESY DR. JOSH JOHNSON ‘13

Surgical resident, NewYork Presbyterian-Weill Cornell Medical Center

“R inging loudly in the background of my day is a cacophony of alarms and notifications that are meant to signify an imminent medical emergency — yet they have become so ubiquitous that I can no longer distinguish among them. The hours I spend on the wards have not changed much; I am here for anywhere between 12 and 24 hours a shift, depending on the day. However, the intricacies of my work have shifted dramatically. Willing or not, I am greeted each day by an endless list of patients with tarnished lungs who require the utmost interventions possible to keep oxygen flowing throughout their bodies. It has been truly taxing.

“The difficulty lies in having to carry on and continue my duties without the time to grieve our losses, to celebrate our wins and to reflect upon our struggles. Yet what has been remarkable is that my connection to my patients and their families has never been deeper. Though my patients cannot speak to me, I hear their pain. Though I cannot see their loved ones in person I have had immensely intimate conversations with them, and I have forged relationships based solely on trust and hope. During this pandemic I have healed others more through compassion and understanding than I have through modern science. That is the lesson I hope to never forget.”

COURTESY NYPD

Chief chaplain, NYPD; adjunct professor, John Jay College of Criminal Justice

“L ife in the Age of COVID-19 has not been simple or easy for any of us. I’ve had to respond to new challenges: teach classes remotely, conduct Zoom funeral services, attend virtual meetings and counsel the troubled by telephone. Perhaps the most awe- some responsibility of all was to fulfill a request to do a video with a message of ‘uplift’ and ‘encouragement’ for our police officers. Quite frankly, reading the newspaper reports every day about the ever-mounting casualty figures, and discovering that many of the victims are people I know and love, leaves me in need of uplift and encouragement. However, I felt this was really important because police officers are among the first responders to have suffered the heaviest casualties. After all, they are required to answer the call of duty regardless of the risks, including the coronavirus.

“Somehow, notwithstanding my own concerns and anxieties, I managed to put something together. It was based on Mark Twain’s observation that courage isn’t the ‘absence of fear but the mastery of it.’ There are two ways to transcend anxiety: faith in God and faith in each other. To believe in God is not simply to believe that there is a deity who will intervene and alter reality to accord with our wishes. Even more basically, it is the confidence that there is a Benevolent Intelligence undergirding the universe that fills us with the hope, optimism and trust that human beings possess the wisdom and skills required to solve the toughest problems.

“Then there is the most effective therapy of all — each other. Men and women, helping and supporting one another by doing things they don’t have to do, is the essence of love and closest we shall ever come to experiencing genuine spirituality. It is true that COVID-19 requires us to stay apart physically, but getting in touch with each other — as well as family, friends and neighbors assisting each other — can be so important and pivotal in transcending this crisis. I certainly cherish the calls and emails I have received as I cope with the physical distancing of this experience. What they proclaim in the most eloquent and dramatic way possible is that we don’t have to struggle with this alone.”

COURTESY IAN LENDLER ‘96

Children’s book author

“L ike so many others, the virus, alas, has afflicted me.

“For I, you see, am a writer, and I write things of terrible importance. I am a Creator of Truths, a conjuror of metaphors. Every morning I sit at my desk and I call to my Muse; she answers, and we begin a delicate dance of words and images and — oh yes! — similes as well! And just as my prose begins to touch the great mysteries of Life —

“‘DAD! DAD!’ My children burst into the room. ‘Can we have some Goldfish crackers?’

“‘Be still!’ I shriek. ‘What matters your aquatic-shaped snacks when I seek Beauty?’ “But it is too late. My Muse begins to back out of the room. She says, ‘You never told me you had kids.’

“‘You don’t understand,’ I splutter. ‘Normally they’re at school now.’ But she is already gone.

“Then, my wife shouts from a different room that she’s on a Zoom call and the kids need lunch.

“So I make my kids lunch.

“In the afternoon, once again, I tap at my keyboard, calling my Muse back, and with a curtsy and an impish wink, she and I begin to weave our —

‘Dad! DAD! We’re playing Fortnite with our cousins. We need your computer!’ and my kids snatch my laptop away.

“And so I wander the house, alone, bereft of my computer (and thus, all meaning), until my wife shouts from a different room that she’s on a Zoom call and can I get dinner started?

“And tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow creeps in this sheltered-in-place ... until ... what’s this?!

“I have been asked to do an ‘Instagram live reading,’ whatever that is ... But I seize my chance to perform for my adoring audience. To conjure worlds for them; to shaman their imaginations to an ethereal realm.

“So for your undoubted delight (and the consideration of Nobel Prize committees), I give you what I believe to be my most harrowing and important work to date. ”

COURTESY STEVE MARTINEZ ‘11

Television producer, ESPN’s The Jump

“T he show must go on, but my daily routine has been altered significantly. The Jump is now entirely produced from home: on-air talent, producers, directors and so on; we’re doing our best to help deliver to folks a 30-minute slice of escapism every day. Most of our work in production is now done the night before a show (previously, most of the production occurred the morning of ). We complete our daily tapings by 11:30 a.m. PT, but by 1:00 p.m. PT, we are on a conference call discussing the plan for the next day’s show. The current production strategy involves a balance between staying ahead in terms of preparation and being ready for news to break at a moment’s notice.

“Communication has been a challenge at times. It might not look like it at home when you see three people on your screen, but it takes dozens of talented folks to put on a TV show. My previous routine heavily relied upon face-to-face communication for most of my catching up with staff members.

“I find joy in spending time with my wife, Stephanie, and my dog, Callie, here in my Los Angeles home. I also take great pride in the ability to get a show on the air with the entire staff working from home, something we never knew was possible until we were confronted with that problem. Mainly, I just want the NBA back.”

PHOTOS BY MIKE MELLIA ‘02

Director, photographer, creator of advertising for fashion and lifestyle brands

“M any of the world’s greatest successes took place in a garage — Apple, Google, Disney. By the same token, I always loved seeing pictures of Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning, two great abstract expressionist painters, painting in outdoor barns on Long Island during the 1950s and 1960s. They said they liked the light. What I really think they needed was the isolation and the silence.

BY MIKE MELLIA ‘02

“To me, painting is a performance with an audience of zero, and the record of that performance is the physical object created, a mysterious enigma. Over tens of thou- sands of hours of practice, you train yourself to not even be conscious of yourself; it feels like I’m watching someone else paint a picture. There is also some element to painting that feels like robbing a bank: the intensity, the speed and the risk that you can only experience after learning to transcend all your experience and training. These large oil paintings are inspired by the wild chaos, the light and the color of nature I’m experiencing with my wife and two babies at our home in Southampton, N.Y. I hope they will bring you some joy.”

P ASCAL PERICH

Geezer Fitness

I just did twenty-five push-ups, then vacuumed the floor and then dropped down and did twenty more, for what reason I cannot say or even want to think about, especially at this moment when I am still breathing hard.

I almost didn’t know what day it is and then I did, locked into time, suddenly more secure that it’s Thursday! Which means nothing or next to nothing. I am next to nothing— it’s in this room with me, an old pal.

Snow falling from gray sky, it’s time to bake, scones, I mean, and right out of the oven take one and butter it, with jam, teapot hot at hand, and exult in the fact of everything horrible.

COURTESY DAVID PENG ‘83

Head of Asia Pacific Ex Japan at Legal & General Investment Management; president, Columbia University Alumni Association Hong Kong

“T hough I am a New Yorker, I have spent my professional life in North Asia and this is my fourth posting in Hong Kong, with in-between postings in Taipei, Shanghai and Beijing. I was in Hong Kong during the SARS epidemic in 2003. Most people in Hong Kong remember that period well. When news broke in January about what was happening in Wuhan, people in Hong Kong quickly realized the potential of another epidemic.

“The Hong Kong government was quick to put in place restrictive measures. To date, Hong Kong has never had an official lockdown, but people take the lead from the government, which asked all civil servants to work from home under two orders. People in Hong Kong are very careful to protect themselves and others, and mask wearing is universally practiced. With one of the highest population densities in the world, Hong Kong has managed to ward off a high level of viral transmission and achieved minimal death.

“When I traveled to London for meetings at the end of January through the middle of February, friends and colleagues were not concerned.They also thought it was odd that there would be runs on basic supplies like toilet paper. We know now how quickly the virus traveled and the devastation it has inflicted on our world, with the highest rates of infection and death in Europe and the United States.

“At my office in Hong Kong, we continue to practice a work- from-home policy. Our U.K. head office went into lockdown. This forced many businesses to operate remotely and digitally. For many of us, it was a continuation of the restrictions we have become accustomed to.

“My proudest moment thus far during this pandemic is how the Columbia community in Greater China and Singapore banded together to raise funding to procure and donate PPE to our frontline medical professionals and essential workers. We raised more than $2.1 million in a matter of weeks, which allowed us to donate masks, respirators, gowns, gloves, eye protectors, hazmat suits and more to Columbia University Medical Center/New York Presbyterian Hospital and other affiliated hospitals and emergency service providers.

“During my time at Columbia, I was an official University tour guide. The highlight for me was always Low Memorial Library, where I would stop my tour group in front of the Columbia motto. In Latin, it reads: In Lumine Tuo Videbimus Lvmen (‘In thy light we shall see light’).

“During these dark times, it is my great hope that the pandemic has shown us how we can be better ourselves and that, united, we shall continue to see the light.”

PHOTOS COURTESY JILL SANTOPOLO ‘03

Editor and author

“O n March 12, when Penguin Random House (PRH)’s work-from-home policy began, I grabbed my laptop and headed out of New York City, down to Washington, D.C., where my husband works and where we have a second small apartment. I figured we’d be there for a week at the most, until he began to work from home, and then we’d head back to Manhattan. I’m writing this on May 8. We haven’t yet been back. We are grateful to have jobs we can do from home — his in data and analytics, mine as an editor and novelist. But both of us working from home has meant getting creative with our 700-sq.-ft. space. The bedroom is his office, the rest of the apartment, mine, with a desk — actually, a table that formerly held our record player — next to the refrigerator.

COURTESY JILL SANTOPOLO ‘03

“But at the same time, I can’t stop thinking about New York City. I lived there during 9-11, the 2003 blackout, Hurricane Sandy. I feel like I’ve abandoned my city in its time of need. Neoclassical buildings are beautiful, but so are skyscrapers.

“This pandemic might have made me a Washingtonian, but it also made me realize that in my heart I will always be a New Yorker.”

Entrepreneur; founder, Locasaur

“I left New York in mid-March thinking I’d be back in a matter of weeks, and my packing reflected this. As the situation became more clear, I realized I’d be staying here for a while, on my family’s farm in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley. Those who know me know I’m not exactly upset by this. I grew up here, alongside a rotating menagerie of horses, chickens, sheep and the occasional goat. There are 10 shades of green in every direction, and I’ve never been more thankful for the wide open, secluded space. “So much of what’s great about New York happens after dark, and waking up early is done at your own peril. When I’m home, however, I’m on ‘farm time.’ Coffee is on and the house is buzzing by 6:00 a.m. My company Locasaur’s daily standup isn’t until 10:00 a.m., so early mornings are usually given to farm tasks and chores. There is a rhythm that you get into living on a farm; days keep churning, things keep needing to get done. A farmer’s mindset is that no matter the day’s challenge, you find a fix.

C OURTESY SIMON SCHWARTZ ‘17

“The majority of my day is devoted to re- mote work of the most urgent kind. Locasaur is a relationship app for local businesses and their regulars, and right now local businesses need their regulars more than ever. Every creative solution demanded by the reality of COVID-19 — the bakery now doing road- side pickup, the florist who started delivering, the bartender selling premixed cocktails — starts with a business having a group of core customers who truly care about it. Our goal is to power some of those creative solutions and help these businesses go digital without giving up the ‘personal touch’ that means so much to their survival. The next 12–18 months won’t be easy, but local business owners are uniformly some of the toughest people I know. In many ways they, too, have a farmer’s mindset.”

COURTESY MARGARET TRAUB ‘88

Head of global initiatives, International Medical Corps

“M y work is emergency medical relief, so the pandemic has taken over my daily life in every way. My organization normally works in conflict and disaster zones overseas, but with COVID-19, in addition to responding to the pandemic in 30 countries, we have deployed healthcare workers and supplies on the front-lines here in the United States — at hospitals in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland and Puerto Rico, so far.

“My days start around 5:30 a.m. — bleary-eyed in bed, scrolling through emails and the latest news. I learned early that if I don’t get into the shower by 6:30 a.m., I wind up chained to Skype and video calls in my PJs (and sometimes a nice blouse) until 5:00 p.m. Yes, that’s happened more times than I’m comfortable admitting.

“In between calls with our teams — mostly about procuring PPE, or moving supplies and clinicians, or raising money — I’m checking in with my family in New York, Utah and Arizona. I have a severely immuno-compromised sister and healthy but 90-ish-year-old parents, so I worry constantly about them and have to resist the urge to go be with them. I frequently text and call friends, including my Columbia pals. And at some point during my days I try to squeeze in a workout — usually to old episodes of 30 Rock. Another important COVID-19 distraction: cooking and baking, which I love.

“My heart breaks every day, thinking of the suffering going on around us. And not a day goes by that I don’t feel grateful to be healthy and to have a mostly healthy family and a job that puts a roof over our head and food on our table.

“Thanks to all those heroes out there, putting their lives on the line to serve their fellow humans. Everyone stay safe and healthy!”

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Caring for the self and others: a reflection on everyday commoning amid the COVID-19 pandemic

• Reflective Essay
• Published: 24 August 2020
• Volume 2 , pages 243–251, ( 2020 )

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• Chun Zheng 1  

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In this essay, I share my experiences and reflection on fighting the COVID-19 pandemic from the perspective of a Chinese student residing in Pittsburgh, USA. Three examples of “commoning”—acts of managing shared resources by a group of people—reveal the importance of care and collaboration in the time of uncertainty. First, when COVID-19 posed a threat to the food supply chain, community gardens and home gardening ensured food security and enhanced mutual support. Second, the emergence of online activities of teaching, learning, and collaborating presented an opportunity of having more collective, equitable, and diverse formats of virtual communities. Lastly, volunteering in the distribution of “Healthy Packs,” I witnessed the nurture of a sense of belonging and a connection with home in the student community. These examples suggest that facing the crisis, care-driven commoning activities at the individual, everyday level lay the foundation for large-scale collaborative systems.

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1 Commoning in a crisis

The COVID-19 pandemic is sweeping the planet. We, as individuals in the extended human family, are living through a crisis together. Within the vast and daunting global crisis are changes to every person’s daily life. These changes reveal the normally hidden human needs of care and collaboration and force us to re-invest in ourselves and our communities. In this essay, I share my personal experiences since the beginning of the pandemic and my observations of care-based everyday commoning activities over this period from the perspective of a Chinese student residing in Pittsburgh, USA (Fig.  1 ). Commoning, as defined by Gibson-Graham et al. ( 2013 ), takes place when a group of people is motivated by an ethic of care for a flourishing and sustainable common future and decides to manage shared resources in a collective manner. After discussing three examples of everyday commoning: gardening as commoning, online sharing as commoning, and volunteering as commoning, I reflect on the potential of expanding the sentiment of care for ourselves and others into larger-scale collaborative networks.

Spatial pattern of COVID-19 cases in Pittsburgh neighborhoods. Locations mentioned in this paper are highlighted. The map was created by the author based on the open data accessed on July 28 from Allegheny County Public Health Department ( https://www.alleghenycounty.us/Health-Department/Resources/COVID-19/COVID-19.aspx ) and Esri ArcGIS Database ( https://www.esri.com/en-us/arcgis/products/arcgis-online/resources )

2 From one epicenter to another

January 23rd, the day before the Chinese Lunar New Year’s Eve, the news that Wuhan and three other surrounding cities were going into lockdown Footnote 1 struck all TV channels in China. While words of the spread of a new type of pneumonia had been circulating for days (Wee and Wang 2020 ), Wuhan’s lockdown marked the start of an unprecedented national struggle and later, a global crisis.

Although physically stranded overseas, I could hear the worry in my family and friends’ voices over the phone. The anticipated joy of the annual family reunion was completely overwhelmed. In the following month, tracking the number of confirmed cases and the death toll became my daily routine. Watching more and more cities turn into darker colors Footnote 2 on the color-coded live COVID-19 tracking map put me into fear and homesickness.

Subsequently, I observed, in Pittsburgh, USA, personal protective equipment (PPE) in nearby pharmacies were almost sold out by February (Fig.  2 ). I collected 80 masks from over 10 shops in our region, most of which were the last bundles left for sale, to mail to a police friend working at the frontline in China. By the time I was ready to mail out the package, all flights to and from China had been banned (Corkery and Karni 2020 ). The travel ban not only meant the package would not have guaranteed delivery in the foreseeable future, but also put me into the mentality of being cut off from my homeland. Throughout February, via WeChat, Footnote 3 family and friends shared stay-home updates, cheered up each other, and even guided me to prepare for a potential COVID-19 outbreak in Pittsburgh. Geographical separations and time differences didn’t prevent us from caring for and supporting each other.

Last of N95 masks left in a Home Depot, 13 miles away from central Pittsburgh (February 2, 2020. Photography provided by the author)

On March 16, when most students were in the spring break, Pittsburgh officially reported its first two cases, Footnote 4 which meant educational entities had to make different decisions. Pittsburgh heavily relies on its education industry. The student population takes up 27% of the total population of the city. Footnote 5 Therefore, schools, preceding other public and private sectors in the city, responded to the outbreak first by switching to online classes, which lowered the risk of infection and spreading of the virus in the city that might be caused by students’ domestic and international travel. Still, I believe more earlier actions could have been implemented citywide and nationwide, including social distancing, encouragement to wear masks, and cancellations of large gatherings, to name a few. Nonetheless, what seemed so obvious to me, or to any Chinese citizen living in the USA, turned out to be invisible to most Americans, especially politicians and decision makers. The US government was overly optimistic about the epidemic and focused its resources on political rivalries, thus missing early opportunities to contain the outbreak. Compared with the constant and rolling media coverage of self-help prevention measures in China, the American people were given confusing and sometimes contradictory information, which blurred the severity of the pandemic. The rest of the story is well known. The malfunction of the government, the partisan differences, the sacrifices of healthcare workers, the hoarding of living essentials and weapons, etc., have become new abnormal norms in the USA. In these selfish, divisive and confusing situations, it is inevitable for many to find alternatives to self-help.

The duality of my experiences in two epicenters—the USA and China—has inspired me to recognize and cherish the spirit of mutual support and sentiment of care from others, as well as rethink where we can individually begin to act upon and contribute to forming a more collaborative and interconnected world. It took a long time for the majority of the world to realize that “the well-being of the group is endangered by indifferent individuals, and that community means originally simply a pooling of duties” (Jones 2020 , para 9). As individuals, we are incapable of changing the irreversible crisis; our duties lie simply in small everyday commoning actions.

3 Care and commoning

Commoning is the act of managing and sharing material and non-material resources, of creating things together, and of cooperating to meet shared goals among a group of people (Bollier and Helfrich 2015 , p. 17; Džokić and Neelen 2015 , p. 15; Bollier 2014 , p. 15). The participants in commoning processes are people who prioritize care for one another. Volunteering, altruism, selflessness, peer-assistance, mutual support, and so on can all be considered synonyms of commoning (Bollier 2020 , para 10). Prior to the pandemic, the logic of commoning can be found in cooperatively managed forests, social currencies, open-source software, citizen-managed urban spaces, community gardens, cooperative housings, and more. Commoning has been and is prevalent around the world as an essential survival strategy, especially in challenging times (Troncoso 2020 ; Baibarac and Petrescu 2017 , p. 229). We can, moreover, note that when governmental or market systems fail in the crisis, more people are finding their ways to support others through commoning—for instance, in the USA, crowdsourcing masks and ventilators, and mobilizing food bank resources for the elderly living alone amid the COVID-19 pandemic. A critical emotional motivation behind these commoning activities is care.

Our perception of care often draws on the traditional imaginaries of the parents’ domestic responsibility of taking care of children and the housework, or the healthcare workers’ job of providing service in the medical sphere. On the one hand, the ongoing pandemic has brought these traditional imaginaries of care into the spotlight. Healthcare workers who haven’t been paid enough appreciation are now deemed essential and thus regarded with greater value than before (Fig.  3 ). Households are forced to devote increasing time in domestic caregiving during physical distancing. On the other hand, the current crisis also triggers our rethink of alternative ways of caring beyond these formats (Morrow and Parker 2020 ; Thackara 2015 ; Petrescu and Trogal 2017 ). Here, I argue that care, manifesting in ways of verbal encouragement, physical gestures like waving and hugging, a sense of responsibility, commoning activities, etc., is a more inclusive concept than the traditional perception of care. It is a deep-rooted ability of human beings to resonate and connect with others. As Sennett claims, “Buried in all of us is the infantile experience of relating and connecting to the others who took care of us” (Sennett 2012 , p. 9). The pandemic is a catalyst for awakening people’s innate ability to care. We can all find ways to care for the self and others. The following examples aim at sharing my encounters of care-driven everyday commoning activities during the COVID-19 pandemic. They manifest that commoning is one of the most efficient ways of caregiving and is essential for not only our current survival but also a collective caring future.

“Heroes at work” slogans were displayed in the garden and on the building façade of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) Shadyside Hospital in Pittsburgh, USA (May 5, 2020. Photography provided by the author)

4 Gardening as commoning

The top priority for individuals in quarantine is food. The food supply chain, including food production, processing, distribution, consumption, and disposal, needs to be operational for all of us to survive. However, the current food supply chain is severely compromised by COVID-19. According to the Washington Post (Telford and Kindy 2020 ), over 30 meat plants across the country owned by major American meat processing companies reported coronavirus outbreaks in their factories. The plants were forced to shut down because of growing numbers of confirmed cases and lack of PPE. Meanwhile, the transportation and distribution links on the supply chain also face unprecedented challenges. High demands for food delivery services put drivers and distributors at risk, as the virus can stay viable on cardboard boxes or plastic bags for a few days. Footnote 6 Both the processing and distribution links on the food supply chain are weakened, which has turned tons of milk, vegetables, and meat into waste.

Recognizing the vulnerability of a long food supply chain, many individuals and nonprofit organizations, such as community gardens, community farms, and home gardeners, have made contributions to shorten the food supply chain. By securing their own and local food supplies, they reduce the reliance on processing and transportation links on the chain (Fig.  4 ). In the Pittsburgh neighborhood of Garfield, the Garfield Community Farm, despite suffering from a large loss of financial income and voluntary labor during COVID-19, decided to donate all their sales to restaurants to the poor and healthcare workers in the neighborhood (Fig.  5 ). On the other side of the globe, the Knowledge and Innovation Community (KIC) Garden in Shanghai initiated a SEEDING campaign to facilitate community trust-building amid the pandemic (Jian 2020 ). The campaign encouraged people to develop a self-sufficient lifestyle at home and to share their home-grown produce and seeds with neighbors in non-contact ways. Many creative participants designed, modeled, and built small exchange stations in their local communities. Conversations among neighbors were triggered upon the implementation of these stations. Several weeks ago, I joined the SEEDING group and started to share the progress of my own home seeding project. Quick growing herbs, like basil and oregano, are optimal for apartment dwellers like me. My project is still gradually expanding with handmade hydroponics of onions, green onions, and garlic (Fig.  6 ).

Food supply chain infographic (Source: Sandia Seed Company. https://www.sandiaseed.com/blogs/news/shorten-your-food-chain-infographic . Accessed by the author on May 5, 2020)

On March 25, the first donation was made by Garfield Farm since the stay-at-home order was placed in Pittsburgh (Source: Garfield Community Farm Facebook page. https://www.facebook.com/GarfieldCommunityFarm . Accessed by the author on April 25, 2020)

The author’s home planting project on the windowsill (June 26, 2020. Photography provided by the author)

Gardening as a commoning practice has both ecological and social benefits. Growing and eating locally reduces the energy consumed in processing and transportation and rebuilds the connection between people and nature, which is a way to care for the environment. At the same time, less consumption of processed food lowers the risk of exposure for workers in food processing and transportation industries. Gardening also brings people together, either by engaging people in the farm work or by allowing people to share their gardening knowledge with others. When sharing updates of my home gardening project in the SEEDING group, I received detailed guidance and encouragement from other home gardeners. The communication, care, and enlightenment from others in this turbulent time have become an indispensable source of life motivation. That is to say, gardening as a commoning activity is also a way to care for our social well-being. It creates connections among people with diverse social and cultural backgrounds in the time of physical separation.

5 Online sharing as commoning

Currently, the majority of family networks, businesses, and schools depend on online video communication technology. Many online activities of working, teaching, learning, collaborating, and sharing have emerged. The heavy reliance on the online video conference platforms (e.g., Zoom, one of the most widely used Apps) raises the question of how technology might contribute to a more inclusive and equitable future for knowledge exchange and socialization.

Even when the world comes to a halt, intellectual flows and simulations do not. Professor Jeffrey Hou from the University of Washington, Seattle, initiated a platform named disCO-commons: Distance Collaboration Commons in Support of Design for Social Change, Footnote 7 on which scholars, students, educators, and practitioners in architecture, design, and planning could contribute to a collection of academic resources. Discussions and debates around design thinking are also continued with Design Baithak, Footnote 8 a weekly Zoom event organized by Ahmed Ansari, an assistant professor at New York University. The discussants come from all parts of the country and across continents. Besides, many international conferences in academia have also switched to free online formats. Distance, time, and financial concerns are no longer barriers. In pre-pandemic times, academic collaborations at such scales would take months to plan and coordinate. COVID-19 and technology have miraculously pushed the progress of remote knowledge sharing and collaborations.

Concurrently, online social activities are taking place exponentially. Figure  7 shows a screenshot of our 2018 Carnegie Mellon Master of Urban Design alumni reunion, held on Zoom. Two years after graduation, friends from five different countries, across three continents, managed to meet virtually. Some of us are foreigners staying in the USA, some traveled home before the outbreak, and some are in their homeland but separated from the family. The moment we saw each other, memories of us being physically together were recalled. Technology shortened the geographical distance between us. Figure  8 shows an online yoga class that I joined. The teacher just completed her yoga training in Portland, Oregon, and kindly provided free online classes. In such a time of uncertainty, spending some time each day doing yoga, meditation, or stretching is a good way to relieve the anxiety and despair that the mainstream social media is trying to render. When the body is relaxed, the mind becomes composed.

Virtual alumni reunion (April 10, 2020. Screenshot provided by the author)

Remote yoga class (April 26, 2020. Screenshot provided by the author)

Despite the challenge of video bombs and internet interferences, online sharing has brought genuine excitement for the possibilities afforded by unique forms of information caregiving. With careful application and management of new technology, virtual communication has shown outstanding efficiency in (re)connecting people and promoting more accessible ways of education and socialization. Now that we have a firmer grasp on the planning, coordination, and execution of these online activities, we may start to imagine a network of virtual commoning.

6 Volunteering as commoning

It seems that our hands are tied because of the limitation of face-to-face contact with others. However, challenges always prelude opportunities. Coronavirus interrupts our normal socialization but offers unique volunteering opportunities that call for reciprocity among strangers. In April, the Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) Chinese Students and Scholars Association (CSSA) were planning to distribute packs of personal protective supplies sent by the Consulate General of PR China in New York to CMU Chinese students. I signed up to be the volunteer and was assigned to be the driver and distributor for our apartment building and several surrounding blocks (Fig.  9 ). Myself and 20 other volunteers collectively coordinated the transportation and distribution of over a thousand “Health Packs” with the assistance of CSSA staff, brainstorming and deciding the best timing, location, and method of distribution. The quick reaction and organization were all from the bottom-up. Two other volunteers and I took advantage of the fact that the foyer of my apartment building is separated from the lobby by a glass door. We placed the bags in the foyer and waited in the lobby (Fig.  10 ). Remaining mindful of social distancing rules, recipients came and lined up on the sidewalk outside the foyer. Each person who entered the foyer showed us their student ID against the glass door to confirm the pickup. For residents in the building, a digital signup sheet was circulated for them to fill in their apartment numbers. Based on the signup sheet, we left the bags directly in front of their apartment doors. Volunteering in this distribution, I witnessed the nurture of a sense of belonging and a connection with home in the Chinese student community.

The author picking up two boxes of “Health Packs” from the post office (April 17, 2020. Photography provided by the author)

A box packed with 24 “Health Packs” to distribute to Chinese students (April 17, 2020. Photography provided by the author)

Recent anti-Chinese rhetoric in the USA and around the world has put many Chinese citizens overseas in trepidation. Incidents of racism are on the rise, as President Donald Trump “continues to stoke xenophobia by using a racist name for the virus and associating it with Asian Americans” (Zhou 2020 , para 6). Now more than ever, Chinese students are questioning our identities and trying to find a sense of belonging, both physically and mentally. Physical isolations have also worsened the situation as the feelings of uncertainty and fear are internalized. Apart from providing material security, more importantly, “Health Packs” sent a signal of being cared for by others and were catalysts for commoning practices. In this case, each one of the volunteers and recipients was fulfilling his/her duty in connecting these worried and isolated individuals. Volunteering as a way of commoning demonstrates that, by carrying out small acts of care for others, we, regardless of ethnicity, religion, gender, or age, have the agency to overcome physical isolation and dismantle the difficulties posed by the crisis.

7 From a current me to a future we

As I put this paper together, the death toll of COVID-19 across the world has surpassed 650,000, Footnote 9 casting an even larger shadow of uncertainty over the future. The harder the crisis hits us, the more we have to look for the positive changes that it facilitates. The above-mentioned experiences and examples are personal and quotidian. However, what is personal and present allows us to imagine what is collective and future.

The three commoning examples that I have discussed are all manifestations of how care has connected us, which forms the premise for systematic changes. Because of care for the Earth, home gardeners and community farmers will contribute to building more sustainable food production and consumption systems. Because of care for our minds, online sharing will connect into global knowledge systems. Because of care for ourselves and each other, volunteering activities and mutual support will continue building more supportive, inclusive, and equitable social systems. We need to recognize that the scaling from individual commoning activities to larger neighborhood, local, and regional collaborative systems may require much more efforts, education, and time. Nonetheless, we can still continue fulfilling our own duties as connecting dots in the systems, weaving the collective networks.

The COVID-19 pandemic can be the most effective moment in which we disrupt unhealthy norms and validate new possibilities. Care-based commoning can be one of these possibilities. The emphasis on giving rather than taking, on solidarity rather than individuality, on care rather than indifference is what I would like to reflect on when engaging in and discussing everyday commoning experiences. Taking everyday commoning practices as the starting point, it is necessary to start imagining a new collaborative future that is no longer constrained by geospatial boundaries and physical contacts. In fact, since the beginning of the COVID-19 outbreak, care has been ubiquitous; we have all sensed it in the formats “of responsibility, of sharing, of reciprocity, of democratic organization, and of welfare” (Petrescu and Trogal 2017 , p. 194). As we remain physically apart, let us see this as an opportunity to practice our muscles of commoning and build the strength to care for ourselves and others.

Coverage on Wuhan lockdown can further be found on South China Morning Post ( https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/3047278/wuhan-goes-shutdown-china-tries-contain-deadly-coronavirus ).

Larger numbers of confirmed cases are presented in darker colors in most COVID-19 live tracking maps, for instance, Baidu COVID-19 live data ( https://voice.baidu.com/act/newpneumonia/newpneumonia ) and Sina News COVID-19 live tracking ( https://news.sina.cn/zt_d/yiqing0121 ).

WeChat is the most widely used multi-purpose messaging, social media and mobile payment app in China.

The information of Pittsburgh’s first two COVID-19 cases is available on TribLIVE ( https://triblive.com/local/pittsburgh-allegheny/allegheny-county-to-announce-1st-coronavirus-cases/ ).

Student population percentage is calculated based on data provided by the US Census Bureau ( https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/pittsburghcitypennsylvania ).

The information is acquired from the study of coronavirus survival time on surfaces by US National Institutes of Health ( https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/study-suggests-new-coronavirus-may-remain-surfaces-days ).

More information on the Distance Collaboration Commons in Support of Design for Social Change can be found on their Facebook page ( https://www.facebook.com/groups/880415052397554 ).

The time, guests and topics of Design Baithak can be found on the website ( https://sites.google.com/view/designbaithak/ ).

The COVID-19 death toll number is acquired from the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center ( https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html ).

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Zheng, C. Caring for the self and others: a reflection on everyday commoning amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Socio Ecol Pract Res 2 , 243–251 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42532-020-00062-3

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The rapidly-developing coronavirus crisis is dominating global headlines and altering life as we know it. Many schools worldwide have closed. In the United States alone, 55 million students are rapidly adjusting to learning and socializing remotely, spending more time with family, and sacrificing comfort and convenience for the greater good.

For this week’s roundup of student comments on our writing prompts , it was only fitting to ask teenagers to react to various dimensions of this unprecedented situation: how the coronavirus outbreak is affecting their daily lives, how we can all help one another during the crisis and what thoughts or stories the term “social distancing” conjures for them.

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Personal Experience With the COVID-19 Pandemic

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The COVID-19 pandemic has affected many areas of individuals’ daily living. The vulnerability to any epidemic depends on a person’s social and economic status. Some people with underlying medical conditions have succumbed to the disease, while others with stronger immunity have survived (Cohut para.6). Governments have restricted movements and introduced stern measures against violating such health precautions as physical distancing and wearing masks. The COVID-19 pandemic has forced people to adopt various responses to its effects, such as homeschooling, working from home, and ordering foods and other commodities from online stores.

I have restricted my movements and opted to order foodstuffs and other essential goods online with doorstep delivery services. I like adventure, and before the pandemic, I would go to parks and other recreational centers to have fun. But this time, I am mostly confined to my room studying, doing school assignments, or reading storybooks, when I do not have an in-person session at college. I have also had to use social media more than before to connect with my family and friends. I miss participating in outdoor activities and meeting with my friends. However, it is worth it because the virus is deadly, and I have had to adapt to this new normal in my life.

With the pandemic requiring stern measures and precautions due to its transmission mode, the federal government has done well in handling the matter. One of the positives is that it has sent financial and material aid to individual state and local governments to help people cope up with the economic challenges the pandemic has posed (Solomon para. 8). Another plus for the federal government is funding the COVID-19 testing, contact tracing, and distributing the vaccine. Lastly, the government has extended unemployment benefits as a rescue plan to help households with an income of less than $150,000 (Solomon para. 9). Therefore, the federal government is trying its best to handle this pandemic.

The New Jersey government has done all it can to handle this pandemic well, but there are still some areas of improvement. As of March 7, 2021, New Jersey was having the highest number of deaths related to COVID-19, but Governor Phil Murphy’s initial handling of the pandemic attracted praises from many quarters (Stanmyre para. 10). In his early days in office, Gov. Murphy portrayed a sense of competency and calm, but it seems other states adopted much of his policies better than he did, explaining the reduction in the approval ratings. In November 2020, Governor Murphy signed an Executive Order cushioning and protecting workers from contracting COVID-19 at the workplace (Stanmyre para. 12). Therefore, although there are mixed feelings, the NJ government is handling this pandemic well.

Some states have reopened immediately after the vaccination, but this poses a massive risk of spreading the virus. Soon, citizens will begin to neglect the laid down health protocols, which would increase the possibility of the increase of the COVID-19 cases. There is a need for health departments to ensure that the health precautions are followed and campaign on the need to adhere to the guidelines. Some individuals are protesting their states’ economy to be reopened, but that is a rash, ill-informed decision. The threat of the pandemic is still high, and it is not the right time to demand the reopening of the economy yet.

In conclusion, the pandemic has affected individuals, businesses, and governments in many ways. Due to how the virus spreads, physical distancing has become a new normal, with people forced to homeschool or work from home to prevent themselves from contracting the disease. The federal government has done its best to cushion its people from the pandemic’s economic effects through various financial rescue schemes and plans. New Jersey’s government has also done well, although its cases continue to soar as it is the leading state in COVID-19 prevalence. Some states have reopened, while in others, people continue to demand their state governments to open the economy, which would be a risky move.

Works Cited

Cohut, Maria. “COVID-19 at the 1-year Mark: How the Pandemic Has Affected the World.” Medical and Health Information . Web.

Solomon, Rachel. “What is the Federal Government Doing to Help People Impacted by Coronavirus?” Cancer Support Community . Web.

Stanmyre, Matthew. “N.J.’s Pandemic Response Started Strong. Why Has So Much Gone Wrong Since?” 2021. Web.

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IvyPanda. (2022, September 29). Personal Experience With the COVID-19 Pandemic. https://ivypanda.com/essays/personal-experience-with-the-covid-19-pandemic/

"Personal Experience With the COVID-19 Pandemic." IvyPanda , 29 Sept. 2022, ivypanda.com/essays/personal-experience-with-the-covid-19-pandemic/.

IvyPanda . (2022) 'Personal Experience With the COVID-19 Pandemic'. 29 September.

IvyPanda . 2022. "Personal Experience With the COVID-19 Pandemic." September 29, 2022. https://ivypanda.com/essays/personal-experience-with-the-covid-19-pandemic/.

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IvyPanda . "Personal Experience With the COVID-19 Pandemic." September 29, 2022. https://ivypanda.com/essays/personal-experience-with-the-covid-19-pandemic/.