covid 19 lockdown essay in english

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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Looking back on lockdown days

A painting on a canvas with supplies around it.

Art class and self care during the pandemic

A beautiful sky, with splashes of cyan blue and light orange, accompanied by soft, scattered clouds. A silhouette of buildings marries into the scene.

We'll Walk Together

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A Race to What Finish Line

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Covid 19 Essay in English

Essay on Covid -19: In a very short amount of time, coronavirus has spread globally. It has had an enormous impact on people's lives, economy, and societies all around the world, affecting every country. Governments have had to take severe measures to try and contain the pandemic. The virus has altered our way of life in many ways, including its effects on our health and our economy. Here are a few sample essays on ‘CoronaVirus’.

100 Words Essay on Covid 19

200 words essay on covid 19, 500 words essay on covid 19.

COVID-19 or Corona Virus is a novel coronavirus that was first identified in 2019. It is similar to other coronaviruses, such as SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV, but it is more contagious and has caused more severe respiratory illness in people who have been infected. The novel coronavirus became a global pandemic in a very short period of time. It has affected lives, economies and societies across the world, leaving no country untouched. The virus has caused governments to take drastic measures to try and contain it. From health implications to economic and social ramifications, COVID-19 impacted every part of our lives. It has been more than 2 years since the pandemic hit and the world is still recovering from its effects.

Since the outbreak of COVID-19, the world has been impacted in a number of ways. For one, the global economy has taken a hit as businesses have been forced to close their doors. This has led to widespread job losses and an increase in poverty levels around the world. Additionally, countries have had to impose strict travel restrictions in an attempt to contain the virus, which has resulted in a decrease in tourism and international trade. Furthermore, the pandemic has put immense pressure on healthcare systems globally, as hospitals have been overwhelmed with patients suffering from the virus. Lastly, the outbreak has led to a general feeling of anxiety and uncertainty, as people are fearful of contracting the disease.

My Experience of COVID-19

I still remember how abruptly colleges and schools shut down in March 2020. I was a college student at that time and I was under the impression that everything would go back to normal in a few weeks. I could not have been more wrong. The situation only got worse every week and the government had to impose a lockdown. There were so many restrictions in place. For example, we had to wear face masks whenever we left the house, and we could only go out for essential errands. Restaurants and shops were only allowed to operate at take-out capacity, and many businesses were shut down.

In the current scenario, coronavirus is dominating all aspects of our lives. The coronavirus pandemic has wreaked havoc upon people’s lives, altering the way we live and work in a very short amount of time. It has revolutionised how we think about health care, education, and even social interaction. This virus has had long-term implications on our society, including its impact on mental health, economic stability, and global politics. But we as individuals can help to mitigate these effects by taking personal responsibility to protect themselves and those around them from infection.

Effects of CoronaVirus on Education

The outbreak of coronavirus has had a significant impact on education systems around the world. In China, where the virus originated, all schools and universities were closed for several weeks in an effort to contain the spread of the disease. Many other countries have followed suit, either closing schools altogether or suspending classes for a period of time.

This has resulted in a major disruption to the education of millions of students. Some have been able to continue their studies online, but many have not had access to the internet or have not been able to afford the costs associated with it. This has led to a widening of the digital divide between those who can afford to continue their education online and those who cannot.

The closure of schools has also had a negative impact on the mental health of many students. With no face-to-face contact with friends and teachers, some students have felt isolated and anxious. This has been compounded by the worry and uncertainty surrounding the virus itself.

The situation with coronavirus has improved and schools have been reopened but students are still catching up with the gap of 2 years that the pandemic created. In the meantime, governments and educational institutions are working together to find ways to support students and ensure that they are able to continue their education despite these difficult circumstances.

Effects of CoronaVirus on Economy

The outbreak of the coronavirus has had a significant impact on the global economy. The virus, which originated in China, has spread to over two hundred countries, resulting in widespread panic and a decrease in global trade. As a result of the outbreak, many businesses have been forced to close their doors, leading to a rise in unemployment. In addition, the stock market has taken a severe hit.

Effects of CoronaVirus on Health

The effects that coronavirus has on one's health are still being studied and researched as the virus continues to spread throughout the world. However, some of the potential effects on health that have been observed thus far include respiratory problems, fever, and coughing. In severe cases, pneumonia, kidney failure, and death can occur. It is important for people who think they may have been exposed to the virus to seek medical attention immediately so that they can be treated properly and avoid any serious complications. There is no specific cure or treatment for coronavirus at this time, but there are ways to help ease symptoms and prevent the virus from spreading.

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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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Impact of COVID-19 on people's livelihoods, their health and our food systems

Joint statement by ilo, fao, ifad and who.

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to a dramatic loss of human life worldwide and presents an unprecedented challenge to public health, food systems and the world of work. The economic and social disruption caused by the pandemic is devastating: tens of millions of people are at risk of falling into extreme poverty, while the number of undernourished people, currently estimated at nearly 690 million, could increase by up to 132 million by the end of the year.

Millions of enterprises face an existential threat. Nearly half of the world’s 3.3 billion global workforce are at risk of losing their livelihoods. Informal economy workers are particularly vulnerable because the majority lack social protection and access to quality health care and have lost access to productive assets. Without the means to earn an income during lockdowns, many are unable to feed themselves and their families. For most, no income means no food, or, at best, less food and less nutritious food.

The pandemic has been affecting the entire food system and has laid bare its fragility. Border closures, trade restrictions and confinement measures have been preventing farmers from accessing markets, including for buying inputs and selling their produce, and agricultural workers from harvesting crops, thus disrupting domestic and international food supply chains and reducing access to healthy, safe and diverse diets. The pandemic has decimated jobs and placed millions of livelihoods at risk. As breadwinners lose jobs, fall ill and die, the food security and nutrition of millions of women and men are under threat, with those in low-income countries, particularly the most marginalized populations, which include small-scale farmers and indigenous peoples, being hardest hit.

Millions of agricultural workers – waged and self-employed – while feeding the world, regularly face high levels of working poverty, malnutrition and poor health, and suffer from a lack of safety and labour protection as well as other types of abuse. With low and irregular incomes and a lack of social support, many of them are spurred to continue working, often in unsafe conditions, thus exposing themselves and their families to additional risks. Further, when experiencing income losses, they may resort to negative coping strategies, such as distress sale of assets, predatory loans or child labour. Migrant agricultural workers are particularly vulnerable, because they face risks in their transport, working and living conditions and struggle to access support measures put in place by governments. Guaranteeing the safety and health of all agri-food workers – from primary producers to those involved in food processing, transport and retail, including street food vendors – as well as better incomes and protection, will be critical to saving lives and protecting public health, people’s livelihoods and food security.

In the COVID-19 crisis food security, public health, and employment and labour issues, in particular workers’ health and safety, converge. Adhering to workplace safety and health practices and ensuring access to decent work and the protection of labour rights in all industries will be crucial in addressing the human dimension of the crisis. Immediate and purposeful action to save lives and livelihoods should include extending social protection towards universal health coverage and income support for those most affected. These include workers in the informal economy and in poorly protected and low-paid jobs, including youth, older workers, and migrants. Particular attention must be paid to the situation of women, who are over-represented in low-paid jobs and care roles. Different forms of support are key, including cash transfers, child allowances and healthy school meals, shelter and food relief initiatives, support for employment retention and recovery, and financial relief for businesses, including micro, small and medium-sized enterprises. In designing and implementing such measures it is essential that governments work closely with employers and workers.

Countries dealing with existing humanitarian crises or emergencies are particularly exposed to the effects of COVID-19. Responding swiftly to the pandemic, while ensuring that humanitarian and recovery assistance reaches those most in need, is critical.

Now is the time for global solidarity and support, especially with the most vulnerable in our societies, particularly in the emerging and developing world. Only together can we overcome the intertwined health and social and economic impacts of the pandemic and prevent its escalation into a protracted humanitarian and food security catastrophe, with the potential loss of already achieved development gains.

We must recognize this opportunity to build back better, as noted in the Policy Brief issued by the United Nations Secretary-General. We are committed to pooling our expertise and experience to support countries in their crisis response measures and efforts to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. We need to develop long-term sustainable strategies to address the challenges facing the health and agri-food sectors. Priority should be given to addressing underlying food security and malnutrition challenges, tackling rural poverty, in particular through more and better jobs in the rural economy, extending social protection to all, facilitating safe migration pathways and promoting the formalization of the informal economy.

We must rethink the future of our environment and tackle climate change and environmental degradation with ambition and urgency. Only then can we protect the health, livelihoods, food security and nutrition of all people, and ensure that our ‘new normal’ is a better one.

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Nutrition and Food Safety (NFS) and COVID-19

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Things we learned to appreciate more during covid-19 lockdown, curfews helped tomislav’s family appreciate the value of living in an intergenerational household and spending quality time together.

A baby on a couch in the foreground, 4 kids around the dining table in the background

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The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic is of a scale most people alive today have never seen. Lockdowns and curfews to contain the spread of the virus impacted the way children learn, the way their families earn a living, and how safe they feel in their homes and communities. Despite the ongoing threat, countries around the world are starting to lift restrictions. As we question whether we will ever go back to what we once knew to be “normal”, its worth taken a step back to see how we can build on what we have learned to build back a better world for children.

As a journalist, UNICEF photographer Tomislav Georgiev was one of the rare professionals with a permit to go out during the curfews and capture images of the deserted streets of the capital. But he discovered that in times like this, the most valuable images can be found closer to home. He turned his lenses from the outside world to capture photos of his own family with a loving eye. In a household where four generations live together, Tomislav captured scenes of play, family celebrations, sharing, exploring and learning new skills.

“I realized that no matter how much time we think we have; at the end of the day, what I came to appreciate was that we simply don’t spend enough quality time with our families,” says Tomislav.

Photographer’s daughters Ana (7) builds towers from stone tiles that were left over from the paving of the yard.

Days in lockdown were an opportunity for children to reinvent ways of play and learning, exploring their immediate environment and making the most of what they had available. Building resilience in children is one way we help them to cope in difficult moments.

After tiding up their room that served as a playground during the longest curfew lasting 61 hours, twins Ana and Kaya (7) turn the broom into a horse that they both ride on.

Curfews were also a time to help children learn responsibility and their role in contributing in our own way to find a solution to collective problems. “The silent understanding of my children was simply astonishing. We stay home, no questions asked, no demands to go and play with friends. Their lives have completely changed, yet they seem to grasp the importance of their contribution better than most adults,” says Tomislav.

Photographer’s daughters Lea (10), the twins Ana and Kaya (7) and their cousin Stela (3) use watercolors to paint stones as a gift to their grandmother.

During curfews many learned about the importance of being creative with the scarce resources and limited physical space they had at home. Also, many came to appreciate that small acts of kindness and gratitude to other family members helps to boost emotional wellbeing.

Photographer's daughter Kaja (7) learns how to sew with her eighty-seven-year-old great-grandfather Trajche in the tailors workshop they have in their family home. Kaja wants to learn how to sew dresses for her dolls.

Some even learned new skills but what matters most is learning to appreciate the emotional connections made between different generations. Its these connections that help us to develop the emotional resilience’s we need to get through stressful times.

Photographer's niece Stela (3) and cousins (photographer's daughters" Lea (10) and twins Ana and Kaja (7) are first to be seated and served Easter lunch by photographer’s wife and mother-in-law.

“It is true – this crisis has taken its toll on humanity. However, it also provided an opportunity for generations to unite and perhaps begun to shape our younger generations to think differently about their own individual roles and how we as individuals can all contribute in our own way to find a solution to collective problems,” says Tomislav.

UNICEF remains committed to its mission to provide essential support, protection and information as well as hope of a brighter day for every child. UNICEF stands united with one clear promise to the world: we will get through this together, for every child .

Why lockdown and distance learning during the COVID-19 pandemic are likely to increase the social class achievement gap

Sébastien Goudeau ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-7293-0977 1 ,
Camille Sanrey ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-3158-1306 1 ,
Arnaud Stanczak ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-2596-1516 2 ,
Antony Manstead ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-7540-2096 3 &
Céline Darnon ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-2613-689X 2

Nature Human Behaviour volume 5 , pages 1273–1281 ( 2021 ) Cite this article

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The COVID-19 pandemic has forced teachers and parents to quickly adapt to a new educational context: distance learning. Teachers developed online academic material while parents taught the exercises and lessons provided by teachers to their children at home. Considering that the use of digital tools in education has dramatically increased during this crisis, and it is set to continue, there is a pressing need to understand the impact of distance learning. Taking a multidisciplinary view, we argue that by making the learning process rely more than ever on families, rather than on teachers, and by getting students to work predominantly via digital resources, school closures exacerbate social class academic disparities. To address this burning issue, we propose an agenda for future research and outline recommendations to help parents, teachers and policymakers to limit the impact of the lockdown on social-class-based academic inequality.

Large socio-economic, geographic and demographic disparities exist in exposure to school closures

Elementary school teachers’ perspectives about learning during the COVID-19 pandemic

Uncovering Covid-19, distance learning, and educational inequality in rural areas of Pakistan and China: a situational analysis method

The widespread effects of the COVID-19 pandemic that emerged in 2019–2020 have drastically increased health, social and economic inequalities 1 , 2 . For more than 900 million learners around the world, the pandemic led to the closure of schools and universities 3 . This exceptional situation forced teachers, parents and students to quickly adapt to a new educational context: distance learning. Teachers had to develop online academic materials that could be used at home to ensure educational continuity while ensuring the necessary physical distancing. Primary and secondary school students suddenly had to work with various kinds of support, which were usually provided online by their teachers. For college students, lockdown often entailed returning to their hometowns while staying connected with their teachers and classmates via video conferences, email and other digital tools. Despite the best efforts of educational institutions, parents and teachers to keep all children and students engaged in learning activities, ensuring educational continuity during school closure—something that is difficult for everyone—may pose unique material and psychological challenges for working-class families and students.

Not only did the pandemic lead to the closure of schools in many countries, often for several weeks, it also accelerated the digitalization of education and amplified the role of parental involvement in supporting the schoolwork of their children. Thus, beyond the specific circumstances of the COVID-19 lockdown, we believe that studying the effects of the pandemic on academic inequalities provides a way to more broadly examine the consequences of school closure and related effects (for example, digitalization of education) on social class inequalities. Indeed, bearing in mind that (1) the risk of further pandemics is higher than ever (that is, we are in a ‘pandemic era’ 4 , 5 ) and (2) beyond pandemics, the use of digital tools in education (and therefore the influence of parental involvement) has dramatically increased during this crisis, and is set to continue, there is a pressing need for an integrative and comprehensive model that examines the consequences of distance learning. Here, we propose such an integrative model that helps us to understand the extent to which the school closures associated with the pandemic amplify economic, digital and cultural divides that in turn affect the psychological functioning of parents, students and teachers in a way that amplifies academic inequalities. Bringing together research in social sciences, ranging from economics and sociology to social, cultural, cognitive and educational psychology, we argue that by getting students to work predominantly via digital resources rather than direct interactions with their teachers, and by making the learning process rely more than ever on families rather than teachers, school closures exacerbate social class academic disparities.

First, we review research showing that social class is associated with unequal access to digital tools, unequal familiarity with digital skills and unequal uses of such tools for learning purposes 6 , 7 . We then review research documenting how unequal familiarity with school culture, knowledge and skills can also contribute to the accentuation of academic inequalities 8 , 9 . Next, we present the results of surveys conducted during the 2020 lockdown showing that the quality and quantity of pedagogical support received from schools varied according to the social class of families (for examples, see refs. 10 , 11 , 12 ). We then argue that these digital, cultural and structural divides represent barriers to the ability of parents to provide appropriate support for children during distance learning (Fig. 1 ). These divides also alter the levels of self-efficacy of parents and children, thereby affecting their engagement in learning activities 13 , 14 . In the final section, we review preliminary evidence for the hypothesis that distance learning widens the social class achievement gap and we propose an agenda for future research. In addition, we outline recommendations that should help parents, teachers and policymakers to use social science research to limit the impact of school closure and distance learning on the social class achievement gap.

Economic, structural, digital and cultural divides influence the psychological functioning of parents and students in a way that amplify inequalities.

The digital divide

Unequal access to digital resources.

Although the use of digital technologies is almost ubiquitous in developed nations, there is a digital divide such that some people are more likely than others to be numerically excluded 15 (Fig. 1 ). Social class is a strong predictor of digital disparities, including the quality of hardware, software and Internet access 16 , 17 , 18 . For example, in 2019, in France, around 1 in 5 working-class families did not have personal access to the Internet compared with less than 1 in 20 of the most privileged families 19 . Similarly, in 2020, in the United Kingdom, 20% of children who were eligible for free school meals did not have access to a computer at home compared with 7% of other children 20 . In 2021, in the United States, 41% of working-class families do not own a laptop or desktop computer and 43% do not have broadband compared with 8% and 7%, respectively, of upper/middle-class Americans 21 . A similar digital gap is also evident between lower-income and higher-income countries 22 .

Second, simply having access to a computer and an Internet connection does not ensure effective distance learning. For example, many of the educational resources sent by teachers need to be printed, thereby requiring access to printers. Moreover, distance learning is more difficult in households with only one shared computer compared with those where each family member has their own 23 . Furthermore, upper/middle-class families are more likely to be able to guarantee a suitable workspace for each child than their working-class counterparts 24 .

In the context of school closures, such disparities are likely to have important consequences for educational continuity. In line with this idea, a survey of approximately 4,000 parents in the United Kingdom confirmed that during lockdown, more than half of primary school children from the poorest families did not have access to their own study space and were less well equipped for distance learning than higher-income families 10 . Similarly, a survey of around 1,300 parents in the Netherlands found that during lockdown, children from working-class families had fewer computers at home and less room to study than upper/middle-class children 11 .

Data from non-Western countries highlight a more general digital divide, showing that developing countries have poorer access to digital equipment. For example, in India in 2018, only 10.7% of households possessed a digital device 25 , while in Pakistan in 2020, 31% of higher-education teachers did not have Internet access and 68.4% did not have a laptop 26 . In general, developing countries lack access to digital technologies 27 , 28 , and these difficulties of access are even greater in rural areas (for example, see ref. 29 ). Consequently, school closures have huge repercussions for the continuity of learning in these countries. For example, in India in 2018, only 11% of the rural and 40% of the urban population above 14 years old could use a computer and access the Internet 25 . Time spent on education during school closure decreased by 80% in Bangladesh 30 . A similar trend was observed in other countries 31 , with only 22% of children engaging in remote learning in Kenya 32 and 50% in Burkina Faso 33 . In Ghana, 26–32% of children spent no time at all on learning during the pandemic 34 . Beyond the overall digital divide, social class disparities are also evident in developing countries, with lower access to digital resources among households in which parental educational levels were low (versus households in which parental educational levels were high; for example, see ref. 35 for Nigeria and ref. 31 for Ecuador).

Unequal digital skills

In addition to unequal access to digital tools, there are also systematic variations in digital skills 36 , 37 (Fig. 1 ). Upper/middle-class families are more familiar with digital tools and resources and are therefore more likely to have the digital skills needed for distance learning 38 , 39 , 40 . These digital skills are particularly useful during school closures, both for students and for parents, for organizing, retrieving and correctly using the resources provided by the teachers (for example, sending or receiving documents by email, printing documents or using word processors).

Social class disparities in digital skills can be explained in part by the fact that children from upper/middle-class families have the opportunity to develop digital skills earlier than working-class families 41 . In member countries of the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development), only 23% of working-class children had started using a computer at the age of 6 years or earlier compared with 43% of upper/middle-class children 42 . Moreover, because working-class people tend to persist less than upper/middle-class people when confronted with digital difficulties 23 , the use of digital tools and resources for distance learning may interfere with the ability of parents to help children with their schoolwork.

Unequal use of digital tools

A third level of digital divide concerns variations in digital tool use 18 , 43 (Fig. 1 ). Upper/middle-class families are more likely to use digital resources for work and education 6 , 41 , 44 , whereas working-class families are more likely to use these resources for entertainment, such as electronic games or social media 6 , 45 . This divide is also observed among students, whereby working-class students tend to use digital technologies for leisure activities, whereas their upper/middle-class peers are more likely to use them for academic activities 46 and to consider that computers and the Internet provide an opportunity for education and training 23 . Furthermore, working-class families appear to regulate the digital practices of their children less 47 and are more likely to allow screens in the bedrooms of children and teenagers without setting limits on times or practices 48 .

In sum, inequalities in terms of digital resources, skills and use have strong implications for distance learning. This is because they make working-class students and parents particularly vulnerable when learning relies on extensive use of digital devices rather than on face-to-face interaction with teachers.

The cultural divide

Even if all three levels of digital divide were closed, upper/middle-class families would still be better prepared than working-class families to ensure educational continuity for their children. Upper/middle-class families are more familiar with the academic knowledge and skills that are expected and valued in educational settings, as well as with the independent, autonomous way of learning that is valued in the school culture and becomes even more important during school closure (Fig. 1 ).

Unequal familiarity with academic knowledge and skills

According to classical social reproduction theory 8 , 49 , school is not a neutral place in which all forms of language and knowledge are equally valued. Academic contexts expect and value culture-specific and taken-for-granted forms of knowledge, skills and ways of being, thinking and speaking that are more in tune with those developed through upper/middle-class socialization (that is, ‘cultural capital’ 8 , 50 , 51 , 52 , 53 ). For instance, academic contexts value interest in the arts, museums and literature 54 , 55 , a type of interest that is more likely to develop through socialization in upper/middle-class families than in working-class socialization 54 , 56 . Indeed, upper/middle-class parents are more likely than working-class parents to engage in activities that develop this cultural capital. For example, they possess more books and cultural objects at home, read more stories to their children and visit museums and libraries more often (for examples, see refs. 51 , 54 , 55 ). Upper/middle-class children are also more involved in extra-curricular activities (for example, playing a musical instrument) than working-class children 55 , 56 , 57 .

Beyond this implicit familiarization with the school curriculum, upper/middle-class parents more often organize educational activities that are explicitly designed to develop academic skills of their children 57 , 58 , 59 . For example, they are more likely to monitor and re-explain lessons or use games and textbooks to develop and reinforce academic skills (for example, labelling numbers, letters or colours 57 , 60 ). Upper/middle-class parents also provide higher levels of support and spend more time helping children with homework than working-class parents (for examples, see refs. 61 , 62 ). Thus, even if all parents are committed to the academic success of their children, working-class parents have fewer chances to provide the help that children need to complete homework 63 , and homework is more beneficial for children from upper-middle class families than for children from working-class families 64 , 65 .

School closures amplify the impact of cultural inequalities

The trends described above have been observed in ‘normal’ times when schools are open. School closures, by making learning rely more strongly on practices implemented at home (rather than at school), are likely to amplify the impact of these disparities. Consistent with this idea, research has shown that the social class achievement gap usually greatly widens during school breaks—a phenomenon described as ‘summer learning loss’ or ‘summer setback’ 66 , 67 , 68 . During holidays, the learning by children tends to decline, and this is particularly pronounced in children from working-class families. Consequently, the social class achievement gap grows more rapidly during the summer months than it does in the rest of the year. This phenomenon is partly explained by the fact that during the break from school, social class disparities in investment in activities that are beneficial for academic achievement (for example, reading, travelling to a foreign country or museum visits) are more pronounced.

Therefore, when they are out of school, children from upper/middle-class backgrounds may continue to develop academic skills unlike their working-class counterparts, who may stagnate or even regress. Research also indicates that learning loss during school breaks tends to be cumulative 66 . Thus, repeated episodes of school closure are likely to have profound consequences for the social class achievement gap. Consistent with the idea that school closures could lead to similar processes as those identified during summer breaks, a recent survey indicated that during the COVID-19 lockdown in the United Kingdom, children from upper/middle-class families spent more time on educational activities (5.8 h per day) than those from working-class families (4.5 h per day) 7 , 69 .

Unequal dispositions for autonomy and self-regulation

School closures have encouraged autonomous work among students. This ‘independent’ way of studying is compatible with the family socialization of upper/middle-class students, but does not match the interdependent norms more commonly associated with working-class contexts 9 . Upper/middle-class contexts tend to promote cultural norms of independence whereby individuals perceive themselves as autonomous actors, independent of other individuals and of the social context, able to pursue their own goals 70 . For example, upper/middle-class parents tend to invite children to express their interests, preferences and opinions during the various activities of everyday life 54 , 55 . Conversely, in working-class contexts characterized by low economic resources and where life is more uncertain, individuals tend to perceive themselves as interdependent, connected to others and members of social groups 53 , 70 , 71 . This interdependent self-construal fits less well with the independent culture of academic contexts. This cultural mismatch between interdependent self-construal common in working-class students and the independent norms of the educational institution has negative consequences for academic performance 9 .

Once again, the impact of these differences is likely to be amplified during school closures, when being able to work alone and autonomously is especially useful. The requirement to work alone is more likely to match the independent self-construal of upper/middle-class students than the interdependent self-construal of working-class students. In the case of working-class students, this mismatch is likely to increase their difficulties in working alone at home. Supporting our argument, recent research has shown that working-class students tend to underachieve in contexts where students work individually compared with contexts where students work with others 72 . Similarly, during school closures, high self-regulation skills (for example, setting goals, selecting appropriate learning strategies and maintaining motivation 73 ) are required to maintain study activities and are likely to be especially useful for using digital resources efficiently. Research has shown that students from working-class backgrounds typically develop their self-regulation skills to a lesser extent than those from upper/middle-class backgrounds 74 , 75 , 76 .

Interestingly, some authors have suggested that independent (versus interdependent) self-construal may also affect communication with teachers 77 . Indeed, in the context of distance learning, working-class families are less likely to respond to the communication of teachers because their ‘interdependent’ self leads them to respect hierarchies, and thus perceive teachers as an expert who ‘can be trusted to make the right decisions for learning’. Upper/middle class families, relying on ‘independent’ self-construal, are more inclined to seek individualized feedback, and therefore tend to participate to a greater extent in exchanges with teachers. Such cultural differences are important because they can also contribute to the difficulties encountered by working-class families.

The structural divide: unequal support from schools

The issues reviewed thus far all increase the vulnerability of children and students from underprivileged backgrounds when schools are closed. To offset these disadvantages, it might be expected that the school should increase its support by providing additional resources for working-class students. However, recent data suggest that differences in the material and human resources invested in providing educational support for children during periods of school closure were—paradoxically—in favour of upper/middle-class students (Fig. 1 ). In England, for example, upper/middle-class parents reported benefiting from online classes and video-conferencing with teachers more often than working-class parents 10 . Furthermore, active help from school (for example, online teaching, private tutoring or chats with teachers) occurred more frequently in the richest households (64% of the richest households declared having received help from school) than in the poorest households (47%). Another survey found that in the United Kingdom, upper/middle-class children were more likely to take online lessons every day (30%) than working-class students (16%) 12 . This substantial difference might be due, at least in part, to the fact that private schools are better equipped in terms of online platforms (60% of schools have at least one online platform) than state schools (37%, and 23% in the most deprived schools) and were more likely to organize daily online lessons. Similarly, in the United Kingdom, in schools with a high proportion of students eligible for free school meals, teachers were less inclined to broadcast an online lesson for their pupils 78 . Interestingly, 58% of teachers in the wealthiest areas reported having messaged their students or their students’ parents during lockdown compared with 47% in the most deprived schools. In addition, the probability of children receiving technical support from the school (for example, by providing pupils with laptops or other devices) is, surprisingly, higher in the most advantaged schools than in the most deprived 78 .

In addition to social class disparities, there has been less support from schools for African-American and Latinx students. During school closures in the United States, 40% of African-American students and 30% of Latinx students received no online teaching compared with 10% of white students 79 . Another source of inequality is that the probability of school closure was correlated with social class and race. In the United States, for example, school closures from September to December 2020 were more common in schools with a high proportion of racial/ethnic minority students, who experience homelessness and are eligible for free/discounted school meals 80 .

Similarly, access to educational resources and support was lower in poorer (compared with richer) countries 81 . In sub-Saharan Africa, during lockdown, 45% of children had no exposure at all to any type of remote learning. Of those who did, the medium was mostly radio, television or paper rather than digital. In African countries, at most 10% of children received some material through the Internet. In Latin America, 90% of children received some remote learning, but less than half of that was through the internet—the remainder being via radio and television 81 . In Ecuador, high-school students from the lowest wealth quartile had fewer remote-learning opportunities, such as Google class/Zoom, than students from the highest wealth quartile 31 .

Thus, the achievement gap and its accentuation during lockdown are due not only to the cultural and digital disadvantages of working-class families but also to unequal support from schools. This inequality in school support is not due to teachers being indifferent to or even supportive of social stratification. Rather, we believe that these effects are fundamentally structural. In many countries, schools located in upper/middle-class neighbourhoods have more money than those in the poorest neighbourhoods. Moreover, upper/middle-class parents invest more in the schools of their children than working-class parents (for example, see ref. 82 ), and schools have an interest in catering more for upper/middle-class families than for working-class families 83 . Additionally, the expectation of teachers may be lower for working-class children 84 . For example, they tend to estimate that working-class students invest less effort in learning than their upper/middle-class counterparts 85 . These differences in perception may have influenced the behaviour of teachers during school closure, such that teachers in privileged neighbourhoods provided more information to students because they expected more from them in term of effort and achievement. The fact that upper/middle-class parents are better able than working-class parents to comply with the expectations of teachers (for examples, see refs. 55 , 86 ) may have reinforced this phenomenon. These discrepancies echo data showing that working-class students tend to request less help in their schoolwork than upper/middle-class ones 87 , and they may even avoid asking for help because they believe that such requests could lead to reprimands 88 . During school closures, these students (and their families) may in consequence have been less likely to ask for help and resources. Jointly, these phenomena have resulted in upper/middle-class families receiving more support from schools during lockdown than their working-class counterparts.

Psychological effects of digital, cultural and structural divides

Despite being strongly influenced by social class, differences in academic achievement are often interpreted by parents, teachers and students as reflecting differences in ability 89 . As a result, upper/middle-class students are usually perceived—and perceive themselves—as smarter than working-class students, who are perceived—and perceive themselves—as less intelligent 90 , 91 , 92 or less able to succeed 93 . Working-class students also worry more about the fact that they might perform more poorly than upper/middle-class students 94 , 95 . These fears influence academic learning in important ways. In particular, they can consume cognitive resources when children and students work on academic tasks 96 , 97 . Self-efficacy also plays a key role in engaging in learning and perseverance in the face of difficulties 13 , 98 . In addition, working-class students are those for whom the fear of being outperformed by others is the most negatively related to academic performance 99 .

The fact that working-class children and students are less familiar with the tasks set by teachers, and less well equipped and supported, makes them more likely to experience feelings of incompetence (Fig. 1 ). Working-class parents are also more likely than their upper/middle-class counterparts to feel unable to help their children with schoolwork. Consistent with this, research has shown that both working-class students and parents have lower feelings of academic self-efficacy than their upper/middle-class counterparts 100 , 101 . These differences have been documented under ‘normal’ conditions but are likely to be exacerbated during distance learning. Recent surveys conducted during the school closures have confirmed that upper/middle-class families felt better able to support their children in distance learning than did working-class families 10 and that upper/middle-class parents helped their children more and felt more capable to do so 11 , 12 .

Pandemic disparity, future directions and recommendations

The research reviewed thus far suggests that children and their families are highly unequal with respect to digital access, skills and use. It also shows that upper/middle-class students are more likely to be supported in their homework (by their parents and teachers) than working-class students, and that upper/middle-class students and parents will probably feel better able than working-class ones to adapt to the context of distance learning. For all these reasons, we anticipate that as a result of school closures, the COVID-19 pandemic will substantially increase the social class achievement gap. Because school closures are a recent occurrence, it is too early to measure with precision their effects on the widening of the achievement gap. However, some recent data are consistent with this idea.

Evidence for a widening gap during the pandemic

Comparing academic achievement in 2020 with previous years provides an early indication of the effects of school closures during the pandemic. In France, for example, first and second graders take national evaluations at the beginning of the school year. Initial comparisons of the results for 2020 with those from previous years revealed that the gap between schools classified as ‘priority schools’ (those in low-income urban areas) and schools in higher-income neighbourhoods—a gap observed every year—was particularly pronounced in 2020 in both French and mathematics 102 .

Similarly, in the Netherlands, national assessments take place twice a year. In 2020, they took place both before and after school closures. A recent analysis compared progress during this period in 2020 in mathematics/arithmetic, spelling and reading comprehension for 7–11-year-old students within the same period in the three previous years 103 . Results indicated a general learning loss in 2020. More importantly, for the 8% of working-class children, the losses were 40% greater than they were for upper/middle-class children.

Similar results were observed in Belgium among students attending the final year of primary school. Compared with students from previous cohorts, students affected by school closures experienced a substantial decrease in their mathematics and language scores, with children from more disadvantaged backgrounds experiencing greater learning losses 104 . Likewise, oral reading assessments in more than 100 school districts in the United States showed that the development of this skill among children in second and third grade significantly slowed between Spring and Autumn 2020, but this slowdown was more pronounced in schools from lower-achieving districts 105 .

It is likely that school closures have also amplified racial disparities in learning and achievement. For example, in the United States, after the first lockdown, students of colour lost the equivalent of 3–5 months of learning, whereas white students were about 1–3 months behind. Moreover, in the Autumn, when some students started to return to classrooms, African-American and Latinx students were more likely to continue distance learning, despite being less likely to have access to the digital tools, Internet access and live contact with teachers 106 .

In some African countries (for example, Ethiopia, Kenya, Liberia, Tanzania and Uganda), the COVID-19 crisis has resulted in learning loss ranging from 6 months to more 1 year 107 , and this learning loss appears to be greater for working-class children (that is, those attending no-fee schools) than for upper/middle-class children 108 .

These findings show that school closures have exacerbated achievement gaps linked to social class and ethnicity. However, more research is needed to address the question of whether school closures differentially affect the learning of students from working- and upper/middle-class families.

Future directions

First, to assess the specific and unique impact of school closures on student learning, longitudinal research should compare student achievement at different times of the year, before, during and after school closures, as has been done to document the summer learning loss 66 , 109 . In the coming months, alternating periods of school closure and opening may occur, thereby presenting opportunities to do such research. This would also make it possible to examine whether the gap diminishes a few weeks after children return to in-school learning or whether, conversely, it increases with time because the foundations have not been sufficiently acquired to facilitate further learning 110 .

Second, the mechanisms underlying the increase in social class disparities during school closures should be examined. As discussed above, school closures result in situations for which students are unevenly prepared and supported. It would be appropriate to seek to quantify the contribution of each of the factors that might be responsible for accentuating the social class achievement gap. In particular, distinguishing between factors that are relatively ‘controllable’ (for example, resources made available to pupils) and those that are more difficult to control (for example, the self-efficacy of parents in supporting the schoolwork of their children) is essential to inform public policy and teaching practices.

Third, existing studies are based on general comparisons and very few provide insights into the actual practices that took place in families during school closure and how these practices affected the achievement gap. For example, research has documented that parents from working-class backgrounds are likely to find it more difficult to help their children to complete homework and to provide constructive feedback 63 , 111 , something that could in turn have a negative impact on the continuity of learning of their children. In addition, it seems reasonable to assume that during lockdown, parents from upper/middle-class backgrounds encouraged their children to engage in practices that, even if not explicitly requested by teachers, would be beneficial to learning (for example, creative activities or reading). Identifying the practices that best predict the maintenance or decline of educational achievement during school closures would help identify levers for intervention.

Finally, it would be interesting to investigate teaching practices during school closures. The lockdown in the spring of 2020 was sudden and unexpected. Within a few days, teachers had to find a way to compensate for the school closure, which led to highly variable practices. Some teachers posted schoolwork on platforms, others sent it by email, some set work on a weekly basis while others set it day by day. Some teachers also set up live sessions in large or small groups, providing remote meetings for questions and support. There have also been variations in the type of feedback given to students, notably through the monitoring and correcting of work. Future studies should examine in more detail what practices schools and teachers used to compensate for the school closures and their effects on widening, maintaining or even reducing the gap, as has been done for certain specific literacy programmes 112 as well as specific instruction topics (for example, ecology and evolution 113 ).

Practical recommendations

We are aware of the debate about whether social science research on COVID-19 is suitable for making policy decisions 114 , and we draw attention to the fact that some of our recommendations (Table 1 ) are based on evidence from experiments or interventions carried out pre-COVID while others are more speculative. In any case, we emphasize that these suggestions should be viewed with caution and be tested in future research. Some of our recommendations could be implemented in the event of new school closures, others only when schools re-open. We also acknowledge that while these recommendations are intended for parents and teachers, their implementation largely depends on the adoption of structural policies. Importantly, given all the issues discussed above, we emphasize the importance of prioritizing, wherever possible, in-person learning over remote learning 115 and where this is not possible, of implementing strong policies to support distance learning, especially for disadvantaged families.

Where face-to face teaching is not possible and teachers are responsible for implementing distance learning, it will be important to make them aware of the factors that can exacerbate inequalities during lockdown and to provide them with guidance about practices that would reduce these inequalities. Thus, there is an urgent need for interventions aimed at making teachers aware of the impact of the social class of children and families on the following factors: (1) access to, familiarity with and use of digital devices; (2) familiarity with academic knowledge and skills; and (3) preparedness to work autonomously. Increasing awareness of the material, cultural and psychological barriers that working-class children and families face during lockdown should increase the quality and quantity of the support provided by teachers and thereby positively affect the achievements of working-class students.

In addition to increasing the awareness of teachers of these barriers, teachers should be encouraged to adjust the way they communicate with working-class families due to differences in self-construal compared with upper/middle-class families 77 . For example, questions about family (rather than personal) well-being would be congruent with interdependent self-construals. This should contribute to better communication and help keep a better track of the progress of students during distance learning.

It is also necessary to help teachers to engage in practices that have a chance of reducing inequalities 53 , 116 . Particularly important is that teachers and schools ensure that homework can be done by all children, for example, by setting up organizations that would help children whose parents are not in a position to monitor or assist with the homework of their children. Options include homework help groups and tutoring by teachers after class. When schools are open, the growing tendency to set homework through digital media should be resisted as far as possible given the evidence we have reviewed above. Moreover, previous research has underscored the importance of homework feedback provided by teachers, which is positively related to the amount of homework completed and predictive of academic performance 117 . Where homework is web-based, it has also been shown that feedback on web-based homework enhances the learning of students 118 . It therefore seems reasonable to predict that the social class achievement gap will increase more slowly (or even remain constant or be reversed) in schools that establish individualized monitoring of students, by means of regular calls and feedback on homework, compared with schools where the support provided to pupils is more generic.

Given that learning during lockdown has increasingly taken place in family settings, we believe that interventions involving the family are also likely to be effective 119 , 120 , 121 . Simply providing families with suitable material equipment may be insufficient. Families should be given training in the efficient use of digital technology and pedagogical support. This would increase the self-efficacy of parents and students, with positive consequences for achievement. Ideally, such training would be delivered in person to avoid problems arising from the digital divide. Where this is not possible, individualized online tutoring should be provided. For example, studies conducted during the lockdown in Botswana and Italy have shown that individual online tutoring directly targeting either parents or students in middle school has a positive impact on the achievement of students, particularly for working-class students 122 , 123 .

Interventions targeting families should also address the psychological barriers faced by working-class families and children. Some interventions have already been designed and been shown to be effective in reducing the social class achievement gap, particularly in mathematics and language 124 , 125 , 126 . For example, research showed that an intervention designed to train low-income parents in how to support the mathematical development of their pre-kindergarten children (including classes and access to a library of kits to use at home) increased the quality of support provided by the parents, with a corresponding impact on the development of mathematical knowledge of their children. Such interventions should be particularly beneficial in the context of school closure.

Beyond its impact on academic performance and inequalities, the COVID-19 crisis has shaken the economies of countries around the world, casting millions of families around the world into poverty 127 , 128 , 129 . As noted earlier, there has been a marked increase in economic inequalities, bringing with it all the psychological and social problems that such inequalities create 130 , 131 , especially for people who live in scarcity 132 . The increase in educational inequalities is just one facet of the many difficulties that working-class families will encounter in the coming years, but it is one that could seriously limit the chances of their children escaping from poverty by reducing their opportunities for upward mobility. In this context, it should be a priority to concentrate resources on the most deprived students. A large proportion of the poorest households do not own a computer and do not have personal access to the Internet, which has important consequences for distance learning. During school closures, it is therefore imperative to provide such families with adequate equipment and Internet service, as was done in some countries in spring 2020. Even if the provision of such equipment is not in itself sufficient, it is a necessary condition for ensuring pedagogical continuity during lockdown.

Finally, after prolonged periods of school closure, many students may not have acquired the skills needed to pursue their education. A possible consequence would be an increase in the number of students for whom teachers recommend class repetitions. Class repetitions are contentious. On the one hand, class repetition more frequently affects working-class children and is not efficient in terms of learning improvement 133 . On the other hand, accepting lower standards of academic achievement or even suspending the practice of repeating a class could lead to pupils pursuing their education without mastering the key abilities needed at higher grades. This could create difficulties in subsequent years and, in this sense, be counterproductive. We therefore believe that the most appropriate way to limit the damage of the pandemic would be to help children catch up rather than allowing them to continue without mastering the necessary skills. As is being done in some countries, systematic remedial courses (for example, summer learning programmes) should be organized and financially supported following periods of school closure, with priority given to pupils from working-class families. Such interventions have genuine potential in that research has shown that participation in remedial summer programmes is effective in reducing learning loss during the summer break 134 , 135 , 136 . For example, in one study 137 , 438 students from high-poverty schools were offered a multiyear summer school programme that included various pedagogical and enrichment activities (for example, science investigation and music) and were compared with a ‘no-treatment’ control group. Students who participated in the summer programme progressed more than students in the control group. A meta-analysis 138 of 41 summer learning programmes (that is, classroom- and home-based summer interventions) involving children from kindergarten to grade 8 showed that these programmes had significantly larger benefits for children from working-class families. Although such measures are costly, the cost is small compared to the price of failing to fulfil the academic potential of many students simply because they were not born into upper/middle-class families.

The unprecedented nature of the current pandemic means that we lack strong data on what the school closure period is likely to produce in terms of learning deficits and the reproduction of social inequalities. However, the research discussed in this article suggests that there are good reasons to predict that this period of school closures will accelerate the reproduction of social inequalities in educational achievement.

By making school learning less dependent on teachers and more dependent on families and digital tools and resources, school closures are likely to greatly amplify social class inequalities. At a time when many countries are experiencing second, third or fourth waves of the pandemic, resulting in fresh periods of local or general lockdowns, systematic efforts to test these predictions are urgently needed along with steps to reduce the impact of school closures on the social class achievement gap.

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Acknowledgements

We thank G. Reis for editing the figure. The writing of this manuscript was supported by grant ANR-19-CE28-0007–PRESCHOOL from the French National Research Agency (S.G.).

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Goudeau, S., Sanrey, C., Stanczak, A. et al. Why lockdown and distance learning during the COVID-19 pandemic are likely to increase the social class achievement gap. Nat Hum Behav 5 , 1273–1281 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-021-01212-7

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In Nanjing, China, a patient is treated in April as the COVID-19 pandemic began to spread across the world.

The virus that shut down the world: 2020, a year like no other

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COVID-19 is everywhere, literally, and during 2020 its spread and resulting impact has led to a global crisis of unprecedented reach and proportion. In a six-part series closing out this tumultuous year, UN News looks at the impact on people in every part of the world and some of the solutions that the United Nations has proposed to deal with the fall-out of the pandemic. In this first feature, we lay out some of the key events of the past 12 months.

Health facilities around the world, like here in Gaza, were stretched to their limits as the number of cases increased.

As 2020 comes to an end and people around the world try to make sense of how the world has changed, they are faced with one stark and brutal statistic. The number of people who have died after catching COVID-19 , is creeping towards the two million mark.

Passengers wearing face masks and disposable ponchos get their passports checked at Don Mueang International Airport in Bangkok, Thailand.

Early in the year, international travel was severely restricted, and people like these travelers in Thailand learnt of the importance of PPE, an acronym which quickly entered the global lexicon (which is short for personal protective equipment).

The UN Development Programme in China has supplied critical medical supplies to the Chinese government.

Soon, there were concerns about a global shortage of PPE and the UN supported various countries in the procurement of supplies, including China where the virus first emerged.

A dental office in Brooklyn, New York, posts a grim reminder of the changes brought about by the coronavirus.

As COVID-19 took hold, countries and cities across the world entered lockdown with the closure of schools, cultural and sports venues and all non-essential businesses.

It's hoped that downtown areas in cities like Nairobi in Kenya, will recover strongly from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Normally bustling city centres, like the Kenyan capital Nairobi, were eerily quiet as people stayed at home.

Delegates in the UN General Assembly hall observe social distancing as meetings get underway during the busiest week of the year at the United Nations

The United Nations did stay open for business across the world, although most of the key events, like the annual meeting of the new session of the General Assembly in New York, did look very different. Only a small number of delegates were allowed into the chamber as world leaders gave their speeches virtually.

Social distancing, here seen in Yemen, will need to continue around the world, at least until a vaccine is developed.

Across the world, people were adapting to new social distancing guidelines…..

Community workers, supported by the UN, promote coronavirus prevention awareness and distribute hygiene packages among poor urban households in Bangladesh.

…and were reminded about the importance of handwashing as a way to reduce the transmission of diseases.

Two siblings study at home in Mathare slum, Nairobi, Kenya, accessing their lessons on the family mobile phone.

Students who were not able to go to school had to adapt to a new reality and find ways to keep up with their studies.

Women in Nigeria collect food vouchers as part of a programme to support families  struggling under the COVID-19 lockdown.

While Africa appeared to suffer less from the virus than other continents, at least in terms of absolute infections and deaths, the UN did voice concerns that the pandemic would push millions more into poverty.

Health care professionals are working around the clock to provide adequate support to Rohingya refugees in Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh.

Especially important to the UN was supporting refugees and other vulnerable people on the move across the world, such as the hundreds of thousands of Rohingya people who have sought shelter across the border in Bangladesh.

The coronavirus vaccine developed by the University of Oxford was shown in trials to be highly effective at stopping people developing COVID-19 symptoms.

Progress has been made, in record time, by scientists developing new effective vaccines against COVID-19 and by the end of 2020, the first people, mainly in developed countries, were being inoculated.

A New York City resident advocates for how he thinks the Coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak should be tackled.

As the world enters 2021, the pandemic is still raging and, after an apparent mid-year lull in many countries, more infections and more deaths are being reported. With more vaccines being rolled out, the international community is being urged to work together to stop the spread and follow science-based guidelines.

For a more detailed picture of how the world looked in 2020, look out for our UN News end-of-year series of special reports, as the year draws to a close.

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http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1512-4471 Emily Long 1 ,
Susan Patterson 1 ,
Karen Maxwell 1 ,
Carolyn Blake 1 ,
http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7342-4566 Raquel Bosó Pérez 1 ,
Ruth Lewis 1 ,
Mark McCann 1 ,
Julie Riddell 1 ,
Kathryn Skivington 1 ,
Rachel Wilson-Lowe 1 ,
http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4409-6601 Kirstin R Mitchell 2
1 MRC/CSO Social and Public Health Sciences Unit , University of Glasgow , Glasgow , UK
2 MRC/CSO Social and Public Health Sciences Unit, Institute of Health & Wellbeing , University of Glasgow , Glasgow , UK
Correspondence to Dr Emily Long, MRC/CSO Social and Public Health Sciences Unit, University of Glasgow, Glasgow G3 7HR, UK; emily.long{at}glasgow.ac.uk

This essay examines key aspects of social relationships that were disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic. It focuses explicitly on relational mechanisms of health and brings together theory and emerging evidence on the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic to make recommendations for future public health policy and recovery. We first provide an overview of the pandemic in the UK context, outlining the nature of the public health response. We then introduce four distinct domains of social relationships: social networks, social support, social interaction and intimacy, highlighting the mechanisms through which the pandemic and associated public health response drastically altered social interactions in each domain. Throughout the essay, the lens of health inequalities, and perspective of relationships as interconnecting elements in a broader system, is used to explore the varying impact of these disruptions. The essay concludes by providing recommendations for longer term recovery ensuring that the social relational cost of COVID-19 is adequately considered in efforts to rebuild.

inequalities

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Data sharing not applicable as no data sets generated and/or analysed for this study. Data sharing not applicable as no data sets generated or analysed for this essay.

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https://doi.org/10.1136/jech-2021-216690

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Introduction

Infectious disease pandemics, including SARS and COVID-19, demand intrapersonal behaviour change and present highly complex challenges for public health. 1 A pandemic of an airborne infection, spread easily through social contact, assails human relationships by drastically altering the ways through which humans interact. In this essay, we draw on theories of social relationships to examine specific ways in which relational mechanisms key to health and well-being were disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Relational mechanisms refer to the processes between people that lead to change in health outcomes.

At the time of writing, the future surrounding COVID-19 was uncertain. Vaccine programmes were being rolled out in countries that could afford them, but new and more contagious variants of the virus were also being discovered. The recovery journey looked long, with continued disruption to social relationships. The social cost of COVID-19 was only just beginning to emerge, but the mental health impact was already considerable, 2 3 and the inequality of the health burden stark. 4 Knowledge of the epidemiology of COVID-19 accrued rapidly, but evidence of the most effective policy responses remained uncertain.

The initial response to COVID-19 in the UK was reactive and aimed at reducing mortality, with little time to consider the social implications, including for interpersonal and community relationships. The terminology of ‘social distancing’ quickly became entrenched both in public and policy discourse. This equation of physical distance with social distance was regrettable, since only physical proximity causes viral transmission, whereas many forms of social proximity (eg, conversations while walking outdoors) are minimal risk, and are crucial to maintaining relationships supportive of health and well-being.

The aim of this essay is to explore four key relational mechanisms that were impacted by the pandemic and associated restrictions: social networks, social support, social interaction and intimacy. We use relational theories and emerging research on the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic response to make three key recommendations: one regarding public health responses; and two regarding social recovery. Our understanding of these mechanisms stems from a ‘systems’ perspective which casts social relationships as interdependent elements within a connected whole. 5

Social networks

Social networks characterise the individuals and social connections that compose a system (such as a workplace, community or society). Social relationships range from spouses and partners, to coworkers, friends and acquaintances. They vary across many dimensions, including, for example, frequency of contact and emotional closeness. Social networks can be understood both in terms of the individuals and relationships that compose the network, as well as the overall network structure (eg, how many of your friends know each other).

Social networks show a tendency towards homophily, or a phenomenon of associating with individuals who are similar to self. 6 This is particularly true for ‘core’ network ties (eg, close friends), while more distant, sometimes called ‘weak’ ties tend to show more diversity. During the height of COVID-19 restrictions, face-to-face interactions were often reduced to core network members, such as partners, family members or, potentially, live-in roommates; some ‘weak’ ties were lost, and interactions became more limited to those closest. Given that peripheral, weaker social ties provide a diversity of resources, opinions and support, 7 COVID-19 likely resulted in networks that were smaller and more homogenous.

Such changes were not inevitable nor necessarily enduring, since social networks are also adaptive and responsive to change, in that a disruption to usual ways of interacting can be replaced by new ways of engaging (eg, Zoom). Yet, important inequalities exist, wherein networks and individual relationships within networks are not equally able to adapt to such changes. For example, individuals with a large number of newly established relationships (eg, university students) may have struggled to transfer these relationships online, resulting in lost contacts and a heightened risk of social isolation. This is consistent with research suggesting that young adults were the most likely to report a worsening of relationships during COVID-19, whereas older adults were the least likely to report a change. 8

Lastly, social connections give rise to emergent properties of social systems, 9 where a community-level phenomenon develops that cannot be attributed to any one member or portion of the network. For example, local area-based networks emerged due to geographic restrictions (eg, stay-at-home orders), resulting in increases in neighbourly support and local volunteering. 10 In fact, research suggests that relationships with neighbours displayed the largest net gain in ratings of relationship quality compared with a range of relationship types (eg, partner, colleague, friend). 8 Much of this was built from spontaneous individual interactions within local communities, which together contributed to the ‘community spirit’ that many experienced. 11 COVID-19 restrictions thus impacted the personal social networks and the structure of the larger networks within the society.

Social support

Social support, referring to the psychological and material resources provided through social interaction, is a critical mechanism through which social relationships benefit health. In fact, social support has been shown to be one of the most important resilience factors in the aftermath of stressful events. 12 In the context of COVID-19, the usual ways in which individuals interact and obtain social support have been severely disrupted.

One such disruption has been to opportunities for spontaneous social interactions. For example, conversations with colleagues in a break room offer an opportunity for socialising beyond one’s core social network, and these peripheral conversations can provide a form of social support. 13 14 A chance conversation may lead to advice helpful to coping with situations or seeking formal help. Thus, the absence of these spontaneous interactions may mean the reduction of indirect support-seeking opportunities. While direct support-seeking behaviour is more effective at eliciting support, it also requires significantly more effort and may be perceived as forceful and burdensome. 15 The shift to homeworking and closure of community venues reduced the number of opportunities for these spontaneous interactions to occur, and has, second, focused them locally. Consequently, individuals whose core networks are located elsewhere, or who live in communities where spontaneous interaction is less likely, have less opportunity to benefit from spontaneous in-person supportive interactions.

However, alongside this disruption, new opportunities to interact and obtain social support have arisen. The surge in community social support during the initial lockdown mirrored that often seen in response to adverse events (eg, natural disasters 16 ). COVID-19 restrictions that confined individuals to their local area also compelled them to focus their in-person efforts locally. Commentators on the initial lockdown in the UK remarked on extraordinary acts of generosity between individuals who belonged to the same community but were unknown to each other. However, research on adverse events also tells us that such community support is not necessarily maintained in the longer term. 16

Meanwhile, online forms of social support are not bound by geography, thus enabling interactions and social support to be received from a wider network of people. Formal online social support spaces (eg, support groups) existed well before COVID-19, but have vastly increased since. While online interactions can increase perceived social support, it is unclear whether remote communication technologies provide an effective substitute from in-person interaction during periods of social distancing. 17 18 It makes intuitive sense that the usefulness of online social support will vary by the type of support offered, degree of social interaction and ‘online communication skills’ of those taking part. Youth workers, for instance, have struggled to keep vulnerable youth engaged in online youth clubs, 19 despite others finding a positive association between amount of digital technology used by individuals during lockdown and perceived social support. 20 Other research has found that more frequent face-to-face contact and phone/video contact both related to lower levels of depression during the time period of March to August 2020, but the negative effect of a lack of contact was greater for those with higher levels of usual sociability. 21 Relatedly, important inequalities in social support exist, such that individuals who occupy more socially disadvantaged positions in society (eg, low socioeconomic status, older people) tend to have less access to social support, 22 potentially exacerbated by COVID-19.

Social and interactional norms

Interactional norms are key relational mechanisms which build trust, belonging and identity within and across groups in a system. Individuals in groups and societies apply meaning by ‘approving, arranging and redefining’ symbols of interaction. 23 A handshake, for instance, is a powerful symbol of trust and equality. Depending on context, not shaking hands may symbolise a failure to extend friendship, or a failure to reach agreement. The norms governing these symbols represent shared values and identity; and mutual understanding of these symbols enables individuals to achieve orderly interactions, establish supportive relationship accountability and connect socially. 24 25

Physical distancing measures to contain the spread of COVID-19 radically altered these norms of interaction, particularly those used to convey trust, affinity, empathy and respect (eg, hugging, physical comforting). 26 As epidemic waves rose and fell, the work to negotiate these norms required intense cognitive effort; previously taken-for-granted interactions were re-examined, factoring in current restriction levels, own and (assumed) others’ vulnerability and tolerance of risk. This created awkwardness, and uncertainty, for example, around how to bring closure to an in-person interaction or convey warmth. The instability in scripted ways of interacting created particular strain for individuals who already struggled to encode and decode interactions with others (eg, those who are deaf or have autism spectrum disorder); difficulties often intensified by mask wearing. 27

Large social gatherings—for example, weddings, school assemblies, sporting events—also present key opportunities for affirming and assimilating interactional norms, building cohesion and shared identity and facilitating cooperation across social groups. 28 Online ‘equivalents’ do not easily support ‘social-bonding’ activities such as singing and dancing, and rarely enable chance/spontaneous one-on-one conversations with peripheral/weaker network ties (see the Social networks section) which can help strengthen bonds across a larger network. The loss of large gatherings to celebrate rites of passage (eg, bar mitzvah, weddings) has additional relational costs since these events are performed by and for communities to reinforce belonging, and to assist in transitioning to new phases of life. 29 The loss of interaction with diverse others via community and large group gatherings also reduces intergroup contact, which may then tend towards more prejudiced outgroup attitudes. While online interaction can go some way to mimicking these interaction norms, there are key differences. A sense of anonymity, and lack of in-person emotional cues, tends to support norms of polarisation and aggression in expressing differences of opinion online. And while online platforms have potential to provide intergroup contact, the tendency of much social media to form homogeneous ‘echo chambers’ can serve to further reduce intergroup contact. 30 31

Intimacy relates to the feeling of emotional connection and closeness with other human beings. Emotional connection, through romantic, friendship or familial relationships, fulfils a basic human need 32 and strongly benefits health, including reduced stress levels, improved mental health, lowered blood pressure and reduced risk of heart disease. 32 33 Intimacy can be fostered through familiarity, feeling understood and feeling accepted by close others. 34

Intimacy via companionship and closeness is fundamental to mental well-being. Positively, the COVID-19 pandemic has offered opportunities for individuals to (re)connect and (re)strengthen close relationships within their household via quality time together, following closure of many usual external social activities. Research suggests that the first full UK lockdown period led to a net gain in the quality of steady relationships at a population level, 35 but amplified existing inequalities in relationship quality. 35 36 For some in single-person households, the absence of a companion became more conspicuous, leading to feelings of loneliness and lower mental well-being. 37 38 Additional pandemic-related relational strain 39 40 resulted, for some, in the initiation or intensification of domestic abuse. 41 42

Physical touch is another key aspect of intimacy, a fundamental human need crucial in maintaining and developing intimacy within close relationships. 34 Restrictions on social interactions severely restricted the number and range of people with whom physical affection was possible. The reduction in opportunity to give and receive affectionate physical touch was not experienced equally. Many of those living alone found themselves completely without physical contact for extended periods. The deprivation of physical touch is evidenced to take a heavy emotional toll. 43 Even in future, once physical expressions of affection can resume, new levels of anxiety over germs may introduce hesitancy into previously fluent blending of physical and verbal intimate social connections. 44

The pandemic also led to shifts in practices and norms around sexual relationship building and maintenance, as individuals adapted and sought alternative ways of enacting sexual intimacy. This too is important, given that intimate sexual activity has known benefits for health. 45 46 Given that social restrictions hinged on reducing household mixing, possibilities for partnered sexual activity were primarily guided by living arrangements. While those in cohabiting relationships could potentially continue as before, those who were single or in non-cohabiting relationships generally had restricted opportunities to maintain their sexual relationships. Pornography consumption and digital partners were reported to increase since lockdown. 47 However, online interactions are qualitatively different from in-person interactions and do not provide the same opportunities for physical intimacy.

Recommendations and conclusions

In the sections above we have outlined the ways in which COVID-19 has impacted social relationships, showing how relational mechanisms key to health have been undermined. While some of the damage might well self-repair after the pandemic, there are opportunities inherent in deliberative efforts to build back in ways that facilitate greater resilience in social and community relationships. We conclude by making three recommendations: one regarding public health responses to the pandemic; and two regarding social recovery.

Recommendation 1: explicitly count the relational cost of public health policies to control the pandemic

Effective handling of a pandemic recognises that social, economic and health concerns are intricately interwoven. It is clear that future research and policy attention must focus on the social consequences. As described above, policies which restrict physical mixing across households carry heavy and unequal relational costs. These include for individuals (eg, loss of intimate touch), dyads (eg, loss of warmth, comfort), networks (eg, restricted access to support) and communities (eg, loss of cohesion and identity). Such costs—and their unequal impact—should not be ignored in short-term efforts to control an epidemic. Some public health responses—restrictions on international holiday travel and highly efficient test and trace systems—have relatively small relational costs and should be prioritised. At a national level, an earlier move to proportionate restrictions, and investment in effective test and trace systems, may help prevent escalation of spread to the point where a national lockdown or tight restrictions became an inevitability. Where policies with relational costs are unavoidable, close attention should be paid to the unequal relational impact for those whose personal circumstances differ from normative assumptions of two adult families. This includes consideration of whether expectations are fair (eg, for those who live alone), whether restrictions on social events are equitable across age group, religious/ethnic groupings and social class, and also to ensure that the language promoted by such policies (eg, households; families) is not exclusionary. 48 49 Forethought to unequal impacts on social relationships should thus be integral to the work of epidemic preparedness teams.

Recommendation 2: intelligently balance online and offline ways of relating

A key ingredient for well-being is ‘getting together’ in a physical sense. This is fundamental to a human need for intimate touch, physical comfort, reinforcing interactional norms and providing practical support. Emerging evidence suggests that online ways of relating cannot simply replace physical interactions. But online interaction has many benefits and for some it offers connections that did not exist previously. In particular, online platforms provide new forms of support for those unable to access offline services because of mobility issues (eg, older people) or because they are geographically isolated from their support community (eg, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) youth). Ultimately, multiple forms of online and offline social interactions are required to meet the needs of varying groups of people (eg, LGBTQ, older people). Future research and practice should aim to establish ways of using offline and online support in complementary and even synergistic ways, rather than veering between them as social restrictions expand and contract. Intelligent balancing of online and offline ways of relating also pertains to future policies on home and flexible working. A decision to switch to wholesale or obligatory homeworking should consider the risk to relational ‘group properties’ of the workplace community and their impact on employees’ well-being, focusing in particular on unequal impacts (eg, new vs established employees). Intelligent blending of online and in-person working is required to achieve flexibility while also nurturing supportive networks at work. Intelligent balance also implies strategies to build digital literacy and minimise digital exclusion, as well as coproducing solutions with intended beneficiaries.

Recommendation 3: build stronger and sustainable localised communities

In balancing offline and online ways of interacting, there is opportunity to capitalise on the potential for more localised, coherent communities due to scaled-down travel, homeworking and local focus that will ideally continue after restrictions end. There are potential economic benefits after the pandemic, such as increased trade as home workers use local resources (eg, coffee shops), but also relational benefits from stronger relationships around the orbit of the home and neighbourhood. Experience from previous crises shows that community volunteer efforts generated early on will wane over time in the absence of deliberate work to maintain them. Adequately funded partnerships between local government, third sector and community groups are required to sustain community assets that began as a direct response to the pandemic. Such partnerships could work to secure green spaces and indoor (non-commercial) meeting spaces that promote community interaction. Green spaces in particular provide a triple benefit in encouraging physical activity and mental health, as well as facilitating social bonding. 50 In building local communities, small community networks—that allow for diversity and break down ingroup/outgroup views—may be more helpful than the concept of ‘support bubbles’, which are exclusionary and less sustainable in the longer term. Rigorously designed intervention and evaluation—taking a systems approach—will be crucial in ensuring scale-up and sustainability.

The dramatic change to social interaction necessitated by efforts to control the spread of COVID-19 created stark challenges but also opportunities. Our essay highlights opportunities for learning, both to ensure the equity and humanity of physical restrictions, and to sustain the salutogenic effects of social relationships going forward. The starting point for capitalising on this learning is recognition of the disruption to relational mechanisms as a key part of the socioeconomic and health impact of the pandemic. In recovery planning, a general rule is that what is good for decreasing health inequalities (such as expanding social protection and public services and pursuing green inclusive growth strategies) 4 will also benefit relationships and safeguard relational mechanisms for future generations. Putting this into action will require political will.

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Ford T , et al
Riordan R ,
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↵ (ONS), O.f.N.S., Domestic abuse during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, England and Wales . Available: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/articles/domesticabuseduringthecoronaviruscovid19pandemicenglandandwales/november2020
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Twitter @karenmaxSPHSU, @Mark_McCann, @Rwilsonlowe, @KMitchinGlasgow

Contributors EL and KM led on the manuscript conceptualisation, review and editing. SP, KM, CB, RBP, RL, MM, JR, KS and RW-L contributed to drafting and revising the article. All authors assisted in revising the final draft.

Funding The research reported in this publication was supported by the Medical Research Council (MC_UU_00022/1, MC_UU_00022/3) and the Chief Scientist Office (SPHSU11, SPHSU14). EL is also supported by MRC Skills Development Fellowship Award (MR/S015078/1). KS and MM are also supported by a Medical Research Council Strategic Award (MC_PC_13027).

Competing interests None declared.

Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.

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Writing about COVID-19 in a college admission essay

by: Venkates Swaminathan | Updated: September 14, 2020

Print article

Writing about COVID-19 in your college admission essay

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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The Coronavirus Crisis

Personal essay: coronavirus lockdown is a 'living hell'.

A Resident Of Wuhan

Editor's note: The author of this essay asked for anonymity for fear of reprisals by authorities for speaking critically of the Chinese government.

The government lockdown orders in Wuhan, China, have emptied the city's streets. Stringer for NPR hide caption

The government lockdown orders in Wuhan, China, have emptied the city's streets.

As residents of Wuhan, China, my family and I are living in hell.

The city has been locked down for more than a month. Every night before falling asleep I have been confronted by an unreal feeling and many questions:

Read This Essay In Chinese

To read this essay in Chinese, click here.

I know that coronavirus is the reason for the lockdown — but did life in Wuhan have to become a living hell?

Why were we notified about the city lockdown at 2 a.m. on the second to last morning before the Lunar New Year?

Why have I not been given any instructions from a government officer about how to cope when an entire city is on lockdown?

I'm nearly 30 years old. My family members and I have devoted ourselves to our jobs to build a better life — and we have largely succeeded. There's only a little more to do before we reach the level of middle class.

But along the way, things did not go exactly as I'd hoped. I have been working hard in school since I was small. My dream was to become a journalist, and I passed the test to enter the best school for journalism in China.

After school, I learned that government supervision of the media meant that telling the truth was not an option. So I gave up my dream and turned to another career.

I kept telling myself that my hard work would reward me in my personal life. And to protect myself, I decided to shut up, to be silent about politics — even when I saw people treated unfairly by the government. I thought that if I followed that path, I would be secure, I would be one of the fortunate ones.

Now I realize that this is an illusion. A secure life is not an option with a political system that does not give us freedom to speak out and that does not communicate with us truthfully.

At the moment when the city was first locked down, I hoped with all my heart that China's political system, known for concentrating resources to get big jobs done, could save the Wuhanese. But infected patients were treated in the hospital in Wuhan as early as the beginning of December, and for unknown reasons, the government held off informing the public and taking effective action.

So they missed the best window of prevention due to this cover-up.

That knowledge has made me fall into desperation. The order to lock down the city appeared from nowhere on Jan. 23 at 2 a.m., without any sign or explanation to residents — even though everyone knew what was up.

People rushed to shop at 24-hour convenience stores at 3 a.m. to gather necessary food and other items. We tried every method to escape from Wuhan, but the cage was already locked.

On new year's eve, Jan. 24, I watched the glorious performances from a gala aired on CCTV, Chinese television. But our celebratory meal was sparse, pieced together from the few ingredients I'd been able to buy in that last-minute shopping trip.

Then on the second day of the new year, another order arrived out of the blue, notifying us that the Wuhanese shall not drive. But this order only survived for less than six hours — perhaps because the authorities realized that, with public transportation shut down, cars would be needed to drive medical staffers to work and back home. So community officers called upon residents of Wuhan to provide rides for many of these workers — and to get permits to do this driving. Under the pressure of massive criticism, the government had to revoke this order for residents to provide rides.

Other orders were issued that reflected the chaos. Residents were asked to donate rice and oil to feed the medical staffers at Wuhan's top hospital since there was not enough food to guarantee meals for them. But we are the taxpayers. Shouldn't the government be able to provide?

From former schoolmates who now work in the medical profession, I learned that medical workers were not given medical supplies and were exposed to a risk of death. Many people wonder: Why didn't they go on strike? It is because they were informed that if they went on strike, their licenses to practice medicine would be revoked and their family members' jobs would be affected.

Before this coronavirus, I always thought it was OK to sacrifice some level of democracy and freedom for better living conditions. But now I have changed my attitude. Without democracy and freedom, the truth of the outbreak in Wuhan would never be known.

What has happened in Wuhan is as if your house caught on fire and all your neighbors knew but forbade you from jumping out of the window. Only until the fire is out of control, and the entire town ablaze, do they slowly begin taking responsibility while highlighting their own heroic efforts.

Not everyone has the same privileges and rights. Because I knew how to get outside of the Great Firewall that blocks the Internet, I was able to obtain masks.

The younger generations, born after 1995 and in the 2000s, have good impressions about the Chinese system, putting the nation before all because they have been living in an era of prosperity and have yet to experience adversity.

The things that happened during this outbreak have greatly surprised those kids. For example, a young man scolded others on Weibo in the early days of the outbreak. He accused them of spreading rumors and argued that if we don't trust the government, there is nothing we can trust. Later, he said, when a member of his family was infected with the coronavirus but was unable to get treatment in the overcrowded hospital, he cursed and called for help.

When Li Wenliang, one of the doctors who first reported a mysterious SARS-like illness, died of the disease himself, a student commented on the Internet: "It was just the virus that killed him, so we should focus on the epidemics." But then the student's dormitory was appropriated for quarantine patients — and he was shocked and dismayed.

This is the lesson these young people are learning. When someone says we can accomplish something but we must pay a price, do not rush to applaud.

One day you may become the price that is paid.

There is a saying in Chinese that has taken on new meaning in this coronavirus era: "When the stick hits my own head, I finally understand the pain — and why some others once cried out of pain."

Perhaps it is true that only China can build a hospital in 10 days, only China can mobilize so many people to devote themselves to the anti-epidemic agenda, only China can lock down a city with millions of people at lightning speed.

But people are not thinking critically. They do not understand that if we had human rights, democracy and freedom, we would have learned about what happened in Wuhan one month earlier. And the first whistleblower would not have died for nothing.

coronavirus

Health with Elle

A publish.illinois.edu site.

How I Spent My Time During the COVID-19 Lockdown

Being a college student during the COVID-19 lockdown is challenging to say the least. From online classes to trying to stay in touch with my friends that are still in Illinois, the past couple of weeks have felt very wrong. While it first felt like an extended break, the severity of everything is setting in and it feels very much unlike a break at all.

So, here’s how I’ve been spending my time during the COVID-19 lockdown!

I have been trying to keep a “normal” class schedule to keep my school days feeling real.
I have spent a lot of time baking and learning new cooking techniques. The other day I made homemade pasta!
Since all of my friends are still in Illinois, I have been taking the time to write them letters, since those feel more personal than texts.
Luckily, it’s been warm here, so I have been getting in a lot of walks.
This lockdown has given me a chance to catch up on reading. Some of my current favorites are “The Moth Collective: All These Wonders” and “Living Danishly”.
I have also been trying my hand at at home workouts, and all of this free time has given me the opportunity to try a lot of new things! Some that I have really enjoyed have been dance cardio , POP pilates , and yoga flows. This lockdown is the perfect time to develop new workout habits and get into a more regimented routine.

While I don’t think anyone would ever choose to be this restricted, I am really grateful that this break has given me the opportunity to slow down and get very in tune with myself!

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South Africa: Challenges and successes of the COVID-19 lockdown

Afrique du sud : défis et succès du confinement liés au covid-19, nancy stiegler.

a Statistic and Population Studies Department, Faculty of Natural Sciences, University of the Western Cape, Robert-Sobukwe road, Bellville, 7535, South Africa

Jean-Pierre Bouchard

b Institut Psycho-Judiciaire et de Psychopathologie (IPJP)/Institute of Forensic Psychology and Psychopathology, Cadillac hospital centre, 10, avenue Joseph-Caussil, 33410 Cadillac, France

c Unit for Difficult Patients, Cadillac hospital centre, 10, avenue Joseph-Caussil, 33410 Cadillac, France

At the beginning of March 2020, South Africa (59 million inhabitants) was hit by the pandemic of COVID-19 and soon became the most affected country in Africa by the SARS-CoV-2 virus. From one single case on March 5th, the number of cases increased rapidly, forcing the South-African Government to swiftly react and place the country under strict lockdown for six weeks. The strategy of the South African Government bore fruits with a contained spread of the virus. If the number of positive cases at the end of the lockdown reached 5647, the number of fatal casualties was limited to 103 deaths. The lockdown was overall well respected, even if serious problems of food supply soon occurred in informal settlements, leading to riots and confrontation with security forces. Indeed, populations were obedient, but not being able to practice sport or outdoors activities appeared heavy. The constant fear of the poorest not to have enough money to pay rent and buy food (even if the Government organised food parcels’ distributions), and to find less and less work was echoed by the fear of losing jobs among those more privileged. Despite the risk of an economic crisis, the South African Government has continued on the reasonable path of containing the pandemic with ending the lockdown at a slow pace, in five phases.

Résumé

Début mars 2020, l’Afrique du Sud (59 millions d’habitants) est touchée par la pandémie de COVID-19 pour vite devenir le pays d’Afrique le plus contaminé par le virus SARS-CoV-2. D’un cas positif le 5 mars, le nombre de cas a augmenté rapidement, forçant le gouvernement sud-africain à réagir rapidement en plaçant le pays en confinement strict pendant six semaines. La stratégie du gouvernement sud-africain a porté ses fruits en limitant la propagation du virus. Si le nombre de cas positifs confirmés à la fin du confinement, le 30 avril, a atteint 5 647, le nombre de morts connus dû au virus s’est limité à 103. Le confinement fut en général bien respecté, même s’il a été entaché de sérieux problèmes de ravitaillement en nourriture dans les bidonvilles, donnant lieu à des émeutes et des échauffourées avec les forces de l’ordre. Les populations ont été obéissantes, même s’il fut difficile de ne pas pouvoir sortir et pratiquer un sport ou des activités de plein air. La peur constante des plus démunis de ne pas avoir assez d’argent pour payer le loyer ou acheter de la nourriture (même si le gouvernement a organisé des distributions de colis de ravitaillement) et de ne pouvoir travailler a trouvé écho chez les plus avantagés qui redoutaient de perdre leur emploi. La plus grande crainte était pour tous de tomber malade ou qu’un membre de la famille soit infecté. Grâce à l’interdiction des boissons alcoolisées, la violence domestique semblait avoir diminué, surtout dans les zones les plus pauvres. Les personnes, qui étaient confinées avec des membres de leur famille, étaient systématiquement plus optimistes que celles qui étaient confinées seules. Les confinées en famille avaient des journées remplies d’activités interpersonnelles (une fois qu’elles avaient fini de travailler/étudier à distance), alors que les personnes seules étaient plus impliquées dans des activités génératrices d’anxiété comme lire, regarder les nouvelles tout au long de la journée et réfléchir à la situation. Malgré le risque d’une crise économique, le gouvernement sud-africain a décidé de continuer sur la voie raisonnable du contrôle de la pandémie en déconfinant de façon très lente la population, avec un plan en cinq phases.

1. South Africa hit by the COVID-19 pandemic

South Africa has not been spared by the COVID-19 pandemic. In a context of global public-health disaster, it is interesting to see how the most affected country in Africa dealt with the crisis.

South African population is currently estimated at 59 million [17] . This population is rather young, with a median age of 27.6 years old [16] , hiding important disparities between provinces. The Eastern Cape, the poorest province in the country, is also the youngest one with a median age of 21 years old, whereas, in the more developed provinces of Gauteng and Western Cape, the median age is at 29 and 28 years old, respectively.

In the same vein, and because of its segregationist history, South Africa is still the most unequal country in the world with a Gini-coefficient of 0.63 [20] . This translates, for instance, in 14% of South Africans living in informal settlements [17] , without proper housing, limited access to sanitation and water and an overall unemployment rate of 29% [17] .

2. The lockdown

It is in this context that South Africa entered the fight against COVID-19 in March 2020, with the first declared positive case on March 5th in KwaZulu Natal. This person, considered as “patient” zero, came back to South Africa on 1 March from Milan, Italy. Faced by a rapid increase of cases in the following days, the South African Government swiftly reacted and imposed on 23 March a strict lockdown on the population for three weeks starting on 26 March. At that stage, the number of official positive cases had risen to 554, without any deaths.

The lockdown, further extended to 30 April, was the most restrictive on the African continent, and one of the most restrictive in the world. Shops, restaurants and non-essential businesses were closed, the population was only authorised to leave home for essential grocery shopping and medical reasons; no social, outdoors activities, sports or dog-walking were authorised, and a total ban on alcohol and cigarettes was imposed.

The lockdown was at the image of the country: diverse and contrasting. Among the middle class, the lockdown was particularly well respected [19] . People, in general, stayed at home, managed to work remotely with access to the Internet and families were often happy together.

The situation was otherwise in poorest areas and informal settlements [12] . Promiscuity was a problem together with lack of proper sanitation [8] , which made everybody fear for a human catastrophe if the virus was to spread in these communities. In actual facts, the main issue resided in the lack of food and financial resources, which lead to “hunger riots” [7] , shop looting [6] and confrontation with police [1] .

Distribution of food parcels [15] for the poorest communities was organised, but it seems that for many, it was not enough, even though several associations and individuals helped in providing food and helping with distribution [14] .

Two trends in domestic violence were noted: sharp decline in domestic abuse due to alcohol, whereas domestic violence against women increased by the third week of lockdown [10] . Overall, violent crimes decreased [22] , to even see gangs working together to feed communities [21] .

Contrarily to what sometimes happened in Europe, it seems that South Africa did not suffer from ostracism of medical professionals because of the fear that those medical staff could carry the virus [2] , [4] . The respect of South Africans for nurses and medical doctors together with the limited number of positive cases did not open the door to inappropriate behaviours [18] . However, medical staff did not go through these first two months of pandemic without casualties: more than 500 health workers were tested positive. As per 6 May, twenty-six medical doctors had been hospitalised and two health workers, a doctor and a nurse had died from the coronavirus [11] . As a result, nurses refused to continue working in some clinics close to Cape Town when some colleagues of them were tested positive [9] .

3. A quick assessment: how did people react to the lockdown?

Overall, the response from South Africa to the dread of the pandemic seemed quite organised, and the response of the population was calm and composed. Considering this situation, we tried to collect some information running a small quick assessment to better understand the feeling of the selected individuals regarding the COVID-19 pandemic and the lockdown.

Of course, such a quick assessment did not mean to replace a large-scale socio-economic and demographic survey, but at that stage, we aimed, at least, at reflecting on personal feelings.

This quick assessment took place on 24 April, questions were sent via emails and text messages to more than forty people from different backgrounds and residing in different areas of the country. Respondents were from the top middle-class, middle class and poorer backgrounds. Living arrangements also covered different settings with some respondents being confined with families while others were alone, in formal or informal housing. Age-wise, we reached people from twenty to seventy-five years old.

We were interested to know the conditions of the lockdown, and the state of mind of people confined, at that time, for little more than a month. Thirty-two people responded on the same day to the set of six questions: “According to your own experience: Was the lockdown well respected?; What were the biggest issues/challenges with the lockdown?; Was there a lot of “ misconducts” reported to the police?; Was there any intimidation for nurses/assistant nurses/doctors/people working at hospital, for instance asking them to move house or to stay totally indoors, etc?; Was there an increase in domestic violence?; Please share anything that you consider important to note on a human/psychological point of view” .

Overall, responses were very homogenous based on the situation of the respondents.

Respondents from the middle class living in formal housing answered that the lockdown was strictly respected in their areas. Many of them had not gone out during the last four weeks, even not for grocery shopping that they’d rather ordered online to be delivered to their doors. Staying indoors was considered a real issue by all respondents from the middle class, who were all missing sport and outdoors activities.

In informal settlements, respondents from poorer backgrounds stated that the lockdown was not always respected as people needed to find food. Those same respondents further stated that the biggest fear was not to be able to return to work, or find work, to earn a leaving to feed their families. Such a worry was shared by all respondents to a certain extent. Those with stable jobs were also concerned about the economic situation and the possibility to lose their jobs, but they also systematically stated fearing for the situation of the less privileged whom they knew and who were fighting for food. The biggest fear remained for all to fall sick or that a family member became infected.

None of the people interviewed, even in informal settlements, stated problems with reporting cases of misconduct to police: the consistent answer was that the lockdown was generally well respected, so there was no need of reporting to police.

Concerning domestic violence, respondents generally agreed that thanks to the ban of alcoholic beverages, domestic violence seemed to have decreased, and this especially in poorer areas.

Finally, we observed that those who were confined with family members were systemically more optimistic than those confined alone. Those staying with families explained that their days were filled with family activities (once they had finished working/studying remotely), whereas those alone were getting bored and were more involved with anxiety inducing activities such as reading and watching the news throughout the day, and thinking about the situation.

4. Ending lockdown

On 24 April, President Ramaphosa unveiled a deconfinement plan in phases or “alert levels”. This plan, organised in five stages, made provision for gradual reopening of the economy and social life as per 1 May. Stage four allowed reopening of a limited number of economic sectors with high economic or social value, authorised again trading of cigarettes and alcohol at certain times, but maintained confinement of the general population. Jogging and short walks were allowed (on the morning of 1 May, cities’ boardwalks were packed with joggers and walkers), but a curfew was implemented between 20 h and 5am. Subsequent phases were to see restrictions lifted as the alert levels decrease. This clear system was organised in a way that the alert levels would move up or down depending on the level of the pandemic.

5. South Africa on the way to winning the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic?

With challenges and many successes, South Africa has managed to flatten the curve of COVID-19 pandemic [5] , as displayed below. At the end of the lockdown “phase 5”, on 30 April, the country bewailed 5647 confirmed positive cases and 103 officially declared deaths ( Fig. 1 ).

An external file that holds a picture, illustration, etc.
Object name is gr1_lrg.jpg

COVID-19 confirmed cases in South Africa. 5 March to 7 May 2020.

To continue containing the crisis, the Government chose to “deconfine” at a slow pace, respecting a five-phase plan. South Africa also received support from Cuban medical doctors that arrived in the country on 26 April [3] . South African authorities planned for transformation of stadiums into hospitals [13] in case of outbreak. Economically wise, the Government projected to inject 26 billion USD into the economy, especially to help small and medium businesses, which suffered from the halt in trading.

The country seemed to have successfully controlled and planned the different phases of the pandemic. As per 7 May 2020, the next step was to enter winter season and its uncertainties and to deal with relaxed restrictions, hoping that the curve of the pandemic remained stable and soon decreased.

Disclosure of interest

The authors declare that they have no competing interest.

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Home > History Community Special Collections > Remembering COVID-19 Community Archive > Community Reflections > 21

Community Reflections

My life experience during the covid-19 pandemic.

Melissa Blanco Follow

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Undergraduate, Class of 2024

My content explains what my life was like during the last seven months of the Covid-19 pandemic and how it affected my life both positively and negatively. It also explains what it was like when I graduated from High School and how I want the future generations to remember the Class of 2020.

Class assignment, Western Civilization (Dr. Marino).

Recommended Citation

Blanco, Melissa, "My Life Experience During the Covid-19 Pandemic" (2020). Community Reflections . 21. https://digitalcommons.sacredheart.edu/covid19-reflections/21

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Lockdown: A Final Assessment

Economy wide COVID-19 lockdown policies, which included stay-at-home orders, school and business closures, along with mask and other non-pharmaceutical interventions, were a radical and untried social policy. Over the two years that followed the initial declaration of a pandemic an exceptional amount of research was done on all things related to COVID-19, and this included the costs and benefits of lockdowns.

The benefits of lockdowns were originally expressed in terms of mitigating the rush to hospitals and preventing the health system from being overrun. Later many thought that the virus might actually be eliminated by lockdowns (so-called “zero-COVID”). Initial benefit estimates were based on simple models that predicted the number of hospitalizations and deaths without lockdowns. Initial estimates of the costs of the lockdowns were based only on lost GDP from reduced labor-force participation. This led to grossly inaccurate cost/benefit estimates.

Examining the research over the past two years reveals several robust and clear findings:

Epidemiological models that do not include human behaviour changes in response to a novel virus drastically over-estimate the number of hospitalizations and deaths. All of the early models made death predictions that were off by factors of 10 or more. The infamous Imperial College of London model, led by Neil Ferguson, predicted that with full lockdowns in place there would be 132,687 COVID-19 deaths in Canada by July 30, 2020; in fact, by that date there were 9,019 actual deaths.
Changes in people’s behaviour in response to the arrival of the virus were immediate, and around the world and in every country infected by COVID-19 changes in behaviour meant that an endemic state was reached in the spring of 2020.
Behaviour effects were not limited to acting cautiously. Other behaviour changes including incomplete compliance with mandates—and compliance levels varied over the course of the pandemic. These changes in behaviour meant that deaths and hospitalizations were not substantially different in jurisdictions with different degrees of lockdown when other factors were controlled for.
Ultimately, estimates of the benefit of lockdowns in terms of lives saved were made based on data. Analysts used many different procedures in an attempt to identify the causal effect of lockdowns. Over and over, findings showed only small positive effects on death rates. The most recent and thorough meta-analysis found that after combining all lockdown effects there was only an average reduction in mortality of 3.2 percent. All of the lockdown efforts amounted to almost nothing.
The costs of lockdown go far beyond the lost GDP. In areas like worldwide food insecurity, international trade reductions, reduced travel, increased domestic violence, increased drug/alcohol/mental health issues, and employment disruptions, we are only aware of the costs and no estimates have yet been made of the level of these costs. Much work has been done on the effect lockdowns have had on children’s physical well-being, lost education, early development, IQ, and social abilities. Again, no widespread estimates of the actual size of these losses have been made, but it is generally acknowledged that children and youth have suffered under the lockdowns.
Lockdowns created collateral deaths. Behaviour changes in the face of COVID-19 and lockdowns included forms of self-protection that often ended up increasing mortality. These behaviour changes included missing regular medical checkups out of fear of contracting the disease. Estimates in the US show that there were 171,000 excess non-COVID-19 deaths through to the end of 2021. By that time the US had recorded 825,929 COVID-19 deaths. However, if lockdowns only reduce deaths by 3.2 percent, then only 27,303 lives were saved by lockdowns. Just on collateral deaths alone the cost/benefit ratio of lockdown is 171,000/27,303 = 6.26.

Widespread, economy-wide lockdown policies were a disaster. They had only marginal effects on the ultimate number of deaths, but imposed enormous costs.

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Coronavirus has led to an explosion of new words and phrases – and that helps us cope

Associate Professor in Sociolinguistics, Birmingham City University

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Robert Lawson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Birmingham City University provides funding as a member of The Conversation UK.

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As the world comes to grips with the “new normal” coronavirus has wrought on our towns, cities and communities, society faces the challenge of figuring out how to talk about the impact the virus is having on our everyday lives.

Coronavirus has led to an explosion of new words and phrases, both in English and in other languages . This new vocabulary helps us make sense of the changes that have suddenly become part of our everyday lives.

Established terms such as “self-isolating”, “pandemic”, “quarantine”, “lockdown” and “key workers” have increased in use, while coronavirus/COVID-19 neologisms are being coined quicker than ever.

These include “covidiot” (someone ignoring public health advice), “covideo party” (online parties via Zoom or Skype), and “covexit” (the strategy for exiting lockdown), while coronavirus has acquired new descriptors – including “the ‘rona” and “Miley Cyrus” (Cockney rhyming slang).

Other terms deal with the material changes in our everyday lives, from “Blursday” (an unspecified day because of lockdown’s disorientating effect on time), to “zoombombing” (hijacking a Zoom videocall). “WFH” (working from home) and “quaranteams” (online teams created during lockdown) are helping people deal with changing work circumstances.

This is to say nothing of the metaphors people are using to talk about our response to Coronavirus, from war metaphors – for example, Boris Johnson’s briefing where he stated that: “This enemy can be deadly, but it is also beatable” – to sports , storms , monsters , natural disasters , and more .

Linguists are already starting to analyse these metaphors, while Veronika Koller of Lancaster University is crowdsourcing the non-war metaphors that people use (readers can contribute to this repository via Twitter using the #ReframeCovid hashtag).

Attention has also been paid to how effective different metaphors are in encouraging compliance with public health advice, as well as issues of translation, interpretation and access to healthcare .

The language of social crises

While the scope of lexical innovation in relation to coronavirus is unprecedented, we only need to look to other periods of history to see how such linguistic creativity manifests itself in times of serious social crisis.

World War II gave us “radar” (RAdio Detection And Ranging) as well as “fubar” (Fucked Up Beyond All Recognition), “snafu” (Status Nominal: All Fucked Up, although Situation Normal All Fucked Up is also a common interpretation).

From Vietnam we got both “clusterfuck” (a mishandled or disorganised situation) and “fragging” (the deliberate killing of an unpopular member of one’s own fighting unit, from the shortening of fragmentation grenade).

More recently, the UK’s departure from the EU (colloquially known as “Brexit”) gave us a variety of terms including “brexiteers”, “remoaners”, and “regrexit” – while conversations were dominated by new concepts such as “backstops”, “hard borders”, and “cliff edges”.

For major health pandemics, the lasting effect on language is usually that the name of the disease enters common parlance, as happened with Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV), Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS), Spanish Flu (1918-1920), SARS (2002-2004), Swine Flu (2009) and others. But coronavirus has flipped the script and appears to be influencing public discourse beyond simply adding a new disease to the dictionary.

Given this process of lexical innovation, there are two questions worth asking: why are new coronavirus-inspired terms coined in the first place? And why have these terms found purchase in our lives so quickly? After all, new words are introduced all the time , but few of them enter the wider public consciousness in the way we’ve seen with coronavirus terminology.

Language unites

In his widely cited article on linguistic creativity , Ronald Carter, former Professor of modern English language at the University of Nottingham, makes the point that “verbal play is often undertaken for humorous purposes, serving in part to bring people closer together”, as well as challenging the “normal” view of things. Carter goes on to argue that inventive language is not just ornamental, but practical.

In a mere three months, coronavirus has fundamentally changed our ways of living. It has closed businesses and transformed our working patterns. This new vocabulary has come to be a utilitarian shorthand for talking about coronavirus-related issues – from the impact the virus has had on our working lives, to the influence of the lockdown measures – or even just a way to poke fun and laugh at the world around us. The outpouring of metaphors, neologisms and lexical innovations we have seen in the past few months points to the fact that linguistic creativity is a key part of language, reshaping our ways of engaging with the world.

This new vocabulary also helps people articulate their worries about the biggest health crisis we have seen in generations. It brings people together around a set of collective cultural reference points – a kind of lexical “social glue”. In the absence of the regular social contact, shared talk is an important part of helping people feel connected to one another.

Perhaps one of the biggest factors in the spread of coronavirus terminology is the fact that we’re more digitally connected than ever before – in a way we weren’t during the SARS outbreak in 2002 or the Swine Flu outbreak in 2009. Instant access social media is now an integral part of our lives – and we share content with friends and family through a variety of social media outlets. The scale of our online connections means that there are now far more opportunities for individuals to coin a new term and share it beyond their immediate local communities.

In times of significant social or civic change, linguistic creativity not only reflects the major preoccupations of the time, but also shows how people gather to talk about new challenges and contexts. As coronavirus rages on, understanding the language surrounding it will be ever more important.

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