200 essay about the new normal

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The “new normal” in education

• Viewpoints/ Controversies
• Published: 24 November 2020
• Volume 51 , pages 3–14, ( 2021 )

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• José Augusto Pacheco   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-4623-6898 1  

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Effects rippling from the Covid 19 emergency include changes in the personal, social, and economic spheres. Are there continuities as well? Based on a literature review (primarily of UNESCO and OECD publications and their critics), the following question is posed: How can one resist the slide into passive technologization and seize the possibility of achieving a responsive, ethical, humane, and international-transformational approach to education? Technologization, while an ongoing and evidently ever-intensifying tendency, is not without its critics, especially those associated with the humanistic tradition in education. This is more apparent now that curriculum is being conceived as a complicated conversation. In a complex and unequal world, the well-being of students requires diverse and even conflicting visions of the world, its problems, and the forms of knowledge we study to address them.

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From the past, we might find our way to a future unforeclosed by the present (Pinar 2019 , p. 12)

Texts regarding this pandemic’s consequences are appearing at an accelerating pace, with constant coverage by news outlets, as well as philosophical, historical, and sociological reflections by public intellectuals worldwide. Ripples from the current emergency have spread into the personal, social, and economic spheres. But are there continuities as well? Is the pandemic creating a “new normal” in education or simply accenting what has already become normal—an accelerating tendency toward technologization? This tendency presents an important challenge for education, requiring a critical vision of post-Covid-19 curriculum. One must pose an additional question: How can one resist the slide into passive technologization and seize the possibility of achieving a responsive, ethical, humane, and international-transformational approach to education?

The ongoing present

Unpredicted except through science fiction, movie scripts, and novels, the Covid-19 pandemic has changed everyday life, caused wide-scale illness and death, and provoked preventive measures like social distancing, confinement, and school closures. It has struck disproportionately at those who provide essential services and those unable to work remotely; in an already precarious marketplace, unemployment is having terrible consequences. The pandemic is now the chief sign of both globalization and deglobalization, as nations close borders and airports sit empty. There are no departures, no delays. Everything has changed, and no one was prepared. The pandemic has disrupted the flow of time and unraveled what was normal. It is the emergence of an event (think of Badiou 2009 ) that restarts time, creates radical ruptures and imbalances, and brings about a contingency that becomes a new necessity (Žižek 2020 ). Such events question the ongoing present.

The pandemic has reshuffled our needs, which are now based on a new order. Whether of short or medium duration, will it end in a return to the “normal” or move us into an unknown future? Žižek contends that “there is no return to normal, the new ‘normal’ will have to be constructed on the ruins of our old lives, or we will find ourselves in a new barbarism whose signs are already clearly discernible” (Žižek 2020 , p. 3).

Despite public health measures, Gil ( 2020 ) observes that the pandemic has so far generated no physical or spiritual upheaval and no universal awareness of the need to change how we live. Techno-capitalism continues to work, though perhaps not as before. Online sales increase and professionals work from home, thereby creating new digital subjectivities and economies. We will not escape the pull of self-preservation, self-regeneration, and the metamorphosis of capitalism, which will continue its permanent revolution (Wells 2020 ). In adapting subjectivities to the recent demands of digital capitalism, the pandemic can catapult us into an even more thoroughly digitalized space, a trend that artificial intelligence will accelerate. These new subjectivities will exhibit increased capacities for voluntary obedience and programmable functioning abilities, leading to a “new normal” benefiting those who are savvy in software-structured social relationships.

The Covid-19 pandemic has submerged us all in the tsunami-like economies of the Cloud. There is an intensification of the allegro rhythm of adaptation to the Internet of Things (Davies, Beauchamp, Davies, and Price 2019 ). For Latour ( 2020 ), the pandemic has become internalized as an ongoing state of emergency preparing us for the next crisis—climate change—for which we will see just how (un)prepared we are. Along with inequality, climate is one of the most pressing issues of our time (OECD 2019a , 2019b ) and therefore its representation in the curriculum is of public, not just private, interest.

Education both reflects what is now and anticipates what is next, recoding private and public responses to crises. Žižek ( 2020 , p. 117) suggests in this regard that “values and beliefs should not be simply ignored: they play an important role and should be treated as a specific mode of assemblage”. As such, education is (post)human and has its (over)determination by beliefs and values, themselves encoded in technology.

Will the pandemic detoxify our addiction to technology, or will it cement that addiction? Pinar ( 2019 , pp. 14–15) suggests that “this idea—that technological advance can overcome cultural, economic, educational crises—has faded into the background. It is our assumption. Our faith prompts the purchase of new technology and assures we can cure climate change”. While waiting for technology to rescue us, we might also remember to look at ourselves. In this way, the pandemic could be a starting point for a more sustainable environment. An intelligent response to climate change, reactivating the humanistic tradition in education, would reaffirm the right to such an education as a global common good (UNESCO 2015a , p. 10):

This approach emphasizes the inclusion of people who are often subject to discrimination – women and girls, indigenous people, persons with disabilities, migrants, the elderly and people living in countries affected by conflict. It requires an open and flexible approach to learning that is both lifelong and life-wide: an approach that provides the opportunity for all to realize their potential for a sustainable future and a life of dignity”.

Pinar ( 2004 , 2009 , 2019 ) concevies of curriculum as a complicated conversation. Central to that complicated conversation is climate change, which drives the need for education for sustainable development and the grooming of new global citizens with sustainable lifestyles and exemplary environmental custodianship (Marope 2017 ).

The new normal

The pandemic ushers in a “new” normal, in which digitization enforces ways of working and learning. It forces education further into technologization, a development already well underway, fueled by commercialism and the reigning market ideology. Daniel ( 2020 , p. 1) notes that “many institutions had plans to make greater use of technology in teaching, but the outbreak of Covid-19 has meant that changes intended to occur over months or years had to be implemented in a few days”.

Is this “new normal” really new or is it a reiteration of the old?

Digital technologies are the visible face of the immediate changes taking place in society—the commercial society—and schools. The immediate solution to the closure of schools is distance learning, with platforms proliferating and knowledge demoted to information to be exchanged (Koopman 2019 ), like a product, a phenomenon predicted decades ago by Lyotard ( 1984 , pp. 4-5):

Knowledge is and will be produced in order to be sold, it is and will be consumed in order to be valued in a new production: in both cases, the goal is exchange. Knowledge ceases to be an end in itself, it loses its use-value.

Digital technologies and economic rationality based on performance are significant determinants of the commercialization of learning. Moving from physical face-to-face presence to virtual contact (synchronous and asynchronous), the learning space becomes disembodied, virtual not actual, impacting both student learning and the organization of schools, which are no longer buildings but websites. Such change is not only coterminous with the pandemic, as the Education 2030 Agenda (UNESCO 2015b ) testified; preceding that was the Delors Report (Delors 1996 ), which recoded education as lifelong learning that included learning to know, learning to do, learning to be, and learning to live together.

Transnational organizations have specified competences for the 21st century and, in the process, have defined disciplinary and interdisciplinary knowledge that encourages global citizenship, through “the supra curriculum at the global, regional, or international comparative level” (Marope 2017 , p. 10). According to UNESCO ( 2017 ):

While the world may be increasingly interconnected, human rights violations, inequality and poverty still threaten peace and sustainability. Global Citizenship Education (GCED) is UNESCO’s response to these challenges. It works by empowering learners of all ages to understand that these are global, not local issues and to become active promoters of more peaceful, tolerant, inclusive, secure and sustainable societies.

These transnational initiatives have not only acknowledged traditional school subjects but have also shifted the curriculum toward timely topics dedicated to understanding the emergencies of the day (Spiller 2017 ). However, for the OECD ( 2019a ), the “new normal” accentuates two ideas: competence-based education, which includes the knowledges identified in the Delors Report , and a new learning framework structured by digital technologies. The Covid-19 pandemic does not change this logic. Indeed, the interdisciplinary skills framework, content and standardized testing associated with the Programme for International Student Assessment of the OECD has become the most powerful tool for prescribing the curriculum. Educationally, “the universal homogenous ‘state’ exists already. Globalization of standardized testing—the most prominent instance of threatening to restructure schools into technological sites of political socialization, conditioning children for compliance to a universal homogeneous state of mind” (Pinar 2019 , p. 2).

In addition to cognitive and practical skills, this “homogenous state of mind” rests on so-called social and emotional skills in the service of learning to live together, affirming global citizenship, and presumably returning agency to students and teachers (OECD 2019a ). According to Marope ( 2017 , p. 22), “this calls for higher flexibility in curriculum development, and for the need to leave space for curricula interpretation, contextualization, and creativity at the micro level of teachers and classrooms”. Heterogeneity is thus enlisted in the service of both economic homogeneity and disciplinary knowledge. Disciplinary knowledge is presented as universal and endowed with social, moral, and cognitive authority. Operational and effective knowledge becomes central, due to the influence of financial lobbies, thereby ensuring that the logic of the market is brought into the practices of schools. As Pestre ( 2013 , p. 21) observed, “the nature of this knowledge is new: what matters is that it makes hic et nunc the action, its effect and not its understanding”. Its functionality follows (presumably) data and evidence-based management.

A new language is thus imposed on education and the curriculum. Such enforced installation of performative language and Big Data lead to effective and profitable operations in a vast market concerned with competence in operational skills (Lyotard 1984 ). This “new normal” curriculum is said to be more horizontal and less hierarchical and radically polycentric with problem-solving produced through social networks, NGOs, transnational organizations, and think tanks (Pestre 2013 ; Williamson 2013 , 2017 ). Untouched by the pandemic, the “new (old) normal” remains based on disciplinary knowledge and enmeshed in the discourse of standards and accountability in education.

Such enforced commercialism reflects and reinforces economic globalization. Pinar ( 2011 , p. 30) worries that “the globalization of instrumental rationality in education threatens the very existence of education itself”. In his theory, commercialism and the technical instrumentality by which homogenization advances erase education as an embodied experience and the curriculum as a humanistic project. It is a time in which the humanities are devalued as well, as acknowledged by Pinar ( 2019 , p. 19): “In the United States [and in the world] not only does economics replace education—STEM replace the liberal arts as central to the curriculum—there are even politicians who attack the liberal arts as subversive and irrelevant…it can be more precisely characterized as reckless rhetoric of a know-nothing populism”. Replacing in-person dialogical encounters and the educational cultivation of the person (via Bildung and currere ), digital technologies are creating uniformity of learning spaces, in spite of their individualistic tendencies. Of course, education occurs outside schools—and on occasion in schools—but this causal displacement of the centrality of the school implies a devaluation of academic knowledge in the name of diversification of learning spaces.

In society, education, and specifically in the curriculum, the pandemic has brought nothing new but rather has accelerated already existing trends that can be summarized as technologization. Those who can work “remotely” exercise their privilege, since they can exploit an increasingly digital society. They themselves are changed in the process, as their own subjectivities are digitalized, thus predisposing them to a “curriculum of things” (a term coined by Laist ( 2016 ) to describe an object-oriented pedagogical approach), which is organized not around knowledge but information (Koopman 2019 ; Couldry and Mejias 2019 ). This (old) “new normal” was advanced by the OECD, among other international organizations, thus precipitating what some see as “a dynamic and transformative articulation of collective expectations of the purpose, quality, and relevance of education and learning to holistic, inclusive, just, peaceful, and sustainable development, and to the well-being and fulfilment of current and future generations” (Marope 2017 , p. 13). Covid-19, illiberal democracy, economic nationalism, and inaction on climate change, all upend this promise.

Understanding the psychological and cultural complexity of the curriculum is crucial. Without appreciating the infinity of responses students have to what they study, one cannot engage in the complicated conversation that is the curriculum. There must be an affirmation of “not only the individualism of a person’s experience but [of what is] underlining the significance of a person’s response to a course of study that has been designed to ignore individuality in order to buttress nation, religion, ethnicity, family, and gender” (Grumet 2017 , p. 77). Rather than promoting neuroscience as the answer to the problems of curriculum and pedagogy, it is long-past time for rethinking curriculum development and addressing the canonical curriculum question: What knowledge is of most worth from a humanistic perspective that is structured by complicated conversation (UNESCO 2015a ; Pinar 2004 , 2019 )? It promotes respect for diversity and rejection of all forms of (cultural) hegemony, stereotypes, and biases (Pacheco 2009 , 2017 ).

Revisiting the curriculum in the Covid-19 era then expresses the fallacy of the “new normal” but also represents a particular opportunity to promote a different path forward.

Looking to the post-Covid-19 curriculum

Based on the notion of curriculum as a complicated conversation, as proposed by Pinar ( 2004 ), the post-Covid-19 curriculum can seize the possibility of achieving a responsive, ethical, humane education, one which requires a humanistic and internationally aware reconceptualization of curriculum.

While beliefs and values are anchored in social and individual practices (Pinar 2019 , p. 15), education extracts them for critique and reconsideration. For example, freedom and tolerance are not neutral but normative practices, however ideology-free policymakers imagine them to be.

That same sleight-of-hand—value neutrality in the service of a certain normativity—is evident in a digital concept of society as a relationship between humans and non-humans (or posthumans), a relationship not only mediated by but encapsulated within technology: machines interfacing with other machines. This is not merely a technological change, as if it were a quarantined domain severed from society. Technologization is a totalizing digitalization of human experience that includes the structures of society. It is less social than economic, with social bonds now recoded as financial transactions sutured by software. Now that subjectivity is digitalized, the human face has become an exclusively economic one that fabricates the fantasy of rational and free agents—always self-interested—operating in supposedly free markets. Oddly enough, there is no place for a vision of humanistic and internationally aware change. The technological dimension of curriculum is assumed to be the primary area of change, which has been deeply and totally imposed by global standards. The worldwide pandemic supports arguments for imposing forms of control (Žižek 2020 ), including the geolocation of infected people and the suspension—in a state of exception—of civil liberties.

By destroying democracy, the technology of control leads to totalitarianism and barbarism, ending tolerance, difference, and diversity. Remembrance and memory are needed so that historical fascisms (Eley 2020 ) are not repeated, albeit in new disguises (Adorno 2011 ). Technologized education enhances efficiency and ensures uniformity, while presuming objectivity to the detriment of human reflection and singularity. It imposes the running data of the Curriculum of Things and eschews intellectual endeavor, critical attitude, and self-reflexivity.

For those who advocate the primacy of technology and the so-called “free market”, the pandemic represents opportunities not only for profit but also for confirmation of the pervasiveness of human error and proof of the efficiency of the non-human, i.e., the inhuman technology. What may possibly protect children from this inhumanity and their commodification, as human capital, is a humane or humanistic education that contradicts their commodification.

The decontextualized technical vocabulary in use in a market society produces an undifferentiated image in which people are blinded to nuance, distinction, and subtlety. For Pestre, concepts associated with efficiency convey the primacy of economic activity to the exclusion, for instance, of ethics, since those concepts devalue historic (if unrealized) commitments to equality and fraternity by instead emphasizing economic freedom and the autonomy of self-interested individuals. Constructing education as solely economic and technological constitutes a movement toward total efficiency through the installation of uniformity of behavior, devaluing diversity and human creativity.

Erased from the screen is any image of public education as a space of freedom, or as Macdonald ( 1995 , p. 38) holds, any image or concept of “the dignity and integrity of each human”. Instead, what we face is the post-human and the undisputed reign of instrumental reality, where the ends justify the means and human realization is reduced to the consumption of goods and experiences. As Pinar ( 2019 , p. 7) observes: “In the private sphere…. freedom is recast as a choice of consumer goods; in the public sphere, it converts to control and the demand that freedom flourish, so that whatever is profitable can be pursued”. Such “negative” freedom—freedom from constraint—ignores “positive” freedom, which requires us to contemplate—in ethical and spiritual terms—what that freedom is for. To contemplate what freedom is for requires “critical and comprehensive knowledge” (Pestre 2013 , p. 39) not only instrumental and technical knowledge. The humanities and the arts would reoccupy the center of such a curriculum and not be related to its margins (Westbury 2008 ), acknowledging that what is studied within schools is a complicated conversation among those present—including oneself, one’s ancestors, and those yet to be born (Pinar 2004 ).

In an era of unconstrained technologization, the challenge facing the curriculum is coding and STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics), with technology dislodging those subjects related to the human. This is not a classical curriculum (although it could be) but one focused on the emergencies of the moment–namely, climate change, the pandemic, mass migration, right-wing populism, and economic inequality. These timely topics, which in secondary school could be taught as short courses and at the elementary level as thematic units, would be informed by the traditional school subjects (yes, including STEM). Such a reorganization of the curriculum would allow students to see how academic knowledge enables them to understand what is happening to them and their parents in their own regions and globally. Such a cosmopolitan curriculum would prepare children to become citizens not only of their own nations but of the world. This citizenship would simultaneously be subjective and social, singular and universal (Marope 2020 ). Pinar ( 2019 , p. 5) reminds us that “the division between private and public was first blurred then erased by technology”:

No longer public, let alone sacred, morality becomes a matter of privately held values, sometimes monetized as commodities, statements of personal preference, often ornamental, sometimes self-servingly instrumental. Whatever their function, values were to be confined to the private sphere. The public sphere was no longer the civic square but rather, the marketplace, the site where one purchased whatever one valued.

New technological spaces are the universal center for (in)human values. The civic square is now Amazon, Alibaba, Twitter, WeChat, and other global online corporations. The facts of our human condition—a century-old phrase uncanny in its echoes today—can be studied in schools as an interdisciplinary complicated conversation about public issues that eclipse private ones (Pinar 2019 ), including social injustice, inequality, democracy, climate change, refugees, immigrants, and minority groups. Understood as a responsive, ethical, humane and transformational international educational approach, such a post-Covid-19 curriculum could be a “force for social equity, justice, cohesion, stability, and peace” (Marope 2017 , p. 32). “Unchosen” is certainly the adjective describing our obligations now, as we are surrounded by death and dying and threatened by privation or even starvation, as economies collapse and food-supply chains are broken. The pandemic may not mean deglobalization, but it surely accentuates it, as national borders are closed, international travel is suspended, and international trade is impacted by the accompanying economic crisis. On the other hand, economic globalization could return even stronger, as could the globalization of education systems. The “new normal” in education is the technological order—a passive technologization—and its expansion continues uncontested and even accelerated by the pandemic.

Two Greek concepts, kronos and kairos , allow a discussion of contrasts between the quantitative and the qualitative in education. Echoing the ancient notion of kronos are the technologically structured curriculum values of quantity and performance, which are always assessed by a standardized accountability system enforcing an “ideology of achievement”. “While kronos refers to chronological or sequential time, kairos refers to time that might require waiting patiently for a long time or immediate and rapid action; which course of action one chooses will depend on the particular situation” (Lahtinen 2009 , p. 252).

For Macdonald ( 1995 , p. 51), “the central ideology of the schools is the ideology of achievement …[It] is a quantitative ideology, for even to attempt to assess quality must be quantified under this ideology, and the educational process is perceived as a technically monitored quality control process”.

Self-evaluation subjectively internalizes what is useful and in conformity with the techno-economy and its so-called standards, increasingly enforcing technical (software) forms. If recoded as the Internet of Things, this remains a curriculum in allegiance with “order and control” (Doll 2013 , p. 314) School knowledge is reduced to an instrument for economic success, employing compulsory collaboration to ensure group think and conformity. Intertwined with the Internet of Things, technological subjectivity becomes embedded in software, redesigned for effectiveness, i.e., or use-value (as Lyotard predicted).

The Curriculum of Things dominates the Internet, which is simultaneously an object and a thing (see Heidegger 1967 , 1971 , 1977 ), a powerful “technological tool for the process of knowledge building” (Means 2008 , p. 137). Online learning occupies the subjective zone between the “curriculum-as-planned” and the “curriculum-as-lived” (Pinar 2019 , p. 23). The world of the curriculum-as-lived fades, as the screen shifts and children are enmeshed in an ocularcentric system of accountability and instrumentality.

In contrast to kronos , the Greek concept of kairos implies lived time or even slow time (Koepnick 2014 ), time that is “self-reflective” (Macdonald 1995 , p. 103) and autobiographical (Pinar 2009 , 2004), thus inspiring “curriculum improvisation” (Aoki 2011 , p. 375), while emphasizing “the plurality of subjectivities” (Grumet 2017 , p. 80). Kairos emphasizes singularity and acknowledges particularities; it is skeptical of similarities. For Shew ( 2013 , p. 48), “ kairos is that which opens an originary experience—of the divine, perhaps, but also of life or being. Thought as such, kairos as a formative happening—an opportune moment, crisis, circumstance, event—imposes its own sense of measure on time”. So conceived, curriculum can become a complicated conversation that occurs not in chronological time but in its own time. Such dialogue is not neutral, apolitical, or timeless. It focuses on the present and is intrinsically subjective, even in public space, as Pinar ( 2019 , p. 12) writes: “its site is subjectivity as one attunes oneself to what one is experiencing, yes to its immediacy and specificity but also to its situatedness, relatedness, including to what lies beyond it and not only spatially but temporally”.

Kairos is, then, the uniqueness of time that converts curriculum into a complicated conversation, one that includes the subjective reconstruction of learning as a consciousness of everyday life, encouraging the inner activism of quietude and disquietude. Writing about eternity, as an orientation towards the future, Pinar ( 2019 , p. 2) argues that “the second side [the first is contemplation] of such consciousness is immersion in daily life, the activism of quietude – for example, ethical engagement with others”. We add disquietude now, following the work of the Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa. Disquietude is a moment of eternity: “Sometimes I think I’ll never leave ‘Douradores’ Street. And having written this, it seems to me eternity. Neither pleasure, nor glory, nor power. Freedom, only freedom” (Pesssoa 1991 ).

The disquietude conversation is simultaneously individual and public. It establishes an international space both deglobalized and autonomous, a source of responsive, ethical, and humane encounter. No longer entranced by the distracting dynamic stasis of image-after-image on the screen, the student can face what is his or her emplacement in the physical and natural world, as well as the technological world. The student can become present as a person, here and now, simultaneously historical and timeless.

Conclusions

Slow down and linger should be our motto now. A slogan yes, but it also represents a political, as well as a psychological resistance to the acceleration of time (Berg and Seeber 2016 )—an acceleration that the pandemic has intensified. Covid-19 has moved curriculum online, forcing children physically apart from each other and from their teachers and especially from the in-person dialogical encounters that classrooms can provide. The public space disappears into the pre-designed screen space that software allows, and the machine now becomes the material basis for a curriculum of things, not persons. Like the virus, the pandemic curriculum becomes embedded in devices that technologize our children.

Although one hundred years old, the images created in Modern Times by Charlie Chaplin return, less humorous this time than emblematic of our intensifying subjection to technological necessity. It “would seem to leave us as cogs in the machine, ourselves like moving parts, we keep functioning efficiently, increasing productivity calculating the creative destruction of what is, the human now materialized (de)vices ensnaring us in convenience, connectivity, calculation” (Pinar 2019 , p. 9). Post-human, as many would say.

Technology supports standardized testing and enforces software-designed conformity and never-ending self-evaluation, while all the time erasing lived, embodied experience and intellectual independence. Ignoring the evidence, others are sure that technology can function differently: “Given the potential of information and communication technologies, the teacher should now be a guide who enables learners, from early childhood throughout their learning trajectories, to develop and advance through the constantly expanding maze of knowledge” (UNESCO 2015a , p. 51). Would that it were so.

The canonical question—What knowledge is of most worth?—is open-ended and contentious. In a technologized world, providing for the well-being of children is not obvious, as well-being is embedded in ancient, non-neoliberal visions of the world. “Education is everybody’s business”, Pinar ( 2019 , p. 2) points out, as it fosters “responsible citizenship and solidarity in a global world” (UNESCO 2015a , p. 66), resisting inequality and the exclusion, for example, of migrant groups, refugees, and even those who live below or on the edge of poverty.

In this fast-moving digital world, education needs to be inclusive but not conformist. As the United Nations ( 2015 ) declares, education should ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all. “The coming years will be a vital period to save the planet and to achieve sustainable, inclusive human development” (United Nations 2019 , p. 64). Is such sustainable, inclusive human development achievable through technologization? Can technology succeed where religion has failed?

Despite its contradictions and economic emphases, public education has one clear obligation—to create embodied encounters of learning through curriculum conceived as a complicated conversation. Such a conception acknowledges the worldliness of a cosmopolitan curriculum as it affirms the personification of the individual (Pinar 2011 ). As noted by Grumet ( 2017 , p. 89), “as a form of ethics, there is a responsibility to participate in conversation”. Certainly, it is necessary to ask over and over again the canonical curriculum question: What knowledge is of most worth?

If time, technology and teaching are moving images of eternity, curriculum and pedagogy are also, both ‘moving’ and ‘images’ but not an explicit, empirical, or exact representation of eternity…if reality is an endless series of ‘moving images’, the canonical curriculum question—What knowledge is of most worth?—cannot be settled for all time by declaring one set of subjects eternally important” (Pinar 2019 , p. 12).

In a complicated conversation, the curriculum is not a fixed image sliding into a passive technologization. As a “moving image”, the curriculum constitutes a politics of presence, an ongoing expression of subjectivity (Grumet 2017 ) that affirms the infinity of reality: “Shifting one’s attitude from ‘reducing’ complexity to ‘embracing’ what is always already present in relations and interactions may lead to thinking complexly, abiding happily with mystery” (Doll 2012 , p. 172). Describing the dialogical encounter characterizing conceived curriculum, as a complicated conversation, Pinar explains that this moment of dialogue “is not only place-sensitive (perhaps classroom centered) but also within oneself”, because “the educational significance of subject matter is that it enables the student to learn from actual embodied experience, an outcome that cannot always be engineered” (Pinar 2019 , pp. 12–13). Lived experience is not technological. So, “the curriculum of the future is not just a matter of defining content and official knowledge. It is about creating, sculpting, and finessing minds, mentalities, and identities, promoting style of thought about humans, or ‘mashing up’ and ‘making up’ the future of people” (Williamson 2013 , p. 113).

Yes, we need to linger and take time to contemplate the curriculum question. Only in this way will we share what is common and distinctive in our experience of the current pandemic by changing our time and our learning to foreclose on our future. Curriculum conceived as a complicated conversation restarts historical not screen time; it enacts the private and public as distinguishable, not fused in a computer screen. That is the “new normal”.

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My thanks to William F. Pinar. Friendship is another moving image of eternity. I am grateful to the anonymous reviewer. This work is financed by national funds through the FCT - Foundation for Science and Technology, under the project PTDC / CED-EDG / 30410/2017, Centre for Research in Education, Institute of Education, University of Minho.

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Pacheco, J.A. The “new normal” in education. Prospects 51 , 3–14 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11125-020-09521-x

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A Year After Coronavirus: An Inclusive ‘New Normal’

Six months into a new decade, 2020 has already been earmarked as ‘the worst’ year in the 21st century. The novel coronavirus has given rise to a global pandemic that has destabilized most institutional settings. While we live in times when humankind possesses the most advanced science and technology, a virus invisible to the naked eye has massively disrupted economies, healthcare, and education systems worldwide. This should serve as a reminder that as we keep making progress in science and research, humanity will continue to face challenges in the future, and it is upon us to prioritize those issues that are most relevant in the 21st century.

Even amidst the pandemic, Space X, an American aerospace manufacturer, managed to become the first private company to send humans to space. While this is a tremendous achievement and prepares humanity for a sustainable future, I feel there is a need to introspect the challenges that we are already facing. On the one hand, we seem to be preparing beyond the 21st century. On the other hand, heightened nationalism, increasing violence against marginalized communities and multidimensional inequalities across all sectors continue to act as barriers to growth for most individuals across the globe. COVID-19 has reinforced these multifaceted economic, social and cultural inequalities wherein those in situations of vulnerability have found it increasingly difficult to get quality medical attention, access to quality education, and have witnessed increased domestic violence while being confined to their homes. 

Given the coronavirus’s current situation, some households have also had time to introspect on gender roles and stereotypes. For instance, women are expected to carry out unpaid care work like cooking, cleaning, and looking after the family. There is no valid reason to believe that women ought to carry out these activities, and men have no role in contributing to household chores. With men having shared household chores during the lockdown period, it gives hope that they will realize the burden that women have been bearing for past decades and will continue sharing responsibilities. However, it would be naïve to believe that gender discrimination could be tackled so easily, and men would give up on their decades' old habits within a couple of months. Thus, during and after the pandemic, there is an urgent need to sensitize households on the importance of gender equality and social cohesion.

Moving forward, developing quality healthcare systems that are affordable and accessible to all should be the primary objective for all governments. This can be done by increasing expenditure towards health and education and simultaneously reducing expenditure on defence equipment where the latter mainly gives rise to an idea that countries need to be prepared for violence. There is substantial evidence that increased investment in health and education is beneficial in the long-term and can potentially build the basic foundation of a country. 

If it can be established that usage of nuclear weapons, violence and war are not solutions to any problem, governments (like, for example, Costa Rica) could move towards disarmament of weapons and do their part in building a more peaceful planet that is sustainable for the future. This would further promote global citizenship wherein nationality, race, gender, caste, and other categories, are just mere variables and they do not become identities of individuals that restrict their thought process. The aim should be to build responsible citizens who play an active role in their society and work collectively in helping develop a planet that is well-governed, inclusive, and environmentally sustainable.

 ‘A year after Coronavirus’ is still an unknown, so I think that our immediate focus should be to tackle the complex problems that have emerged from the pandemic so that we make the year after coronavirus one which highlights recovery and acts as a pathway to fresh beginnings. While there is little to gain from such a fatal cause, it is vital that we also use it to make the ‘new normal’ in favour of the environment and ensure that no one is left behind.   

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Embracing a new normal in ourselves and communities

COVID-19 restrictions have gone on long enough to establish new habits. So what do we want to keep doing and stop doing, both individually and as a community?

By Associate Professor Terry Bowles, University of Melbourne

As COVID-19 restrictions are gradually lifted across Australia and we emerge from months of isolation, it’s important to note that we have passed the threshold of time required to establish new habits .

Research shows that it takes between 30 and 60 days to establish a new habit or to stop a bad habit, intentionally or coincidentally. That means the things we have been doing, that we didn’t do before, will be easy to keep doing, if they are good for us.

Similarly, if we started or expanded on unhelpful or unhealthy behaviours while in isolation it will be hard to revert back to pre-isolation levels, though the feeling that we are entering a new normal may for some make it easier to break any negative habits we may have fallen into.

We have the opportunity then to look back before we look forward and ask some important questions around improving health and wellbeing for ourselves and those around us:

The world is a classroom

• What am I now doing that I want to continue doing?
• What do I want to stop doing that I’ve now started doing?
• What behaviours that I did before isolation, that I stopped, do I want to not take up again?
• What new behaviours, that I’ve never done before, do I now want to begin?

The COVID-19 experience will have taught people different things, but for almost all of us it has shown than we can quickly change our daily routines.

Some of us slept more, watched more TV, played more games or engaged more on social media; some cooked more, engaged more with those they live with, found creative ways to exercise and work from home, spent less time in cars, and maybe drank less alcohol or drank more.

What this means is that the experience has allowed us to take two big ideas into the rest of our lives:

• As a society we have the capacity to listen to expert advice and change remarkably rapidly
• As individuals we can listen to expert advice and change parts of our lives remarkably quickly, sometimes for good but also sometimes for bad

Managing your family's cabin fever

If we consider what life was like before COVID-19 and compare that with our experience during isolation, we can start to re-inhabit our possible new lives and new selves.

With a little bit of reflection, planning and action we can come out of the COVID-19 experience with a more adaptive mindset. This will help us to buffer the shock of new challenges and increase our sense of control over our lives, and allow us to directly focus on life’s opportunities and possibilities.

The key task now, regardless of our initial reactions to the restored freedoms after isolation, is to curb impulsive action and make a benefit of the experience by carefully developing new positive habits .

For many people this won’t be easy, especially for those who have lost work, income, livelihoods, stability and especially those who have lost loved ones. For many, the experience of COVID-19 is coupled with profound grief .

People in this situation may not have the necessary resources to generate a “positive bump” from the easing of restrictions as others will. They may need support from family and friends, their community and government.

Sometimes we need to rest a while with sadness and grief and eventually its impact subsides or prompts us to seek professional help in managing our negative emotions, thoughts and behaviours. Eventually, a new outlook on life and new actions can emerge.

How do we teach students about their wellbeing online?

The point is not to get stuck but to keep working through, towards what the future may bring, even if only tomorrow, with little steps and little plans. While we may not be all-in-this-together given the extreme loss some of us have experienced, we can still empathise, share their grief and assist them.

At a societal level we have by necessity had to operate on an unusually level playing field in the sense that we’ve all been in this isolation together.

And while our circumstances are different, we are also together in the recovery and the changes it may bring , whether it is in the economy, our social system, our political institutions or the way we care for the environment. We may need to learn new ways to create processes of social cooperation.

But if individually we can start with just one or two good new actions or behaviours we can each build these into positive habits. These can help to make us more adaptable and resilient , and help us plan a small way into the future. We can then have confidence in our choices and plans and help others obtain the assistance they need.

That way we will all be in a better place in our new communities.

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Life after Covid: will our world ever be the same?

From cities, to science, to politics, six Observer writers assess how a post-pandemic world will emerge into a new normal

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Here are some things that the pandemic changed. It accustomed some people – those whose jobs allowed it – to remote working . It highlighted the importance of adequate living space and access to the outdoors. It renewed, through their absence, an appreciation of social contact and large gatherings. It showed up mass daily commuting for the dehumanising drain on energy and resources that it is.

These changes do not add up to the abandonment of big cities and offices predicted by more excitable commentaries, not a future of rural bubbles and of tumbleweed blowing through the City of London, but a welcome shift in priorities. There will always be millions who want to live in cities and millions who want to live in towns and villages, but there are also those for whom these are borderline decisions, with pros and cons on each side.

These decisions might be based on life changes, such as having children. If you no longer have to go to an office daily, you can live further from the city in which it is placed. If the magic spell of the big city, which kept people in the tiny and expensive flats that now look so inadequate, is broken, then you might consider living in cheaper, more relaxed locations that hadn’t occurred to you before. Those ex-urbanites, still valuing social contact and public life, might seek towns and small cities rather than a lonely cottage in a field.

Such changes could help to address, without the pouring of any concrete or the laying of a brick, the imbalance in the nation’s housing that was at breaking point before Covid. On the one hand there are overheated residential markets in London, Bristol, Manchester, Edinburgh and elsewhere. On the other there are towns and small cities with good housing stock, an inherited infrastructure of parks and civic buildings and easy access to beautiful countryside, which through their location suffer from underinvestment and depopulation.

This is not to say that no new homes should be built, nor that there won’t be problems with such a shift. It could simply be gentrification, if done wrong, at a national scale. And this vision assumes that Covid passes, and that it is not one of a future series of equally vicious viruses. But there is at least a chance that the travails of 2020 could lead to a saner approach to the places where we live and work. Rowan Moore, Observer architecture critic

Interaction

The first kiss my baby niece blew me was bittersweet, because like so many pandemic interactions it happened not in person but on camera. Covid means that big chunks of her life have only been seen on a phone screen as she grows into a toddler. And I’m one of the lucky ones: I haven’t had to say goodbye to someone on FaceTime or break the worst news to someone over the phone.

If you live by yourself, you’ve made do without human touch for months on end; if you’re crammed into a small space with your partner, kids and your parents, you may have spent weeks craving time and space not encroached upon by other human beings. Totally different experiences of the same social earthquake: surely they cannot but profoundly change us for the long term?

I’m not so sure. Lockdown, then not-lockdown, then lockdown again have served as a reminder of just how adaptable we are as human beings. I was amazed at how quickly the idea of socialising with friends indoors became a fuzzy memory, then the norm, then distant again. The emotions I felt so acutely back in March – the sharp fear Covid could steal my parents, the communal endeavour of clapping for our carers every Thursday night – soon faded into a new normal, impossible to sustain even though many of the realities have barely changed.

The pandemic has underlined the extent to which digital interaction is no substitute for the real thing. In some ways, I’m more in touch with people than ever thanks to the numerous WhatsApp groups that revived themselves into a constant source of company. But tapping away in a couple of group chats while absent-mindedly watching the latest Netflix offering doesn’t come close to the wonderful feeling of hugging a friend, or spending three hours giving someone you haven’t seen for ages your undivided attention over a meal, or of having a conversation based not just on words but physical cues. I doubt the pandemic will seed a long-term distaste for crowds; if anything, I suspect that, if all goes well with the vaccine rollout, summer 2021 will see a crop of riotous street parties and carnivals.

But a return to life as usual will not mask the emotional toll Covid will have had on so many people. People who suffer from anxiety and depression; women in abusive relationships ; children experiencing abuse or neglect at the hands of their parents: they have had it the worst, and their experiences of isolation and loneliness during lockdown could have consequences for their personal relationships that will not magically disappear with a vaccine.

And that is before you factor in the added strain of the intense financial hardship so many are being forced to endure. As a society, recovering from Covid is about much more than antibodies: it cannot happen without support for those who have experienced its worst financial and mental health impacts. Sonia Sodha, the Observer’s chief leader writer

Britain has had an uncomfortable year in its battle to contain Covid. Failures to test, trace and isolate infected individuals allowed grim numbers of deaths to accumulate while deficiencies in the acquisition of stocks of Personal Protection Equipment (PPE) left countless health workers exposed to danger and illness. However, these deficiencies have been balanced by the manner and striking speed with which our scientists have turned away from existing projects in order to focus their attentions on ridding us of Covid. Their work has earned global praise for its swiftness and precision.

“The Brits are on course to save the world,” wrote leading US economist Tyler Cowen in Bloomberg Opinion about our scientists efforts last summer while the journal Science quoted leading international researchers who have heaped praise on British anti-Covid work. Science in the UK is perceived, correctly, to have done well in facing up to the pandemic.

A perfect example is provided by the UK’s Recovery trial, a drug-testing programme involving more than 3,000 doctors and nurses who worked with more than 12,000 Covid patients in hundreds of hospitals across the nation – from the Western Isles to Truro and from Derry to King’s Lynn. Set up within a few days of the pandemic reaching the UK, and carried out in intensive care units crammed with seriously ill people, Recovery revealed that one cheap inflammation treatment could save the lives of seriously ill Covid patients while two much-touted therapies were shown to be useless at tackling the disease.

No other country has come close to matching these achievements. “We had the people with the right skills and a willingness to drop everything else and contribute to the effort,” says one of Recovery’s founders, Martin Landray of Oxford University. “That made all the difference.” In a nation which had only recently reviled, openly, the concept of expertise, scientists like Landray have restored the reputation of the wise and the informed.

Fiona Fox, director of the Science Media Centre, also points to the willingness of our scientists to communicate. “Time after time, we have asked for comments from leading researchers, epidemiologists and vaccine experts on breaking Covid stories, and despite being inundated with work, they have taken the time to provide clear analyses that have helped to make sense of rapidly changing developments,” she says. “It has been extraordinary.”

And of course, the arrival of three effective vaccines against a disease that was unknown less than a year ago has only further enhanced the image of the scientist. Yes, they may be a bit geeky sometimes, but they have done a lot to help us win the battle against Covid. Robin McKie, Observer Science Editor

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

It may not feel like it at the moment, admittedly. But if this pandemic echoes other defining events in our recent history, from the 9/11 terror attacks to the 2008-09 banking crash, it will leave the political landscape utterly transformed in some respects yet wearily familiar in others.

Last week’s spending review , spelling out how the cost of battling Covid will shape national life for years to come, was a classic example. A public sector pay freeze, plus benefit cuts next April? Well, we’ve been there before; to many families it will feel like austerity all over again.

What’s different this time, however, is that Boris Johnson insists there’ll be no return to austerity-style spending cuts. Instead, taxes will rise. If he actually goes through with threats to target second-home owners or higher earners’ pensions, expect some mutiny in Tory ranks. (The bitter joke among Tory MPs is that they’re implementing more of Jeremy Corbyn’s manifesto than Corbyn ever will.) But the door to a long overdue debate about taxing wealth, as well as income, is at least now open.

The pandemic also seems to be changing what people look for in a leader. The last recession pushed angry, despairing voters towards populists with easy answers; make America great again, take back control. But Covid has been a brutal reminder that in life-and-death situations, competence is everything. Joe Biden isn’t wildly exciting but at least he doesn’t speculate aloud about the merits of drinking bleach. From New Zealand’s Jacinda Ardern to Germany’s Angela Merkel and Scotland’s Nicola Sturgeon, the leaders whose reputations have been enhanced by this crisis tend to be pragmatists and consensus-seekers, not excitable culture warriors. Keir Starmer’s rising poll ratings suggest a hunger for steady-as-she-goes leadership in Britain too.

Optimists will hope that this collective near-death experience brings a renewed political focus on what actually makes life worth living, from supportive communities to the beauty of a natural world that sustained many through lockdown. Pessimists, however, will worry that calls to “build back better”, or reset society along fairer and greener lines, could be an early casualty of a hard recession that leaves people focussed purely on economic survival.

For it would be naive not to expect a backlash against all of this. Nigel Farage is already trying to whip one up via his new anti-lockdown party , targeting voters angry at having freedoms curtailed. But if the last crash unleashed an era of radicalism and revolt, it’s not impossible this one will leave people craving a quiet life. After such turmoil, don’t underestimate the longing to get back to normal, even if the normal we once knew is gone. Gaby Hinsliff, Guardian columnist

We know that the spaces from which “culture” emerges won’t look the same after 2020 as they did before. Many theatres, bookshops, music venues and galleries won’t survive the catastrophe of shutdown, and if they do emerge it will be with diminished resources. But what about the attitude and the focus of creativity. Will it be shadowed by the pandemic post-vaccine or will it celebrate liberation?

History suggests both. The terrible mortality, social distancing and economic hardship resulting from the 1918-19 Spanish flu epidemic that followed the war were shaping forces in both the doom-laden experiments of modernism and the high hedonism of the jazz age. The Waste Land and the Charleston emerged within months of each other. TS Eliot wrote much of the former while suffering from the after-effects of the influenza, haunted, as his wife Vivienne noted, by the fear that as a result of the virus, “his mind is not acting as it used to do”. Certainly, that poem’s most memorable lines, with their stress on the mass gathering, read more pointedly from our current vantage point: “Under the brown fog of a winter dawn,/ A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many,/ I had not thought death had undone so many./ Sighs, short and infrequent, were exhaled,/ And each man fixed his eyes before his feet.”

But, contrarily, the spirit of the post-pandemic age was equally alive in the bathtub-gin excitement of the Cotton Club, and the rarefied decadence of the Bright Young Things: raucous celebrations of seize-the-day freedoms after the misery of war and virus.

Not much literature or music that directly responds to the current pandemic has yet emerged. Zadie Smith’s brief book of essays , Intimations , hazarded something of what that response might look and sound like. In a memorable phrase, she described the events of this year as “the global humbling”. That moment when we collectively realised that the confident certainties of what we used to call “normal life” were only ever a heartbeat away from unknown threats – and that the US, Smith’s adopted home, having led the world in many things, was now leading the world in death.

Will such experience engender a new and deepening age of anxiety in the books we read and the films we watch? No doubt that apprehension of apocalypse, of environmental emergency, that draws us to The Road or to Chernobyl will become more insistent. But as Eliot also noted, humankind “cannot bear very much reality”. After this year in which the young have been denied so many of their rites of passage – chances to sing, dance, drink or love – we can surely hope for a post-viral creative outpouring of all those things that make us most happy to be alive. Tim Adams, Observer writer

”Imagine there’s no commuting, it’s easy if you try”, is a popular refrain in discussions of the post-Covid world of work predicting the imminent demise of the office. Sometimes it’s combined with the claim that low-earning hospitality and leisure jobs that have dried up mid-pandemic won’t be coming back and so shouldn’t get support now.

These different predictions are likely to be wrong for the same reason: they pay too much attention to crystal balls, and not enough to rear-view mirrors. Yes, the pandemic itself has meant big changes to the world of work. It has changed where some people (generally higher earners) work while hitting the ability of many lower earners to work at all. But imagining a world without lockdowns is best done by focusing on those pandemic-driven trends that reinforce, rather than run against, patterns visible pre-crisis .

So, expect the pandemic’s turbo-charging of retail’s online shift (with Arcadia’s likely administration the latest example) to continue – there will be fewer cashiers and more delivery drivers. But don’t believe the hype on the decline of hospitality and leisure. Workers in those sectors are twice as likely to have lost their jobs or been furloughed as the pandemic has left us spending more on buying things than going out, but the long-term trend is the opposite: hotels and restaurants accounted for a fifth of the pre-pandemic employment surge.

Working from home (or living in the office, as it can feel like) has been the big change for professional Britain. But history warns against the idea that the office is finished. Only one in 20 of us worked entirely remotely pre-crisis. But three times that number worked at home at least one day a week, a trend that was rapidly growing. Hybrid home/office working is the future. But be careful about assuming this transforms Britain’s disgracefully big economic gaps: some will benefit from more choice about where to live but offices in poorer areas, rather than those in central London, may be the ones that end up empty. And remember, we’re only talking about a fraction of the workforce here. Post-Covid, waiters and cleaners won’t be doing their jobs from their spare room or kitchen table.

As well as predicting the future, we should be trying to shape it. Higher pay and more security for the low paid workers who faced the biggest health and economic risks from this crisis would be a good place to start. Torsten Bell, chief executive of the Resolution Foundation

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BRIEF RESEARCH REPORT article

Adjustment to a “new normal:” coping flexibility and mental health issues during the covid-19 pandemic.

• 1 Department of Psychology, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China
• 2 Department of Psychology, The University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway
• 3 Modum Bad Psychiatric Hospital, Vikersund, Norway

The Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic is an unprecedented health crisis in terms of the scope of its impact on well-being. The sudden need to navigate this “new normal” has compromised the mental health of many people. Coping flexibility, defined as the astute deployment of coping strategies to meet specific situational demands, is proposed as an adaptive quality during this period of upheaval. The present study investigated the associations between coping flexibility and two common mental health problems: COVID-19 anxiety and depression. The respondents were 481 Hong Kong adults (41% men; mean age = 45.09) who took part in a population-based telephone survey conducted from April to May 2020. Self-report data were assessed with the Coping Flexibility Interview Schedule, COVID-19-Related Perception and Anxiety Scale, and Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale. Slightly more than half (52%) of the sample met the criteria for probable depression. Four types of COVID-19 anxiety were identified: anxiety over personal health, others' reactions, societal health, and economic problems. The results consistently revealed coping flexibility to be inversely associated with depression and all four types of COVID-19 anxiety. More importantly, there was a significant interaction between perceived likelihood of COVID-19 infection and coping flexibility on COVID-19 anxiety over personal health. These findings shed light on the beneficial role of coping flexibility in adjusting to the “new normal” amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Introduction

The emergence of an atypical coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, instigated a global outbreak of Coronavirus Disease 2019 [COVID-19; e.g., ( 1 )]. Following identification of the earliest cases of COVID-19 in December 2019, the World Health Organization ( 2 ) declared the viral outbreak a health emergency of international concern on January 30, 2020, and then a global pandemic <2 months later. The escalating pandemic has induced anxiety and panic reactions in the general public, and the emotional responses bear some resemblance to those observed amid the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) outbreak in 2003 [e.g., ( 3 , 4 )]. For instance, the panic sell-off of stocks led to a plunge in the global stock market ( 5 ), and long lines for food and the irrational stockpiling of personal protection equipment such as facemasks and hand sanitizers have been widely seen ( 6 , 7 ).

Despite such resemblances, the COVID-19 pandemic is an unprecedented crisis in terms of the scope of its influence on both physical and mental health [e.g., ( 8 , 9 )]. To curb the transmission of this hitherto unknown virus, governments all over the world have enforced strict epidemic-control measures such as nationwide school closures, stay-at-home orders, and physical distancing regulations in public areas ( 10 ). Also, myriad public and private organizations have adopted teleworking policies mandating that their employees work from home ( 11 ). Although employees hold generally favorable attitudes toward home-based teleworking, the sudden drastic change in work mode left many unprepared ( 12 ). Previous research on the office-home transition has revealed major changes in the work environment to induce the most stress and anxiety in employees who feel the least prepared for this alternative work mode ( 13 ). Devastating problems arising from stressful life changes have been documented not only in adults but also in youngsters, with recent studies revealing a significant proportion of children and adolescents to have experienced psychological distress during the school-closure period ( 14 , 15 ). The COVID-19 pandemic has confronted people of all ages with fundamental life changes [e.g., ( 16 , 17 )].

To grapple with the “new normal” and deal with the considerable challenges brought about by the pandemic, individuals need a considerable degree of flexibility. Psychological resilience is a widely recognized mechanism underlying the adjustment process, with coping flexibility a core component [e.g., ( 18 )]. The theory of coping flexibility postulates that effective coping entails (a) sensitivity to the diverse situational demands embedded in an ever-changing environment and (b) variability in deploying coping strategies to meet specific demands ( 19 ). More specifically, psychological adjustment is a function of the extent to which individuals deploy problem-focused coping strategies (e.g., direct action) in controllable stressful situations and emotion-focused coping strategies (e.g., distraction) in uncontrollable ones. Inflexible coping, in contrast, has been linked to psychological symptoms. For example, individuals with heightened anxiety levels are characterized by an illusion of control [e.g., ( 20 , 21 )]. They tend to perceive all events in life as being under their control, and thus predominantly opt for problem-focused coping regardless of the situational characteristics. In contrast, individuals with depression are characterized by a sense of learned helplessness [e.g., ( 22 , 23 )]. They tend to view all events as beyond their control, and thus predominantly deploy emotion-focused coping across stressful events. Coping flexibility has been identified to foster adjustment to stressful life changes, which is indicated by a reduction in symptoms of anxiety and depression commonly experienced in stressful life transitions ( 24 ).

Applying these theories and findings to psychological adjustment during the COVID-19 pandemic, individuals higher in coping flexibility are predicted to experience lower levels of anxiety and depression than those lower in coping flexibility. Clinical trial findings on COVID-19 offer a mixture of promise and disappointment regarding the efficacy of SARS-CoV-2 vaccine candidates [e.g., ( 25 )], and the absence of a thorough understanding of the etiology and treatment of this atypical virus has elicited widespread public panic responses. According to the theory of psychological entropy ( 26 ), uncertainty is a crucial antecedent of anxiety. In accordance with that theory, studies conducted during the pandemic have revealed unusually high prevalence rates of mental health problems such as anxiety and depression, rates ~3-fold higher than both their pre-pandemic prevalence and lifetime prevalence over the past two decades ( 27 , 28 ).

In light of the transactional theory of stress and coping that highlights the importance of primary and secondary appraisals in the coping process ( 29 ), coping flexibility (secondary appraisal) is predicted to explain the association between context-specific health beliefs (primary appraisal) and mental health. Instead of perceiving the COVID-19 pandemic as aversive and uncontrollable, resilient copers tend to espouse a more complex view by recognizing both controllable and uncontrollable aspects of the pandemic. For instance, these individuals tend to take such positive actions as acquiring new information technology and digital skills to meet the demands of home-based teleworking, but engage in meditation to cope with the unpleasant emotions brought about by mandatory stay-at-home orders. Accordingly, coping flexibility is hypothesized to be inversely associated with anxiety and depression during the pandemic.

As individuals high in coping flexibility are characterized by cognitive astuteness in making distinctions in an array of stressful events ( 30 , 31 ), coping flexibility is also predicted to interact with context-specific health beliefs to have a conjoint influence on mental health in the pandemic context. Although COVID-19 shares similar characteristics with other atypical coronaviruses of SARS and Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS), the case fatality rate of COVID-19 is much lower than the others ( 32 ). Among individuals high in coping flexibility, those who tend to perceive such differences may experience lower COVID-19 anxiety than their counterparts who do not hold this perception. In this respect, mental health experienced during the pandemic is a function of both context-specific health beliefs and coping flexibility.

The present study was conducted during the “second wave” of COVID-19 infections in Hong Kong. Although the first confirmed COVID-19 case was identified on January 23, 2020, with the first death recorded 2 weeks later ( 33 ), Hong Kong remained largely unscathed by the first wave, with only sporadic cases reported and a relatively flat epidemic curve (i.e., fewer than 100 confirmed cases). However, there was a sudden surge in confirmed cases in March, when the viral outbreak swept the globe ( 34 ). The Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) responded to the health emergency by enacting a travel ban on non-residents, issuing compulsory quarantine orders for residents returning from overseas, and tightening various physical distancing measures in late March and early April [e.g., ( 35 , 36 )]. Special work arrangements for government employees were also implemented, and many organizations followed suit. The psychosocial impact was thus so pervasive that all sectors of society were affected. A population-based survey was therefore deemed the most appropriate method for investigating the psychological reactions to the pandemic among residents of Hong Kong. The method yields heterogeneous community samples, which maximizes representativeness and minimizes sampling errors.

Materials and Methods

Sample size determination and power analysis.

The statistical power analysis showed that the minimum sample size was 276 in order to identify statistically significant associations among the study variables, but a larger sample size was recruited to meet the requirements for conducting principal component analysis (PCA). Considering the general rule of thumb of having at least 50 cases per factor and a maximum number of nine factors to be identified in the PCA, the pre-planned minimum sample size was 450.

Participants and Procedures

The respondents were 481 Hong Kong adults (41% men; mean age = 45.09, SD = 23.42), who were recruited from a population-based telephone survey conducted by a survey research center at the first author's university. Random digit dialing was used for identifying eligible households, and then the most recent birth day method was employed to select a household member. To be eligible for participation, respondents had to be aged 18 or older, a resident of Hong Kong, able to understand Cantonese, and willing to give consent. Participation was voluntary, and all respondents who completed the survey were entered into a lucky draw for a chance to win gift certificates worth 500 Hong Kong dollars (about 65 U.S. dollars).

Trained interviewers conducted the telephone interviews using a structured questionnaire with standard questions. To foster interviewer calibration and minimize measurement bias, the survey was piloted in a small group of respondents from April 2 to 10, 2020. The final set of survey questions was amended to enhance the clarity of a few items, and then the full survey was administered from April 20 to May 19, 2020.

The study was conducted according to the ethical research standards of the American Psychological Association, and the study protocol was reviewed and approved by the human research ethics committee of the first author's university before the survey began (approval number: EA1912046 dated March 4, 2020). All respondents gave verbal consent in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki.

Instruments

Coping flexibility.

Coping flexibility was assessed by the revised Coping Flexibility Interview Schedule ( 37 ). This interview schedule was originally developed based on clinical samples ( 38 ), and was adjusted for use with heterogeneous non-clinical populations. In the pilot phase, some respondents reported difficulty in understanding the terms of primary and secondary approach coping that was currently used in our interview schedule. The interview questions were revised by combining the terms of primary and secondary approach coping into problem-focused coping and converting the term of avoidant coping style into emotion-focused coping. Problem-focused and emotion-focused coping were originally used in the transactional theory of coping ( 39 ) from which the Coping Flexibility Interview Schedule was derived. The respondents were asked to report their deployment of problem-focused (e.g., information seeking, monitoring) and emotion-focused (e.g., acceptance, relaxation) coping in controllable and uncontrollable stressful situations over the past month.

To obtain a composite score of coping flexibility indicating strategy-situation fit, the individual coping items were subsequently coded by two independent raters according to a coding scheme ( 40 , 41 ) based on coping theories ( 39 , 42 ). One point was given to the deployment of problem-focused coping strategies to handle controllable stressful events and/or the deployment of emotion-focused coping strategies to handle uncontrollable stressful events. Zero points were given otherwise. All of these scores were aggregated, and then averaged to obtain a composite score. Inter-rater agreement was evaluated using Krippendorff alpha coefficients ( 43 ), and the results showed no discrepancies because no subjective codings were required (Krippendorff alpha = 100%).

COVID-19-Related Perceptions

Both perceived likelihood and impact of COVID-19 infection were measured by a modified measure developed and validated during the SARS outbreak ( 44 ). To make this measure relevant to the present pandemic context, the context was altered from “SARS outbreak” to “COVID-19 pandemic.” Respondents gave four-point ratings to indicate their perception of the likelihood of contracting COVID-19 (1 = very unlikely , 4 = very likely ) and the impact of having it (1 = no impact at all , 4 = a large impact ). The measure has been found to display both criterion and predictive validity ( 44 , 45 ).

COVID-19 Anxiety

As the events that have occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic are unprecedented, our team conducted a qualitative study in March 2020 asking participants to list all of the issues that had made them feel anxious during the pandemic. Content analysis of the results revealed 16 distinct themes regarding anxiety-provoking issues experienced amid the pandemic (see Table 1 for details). These items were compiled into a context-specific measure for assessing COVID-19 anxiety. Respondents rated each item on a scale ranging from 1 ( not worried at all ) to 4 ( very worried ).

Table 1 . Four-factor promax-rotated factor solution for COVID-19 anxiety ( n = 481).

Depression was measured by the short form of the Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale ( 46 ), which contains 10 items. The translated Chinese version was used in this study ( 47 ). Respondents rated each item on a four-point scale (0 = rarely or none of the time , 3 = most or all of the time ). In this study, we applied the recommended cut-off score of 10 as the classification scheme [e.g., ( 46 , 48 )].

Statistical Analysis

All statistical procedures were conducted using SPSS version 26.0 for Windows (IBM Corporation, 2019, Armonk, NY). Before hypothesis testing, PCA was performed to identify the factorial structure underlying the 16 anxiety-provoking issues. The components were rotated using the varimax method with Kaiser normalization to increase the interpretability of the findings. The number of factors extracted was determined by the Kaiser rule, with factors retained when the eigenvalue exceeded one. The total amount of variance accounted for by the factors needed to exceed 60%, a minimum criterion for factor selection widely adopted in PCA research ( 49 ). Both the Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) measure of sampling adequacy and Bartlett's test of sphericity were first examined to check the appropriateness for analyzing the dataset, with appropriateness indicated if the KMO index was >0.50 and the test of sphericity was significant. For PCA, items with a factor loading <0.45 or double loading were removed. Cronbach alpha was used to indicate internal consistency for the items within each factor, with an alpha >0.70 considered adequate.

The potential differences among demographic groups were examined. Differences in sex were detected using an independent-samples t -test, and age differences using Pearson zero-order correlation analysis. In addition to testing age as a continuous variable, we also adopted a generational approach proposed by the Pew Research Center that makes comparisons across four age cohorts: (a) Millennials, who were born in 1981 or after; (b) Generation X-ers, who were born between 1965 and 1980; (c) Baby Boomers, who were born between 1946 and 1964; and (d) Silent Gen'ers, who were born before 1946 ( 50 ). A general linear model (GLM) was employed to investigate the differences among the four generations, with post hoc Bonferroni tests conducted if generational differences were found in any of the study variables.

Pearson zero-order correlation analysis was conducted to obtain an overview of the inter-relationships among the study variables. The hypothesized beneficial role of coping flexibility on mental health was then tested using three-step hierarchical regression analysis. First, the two demographic variables (i.e., sex and age) were entered to control for their potential effects on the criterion in question. Second, the variables of perceived likelihood of COVID-19 infection, perceived impact of COVID-19 infection, and coping flexibility were entered simultaneously. Third, the Perceived Likelihood of COVID-19 Infection × Coping Flexibility interaction and the Perceived Impact of COVID-19 Infection × Coping Flexibility interaction were entered. To address the potential multicollinearity problem, all of the variables were centered before conducting these analyses. The procedures were identical for each mental health problem included as the criterion variable. To unpack significant interaction effects, post hoc simple effects analysis was employed to examine the effects of COVID-19-related perception on a criterion at each level of coping flexibility.

PCA was performed because the KMO index was high (.87) and Bartlett's test of sphericity was significant (χ 2 = 3379.31, p < 0.0001). The results with the principal component weights of the 16 anxiety-provoking issues are presented in Table 1 . A four-factor solution was yielded, accounting for 63% of the total variance, with 38% explained by the first factor, personal health issues (e.g., “ COVID-19 infection in myself and my family members ”); 10% by the second factor, other people's undesirable reactions (e.g., “ discrimination ”); 8% by the third factor, societal health issues (e.g., “ government's lack of effort/ability to handle the pandemic ”); and 7% by the fourth factor, economic problems (e.g., “ pandemic's economic implications ”). It is noteworthy that one item (i.e., “ contact with a COVID-19 carrier ”) had a double loading with a difference of <0.10, and was thus discarded. All four factors displayed internal consistency (Cronbach alphas > 0.70), and were thus included in the subsequent analyses as indicators of COVID-19 anxiety.

The GLM results revealed a significant cross-generational difference only for anxiety over societal health, F (3, 477) = 33.92, p < 0.0001, partial eta squared = 0.18. Post hoc Bonferroni tests indicated that Silent Gen'ers aged over 74 ( M = 2.02, SD = 0.62) reported significantly less anxiety over societal health than did Millennials aged 18–39 ( M = 2.87, SD = 0.66) or Generation X-ers aged 40–55 ( M = 2.71, SD = 0.68), p s < 0.0001. However, there were no other differences regarding sex, generation, or the Sex × Generation interaction, p s > 0.05.

The descriptive statistics of and inter-relationships among the study variables are presented in Table 2 . The average depression score was 9.85, which was very close to the cut-off score for probable depression. Adopting the standard cut-off criterion of 10, slightly more than half (52%) of the respondents were categorized as having probable depression. The probable depression group ( M = 2.67, SD = 0.75) generally experienced a higher anxiety level over societal health issues than the no depression group ( M = 2.48, SD = 0.73), t = 2.72, p = 0.007. In addition, the probable depression group ( M = 0.50, SD = 0.21) also reported a generally lower degree of coping flexibility than the no depression group ( M = 0.58, SD = 0.21), t (479) = −3.95, p < 0.0001. However, no other significant differences in depression level were found for sex or generation, p s > 0.21.

Table 2 . Descriptive statistics of study variables ( n = 481).

Table 3 summarizes the results of hierarchical regression analysis for various mental health problems. As shown in the table, the pattern of results was highly consistent across the four types of COVID-19 anxiety; that is, all four types were positively associated with both the perceived likelihood and impact of COVID-19 infection and inversely associated with coping flexibility. There was also a significant interaction between perceived likelihood of COVID-19 infection and coping flexibility, and the results are presented in Figure 1 . For individuals higher in coping flexibility, those who perceived a lower likelihood of contracting COVID-19 reported less anxiety over their own health than their counterparts who perceived a greater likelihood of such contraction. For individuals lower in coping flexibility, however, such individual differences were absent and they generally reported greater anxiety over their own health than those higher in coping flexibility. In addition, the results revealed depression to also be inversely associated with coping flexibility, although its associations with the two types of COVID-19-related perception were non-significant. In short, these findings provide support for the hypothesized beneficial role of coping flexibility in dealing with mental health issues experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Table 3 . Summary of hierarchical regression analysis by mental health problems ( n = 481).

Figure 1 . Simple effects analysis for significant interaction between perceived likelihood of COVID-19 infection and coping flexibility ( n = 481).

In addition to evaluating strategy-situation fit using composite coping flexibility scores, nuanced analysis was conducted to further examine the deployment of individual coping strategies and their associations with mental health problems. Most of the respondents (61%) reported deploying problem-focused coping to handle controllable stressful events during the pandemic, whereas just under half (45%) reported deploying that strategy to deal with uncontrollable stressful events. Fewer respondents said they had used emotion-focused coping to deal with controllable and uncontrollable stressful events (39 and 37%, respectively). Moreover, the deployment of problem-focused coping in controllable stressful events was inversely associated with anxiety over personal health and others' reactions, p s <0.0001, whereas the deployment of emotion-focused coping in controllable stressful events was positively associated with all four types of COVID-19 anxiety and depression, p s < 0.0001. However, neither problem-focused nor emotion-focused coping deployed in uncontrollable stressful events were significantly associated with any of the mental health problems, p s > 0.14.

The present study has investigated coping responses and mental health issues among the general public in Hong Kong amid the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. Recent studies have identified high prevalence rates of anxiety and depression among residents of COVID-19-affected regions all over the world [e.g., ( 28 , 51 )]. Our study expands this growing body of research by specifying four major factors of COVID-19 anxiety: personal health, others' reactions, societal health, and economic problems. Although the third factor is characterized primarily by societal health issues, it is interesting to note that a seemingly unrelated item “ progress of my work ” also loaded onto this factor. This perplexing finding may reflect the fact that employees' work progress has been affected more by societal factors (e.g., implementation of prevention and control disease regulations for business and premises, home-based teleworking policy) than personal factors during the pandemic.

A similar phenomenon is found for the fourth factor, economic problems. Most of the items loading onto it involved broad societal issues (e.g., economic recession, widening of health-wealth gap), but an item related to personal financial problems also did so. This finding similarly indicates that individuals' personal financial condition during the pandemic may be influenced to a great extent by the wider economy. Taken together, these interesting findings reflect the intricate interactions between the individual and society in times of crisis, thus attesting to the necessity of identifying anxiety-provoking issues specific to the pandemic in addition to assessing generic mental health issues that are context-free.

In addition to anxiety, our findings also show depression to have been prevalent among Hong Kong adults during the second wave of the pandemic, with slightly more than half the sample identified as having probable depression. Compared with respondents without depression, those with probable depression tended to experience greater anxiety related to societal health issues but not economic problems or personal health issues. These findings indicate that the unusually high prevalence of depression reported during the pandemic is largely related to health-related problems at the societal level (e.g., governmental actions to combat COVID-19, possible breakdown of local healthcare system) rather than personal health issues.

More importantly, the present study is the first to apply the theory of coping flexibility to the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the findings provide support for the hypothesized beneficial role of coping flexibility in relieving heightened anxiety and depression when handling the vicissitudes emerged during the pandemic. Astute strategy deployment to meet the specific demands of an ever-changing environment is essential for adjustment to the “new normal,” and a better strategy-situation fit is found to be inversely associated with both COVID-19 anxiety and depression. It is noteworthy that coping flexibility interacts with perceived susceptibility to COVID-19 infection to have a conjoint influence on COVID-19 anxiety. Even within individuals having a higher level of coping flexibility, those tend to experience fewer symptoms of COVID-19 anxiety over personal health if they display cognitive astuteness in assessing their possibility of contracting COVID-19. These novel findings provide support for the notion that the anxiety-buffering role of coping flexibility is highly context-specific ( 24 ), which is confined to infection susceptibility and anxiety over personal health in this stressful encounter. Such context-specificity is not surprising because subjective appraisals of the possibility of contracting a novel virus should be directly linked with concerns over personal health rather than other anxiety-provoking events related to non-health issues or to the society at large. Moreover, these findings further demonstrate that COVID-19 anxiety is not a unidimensional construct and should thus be studied using a multidimensional approach.

We further found the use of problem-focused coping to deal with controllable stressful events to be related to lower levels of anxiety over personal issues (i.e., personal health and others' reactions) rather than broader societal issues (i.e., societal health, economic problems). It is also noteworthy that the use of emotion-focused coping to handle controllable rather than uncontrollable stressful events was related to higher COVID-19 anxiety and depression, a finding consistent with previous studies on clinical samples of depression ( 22 ). Although the unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic is objectively an uncontrollable stressor due to its uncertain nature, the theory of coping flexibility highlights the importance of identifying aspects of life that are controllable and distinguishing these aspects from most other uncontrollable ones in a stressful encounter. For example, when a person high in coping flexibility fails to buy facemasks after visiting many stores, this person still regards the problem as controllable and keeps trying a variety of alternative means (e.g., placing orders in overseas online stores, seeking advice from members of WhatsApp groups). It is the cognitive astuteness in distinguishing between controllable and uncontrollable life aspects that fosters adjustment to stressful life changes.

Such situational differences in coping effectiveness indicate that neither problem-focused nor emotion-focused coping is inherently adaptive or maladaptive. The role of effective coping in mitigating mental health problems depends largely on the extent to which a deployed strategy meets the specific demands of the stressful encounter concerned. For instance, playing online games or browsing social network sites can be stress-relieving during leisure time ( 52 , 53 ), but prolonged gameplay or social media use can impair work or academic performance while working or studying from home ( 54 ). These findings are in line with the theory of coping flexibility, highlighting the beneficial role of flexible coping in soothing mental health problems experienced during the pandemic.

The present findings also have practical implications. Given the beneficial role of coping flexibility, clinicians may work with clients to enhance coping effectiveness with regard to strategy-situation fit. Stress management intervention may involve sharpening clients' skills for (a) distinguishing the key demands stemming from an array of stressful events; (b) assessing whether or not such demands are amendable to a change in effort (i.e., controllable or uncontrollable); (c) applying the meta-cognitive skill of reflection to evaluate strategies that best match the specific demands of diverse stressful situations; and (d) subsequently deploying the most appropriate strategy to handle each stressor. Such flexible coping skills are especially useful for dealing with the psychological distress elicited by a pandemic involving an assortment of stressful events.

Coping flexibility may also be valuable at a broader level because the unpredictable progression of the COVID-19 pandemic across successive waves presents varying challenges for public health authorities worldwide. For instance, the shortage of personal protection equipment aroused immense public anxiety in Hong Kong during the first wave owing to the sudden surge in demand for facemasks and hand sanitizer. After the supply of such equipment had been stabilized, however, new societal problems emerged. For example, during the second wave, public commitment to observing physical distancing measures began to wane owing to “pandemic fatigue” ( 55 ). Public health authorities may need to adopt a certain degree of flexibility in monitoring and identifying emerging issues to allow the timely adjustment of extant disease-control measures or the formulation of new ones to mitigate changing public health threats.

Despite its important findings, several study limitations must be noted. The survey was conducted during the second wave of the pandemic, when the epidemic curve climbed to a high level and then leveled off for a few months before reaching a further peak in the third wave in July and August, 2020 ( 34 ). As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to evolve in an unpredictable manner, some of the anxiety-provoking issues identified in this study may no longer elicit anxiety to the same extent in future waves. The list of issues eliciting COVID-19 anxiety should thus be updated in future research. Given the time sensitivity of these issues, pilot testing is essential to evaluate their relevance in particular phases of the pandemic.

Further, although our findings offer robust support for the hypothesized beneficial role of coping flexibility amid the pandemic, previous meta-analysis indicated that that beneficial role is more prominent in collectivist than individualist regions ( 19 ). A fruitful direction for future research would thus be to replicate the present design in individualist countries, allowing cross-cultural comparisons to be made. In addition to cultural differences, there may also be considerable variations among Chinese adults residing in different regions, as the epidemic trajectory has varied greatly among cities in the Greater Bay Area, such as Guangzhou and Macau ( 56 ). Greater effort can be made to compare the prevalence of psychological disorders and coping processes among Chinese residents of diverse regions.

Data Availability Statement

The raw data supporting the conclusions of this article will be made available by the authors, without undue reservation.

Ethics Statement

The studies involving human participants were reviewed and approved by the study protocol was reviewed and approved by the Human Research Ethics Committee of the University of Hong Kong (approval number: EA1912046 dated March 4, 2020). Written informed consent for participation was not required for this study in accordance with the national legislation and the institutional requirements.

Author Contributions

CC contributed to project design and administration, coordinated the data collection, performed the statistical analysis, and wrote the first draft of the manuscript. H-yW contributed to project design, survey creation, statistical analysis, and data interpretation. OE contributed to data interpretation and writing parts of the manuscript. All authors contributed to the article and approved the submitted version.

This research project was funded by the Public Policy Research Funding Scheme from the Policy Innovation and Co-ordination Office (Project Number: SR2020.A8.019) and General Research Fund (Project Number: 17400714) of the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. The funders had no role in study design and administration, statistical analysis or interpretation, manuscript writing, or the decision to submit the paper for publication.

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Acknowledgments

The author would like to thank Sylvia Lam, Sophie Lau, Janice Leung, Yin-wai Li, Stephanie So, Yvonne Tsui, and Kylie Wong for research and clerical assistance.

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33. Centre for Health Protection. Number of Notifiable Infectious Diseases by Month in 2020 . (2020). Available onlone at: https://www.chp.gov.hk/en/statistics/data/10/26/43/6896.html (accessed October 8, 2020).

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35. The HKSAR and Government (2020). Government Announces Enhancements to Anti-Epidemic Measures in Four Aspects . Available online at: https://www.info.gov.hk/gia/general/202003/24/P2020032400050.htm (accessed October 8, 2020).

36. news.gov.hk. Restrictions on Bars Gazetted . (2020). Available online at: https://www.news.gov.hk/eng/2020/04/20200402/20200402_195740_071.html (accessed October 8, 2020).

37. Atal S, Cheng C. Socioeconomic health disparities revisited: coping flexibility enhances health-related quality of life for individuals low in socioeconomic status. Health Qual Life Outcomes. (2016) 14:1–7. doi: 10.1186/s12955-016-0410-1

38. Cheng C, Hui W, Lam S. Perceptual style and behavioral pattern of individuals with functional gastrointestinal disorders. Health Psychol. (2000) 19:146–54. doi: 10.1037/0278-6133.19.2.146

39. Lazarus RS, Folkman S. The concept of coping. In: Monat A, Lazarus RS, editors. Stress and Coping: An Anthology . New York, NY: Columbia University (1991). p. 189–206

40. Cheng C, Chan NY, Chio JHM, Chan P, Chan AOO, Hui WM. Being active or flexible? Role of control coping on quality of life among patients with gastrointestinal cancer. Psychooncology. (2012) 21:211–8. doi: 10.1002/pon.1892

41. Cheng C, Cheng F, Atal S, Sarwono S. Testing of a dual process model to resolve the socioeconomic health disparities: a tale of two Asian countries. Int J Environ Res Public Health. (2021) 18:717. doi: 10.3390/ijerph18020717

42. Endler NS. Stress, anxiety and coping: the multidimensional interaction model. Can Psychol. (1997) 38:136–53. doi: 10.1037/0708-5591.38.3.136

43. Hayes AF, Krippendorff K. Answering the call for a standard reliability measure for coding data. Commun Methods Meas. (2007) 1:77–89. doi: 10.1080/19312450709336664

44. Cheng C, Ng A. Psychosocial factors predicting SARS-preventive behaviors in four major SARS-affected regions. J Appl Soc Psychol. (2006) 36:222–47. doi: 10.1111/j.0021-9029.2006.00059.x

45. Cheng C, Cheung MWL. Psychological responses to outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome: a prospective, multiple time-point study. J Pers. (2005) 73:261–85. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-6494.2004.00310.x

46. Andresen EM, Malmgren JA, Carter WB, Patrick DL. Screening for depression in well older adults: evaluation of a short form of the CES-D. Am J Prev Med. (1994) 10:77–84. doi: 10.1016/S0749-3797(18)30622-6

47. Yang CF. Measures of Personality and Social Psychological Attitudes , Vol. 1. Taipei: Yuan-Liou (1997).

48. Boey KW. Cross-validation of a short form of the CES-D in Chinese elderly. Int J Geriatr Psychiatry. (1999) 14:608–17. doi: 10.1002/(SICI)1099-1166(199908)14:8<608::AID-GPS991>3.0.CO;2-Z

49. Bagozzi RP, Youjae Y. On the evaluation of structural equation models. J Acad Mark Sci. (1988) 16:74–94. doi: 10.1007/BF02723327

50. Wang H, Cheng C. New perspectives on the prevalence and associated factors of gaming disorder in Hong Kong community adults: a generational approach. Comput Hum Behav. (2021) 114:106574. doi: 10.1016/j.chb.2020.106574

51. Salari N, Hosseinian-Far A, Jalali R, Vaisi-Raygani A, Rasoulpoor S, Mohammadi M, et al. Prevalence of stress, anxiety, depression among the general population during the COVID-19 pandemic: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Glob Health. (2020) 16:1–11. doi: 10.1186/s12992-020-00589-w

52. Kardefelt-Winther D. The moderating role of psychosocial well-being on the relationship between escapism and excessive online gaming. Comput Hum Behav. (2014) 38:68–74. doi: 10.1016/j.chb.2014.05.020

53. Young NL, Daria JK, Mark DG, Christina JH. Passive Facebook use, Facebook addiction, and associations with escapism: an experimental vignette study. Comput Hum Behavi. (2017) 71:24–31. doi: 10.1016/j.chb.2017.01.039

54. Cheng C, Lau Y, Luk JW. Social capital–accrual, escape-from-self, and time-displacement effects of internet use during the COVID-19 stay-at-home period: prospective, quantitative survey study. J Med Int Res. (2020) 22:e22740. doi: 10.2196/22740

55. Harvey N. Behavioural fatigue: real phenomenon, naïve construct, or policy contrivance. Front Psychol. (2021) 11:2960. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.589892

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Keywords: coronavirus disease, resilience, coping, stress, psychological well-being, adaptation, Chinese, epidemic

Citation: Cheng C, Wang H-y and Ebrahimi OV (2021) Adjustment to a “New Normal:” Coping Flexibility and Mental Health Issues During the COVID-19 Pandemic. Front. Psychiatry 12:626197. doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2021.626197

Received: 05 November 2020; Accepted: 01 March 2021; Published: 19 March 2021.

Reviewed by:

Copyright © 2021 Cheng, Wang and Ebrahimi. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) . The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

*Correspondence: Cecilia Cheng, ceci-cheng@hku.hk

Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

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A National Strategy for the “New Normal” of Life With COVID

• 1 Perelman School of Medicine and The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia
• 2 Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis
• 3 Grossman School of Medicine, New York University, New York, New York
• Viewpoint The First 2 Years of COVID-19—Lessons to Improve Preparedness for the Next Pandemic Jennifer B. Nuzzo, DrPH, SM; Lawrence O. Gostin, JD JAMA
• Viewpoint A National Strategy for COVID-19—Testing, Surveillance, and Mitigation Strategies David Michaels, PhD, MPH; Ezekiel J. Emanuel, MD, PhD; Rick A. Bright, PhD JAMA
• Viewpoint A National Strategy for COVID-19 Medical Countermeasures Luciana L. Borio, MD; Rick A. Bright, PhD; Ezekiel J. Emanuel, MD, PhD JAMA
• Viewpoint The Pandemic Preparedness Program Eli Y. Adashi, MD, MS; I. Glenn Cohen, JD JAMA
• Medical News & Perspectives Former Biden-Harris Transition Advisors Propose a New National Strategy for COVID-19 Jennifer Abbasi JAMA
• Comment & Response Strategy for the “New Normal” of Life With COVID—Reply Ezekiel J. Emanuel, MD, PhD; Michael Osterholm, PhD, MPH; Céline R. Gounder, MD, ScM JAMA
• Comment & Response Strategy for the “New Normal” of Life With COVID Afschin Gandjour, MD, PhD, MA JAMA
• Viewpoint COVID-19 Vaccination—Becoming Part of the New Normal Peter Marks, MD, PhD; Janet Woodcock, MD; Robert Califf, MD JAMA

As the Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2 demonstrates, COVID-19 is here to stay. In January 2021, President Biden issued the “National Strategy for the COVID-19 Response and Pandemic Preparedness.” As the US moves from crisis to control, this national strategy needs to be updated. Policy makers need to specify the goals and strategies for the “new normal” of life with COVID-19 and communicate them clearly to the public.

SARS-CoV-2 continues to persist, evolve, and surprise. In July 2021, with vaccinations apace and infection rates plummeting, Biden proclaimed that “we’ve gained the upper hand against this virus,” and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) relaxed its guidance for mask wearing and socializing. 1 By September 2021, the Delta variant proved these steps to be premature, and by late November, the Omicron variant created concern about a perpetual state of emergency.

In delineating a national strategy, humility is essential. The precise duration of immunity to SARS-CoV-2 from vaccination or prior infection is unknown. Also unknown is whether SARS-CoV-2 will become a seasonal infection; whether antiviral therapies will prevent long COVID; or whether even more transmissible, immune-evading, or virulent variants will arise after Omicron.

Another part of this humility is recognizing that predictions are necessary but educated guesses, not mathematical certainty. The virus, host response, and data will evolve. Biomedical and public health tools will expand, along with better understanding of their limitations. The incidence of SARS-CoV-2, vaccination rates, hospital capacity, tolerance for risk, and willingness to implement different interventions will vary geographically, and national recommendations will need to be adapted locally.

It is imperative for public health, economic, and social functioning that US leaders establish and communicate specific goals for COVID-19 management, benchmarks for the imposition or relaxation of public health restrictions, investments and reforms needed to prepare for future SARS-CoV-2 variants and other novel viruses, and clear strategies to accomplish all of this.

Redefining the Appropriate National Risk Level

The goal for the “new normal” with COVID-19 does not include eradication or elimination, eg, the “zero COVID” strategy. 2 Neither COVID-19 vaccination nor infection appear to confer lifelong immunity. Current vaccines do not offer sterilizing immunity against SARS-CoV-2 infection. Infectious diseases cannot be eradicated when there is limited long-term immunity following infection or vaccination or nonhuman reservoirs of infection. The majority of SARS-CoV-2 infections are asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic, and the SARS-CoV-2 incubation period is short, preventing the use of targeted strategies like “ring vaccination.” Even “fully” vaccinated individuals are at risk for breakthrough SARS-CoV-2 infection. Consequently, a “new normal with COVID” in January 2022 is not living without COVID-19.

The “new normal” requires recognizing that SARS-CoV-2 is but one of several circulating respiratory viruses that include influenza, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), and more. COVID-19 must now be considered among the risks posed by all respiratory viral illnesses combined. Many of the measures to reduce transmission of SARS-CoV-2 (eg, ventilation) will also reduce transmission of other respiratory viruses. Thus, policy makers should retire previous public health categorizations, including deaths from pneumonia and influenza or pneumonia, influenza, and COVID-19, and focus on a new category: the aggregate risk of all respiratory virus infections.

What should be the peak risk level for cumulative viral respiratory illnesses for a “normal” week? Even though seasonal influenza, RSV, and other respiratory viruses circulating before SARS-CoV-2 were harmful, the US has not considered them a sufficient threat to impose emergency measures in over a century. People have lived normally with the threats of these viruses, even though more could have been done to reduce their risks.

The appropriate risk threshold should reflect peak weekly deaths, hospitalizations, and community prevalence of viral respiratory illnesses during high-severity years, such as 2017-2018. 3 That year had approximately 41 million symptomatic cases of influenza, 710 000 hospitalizations and 52 000 deaths. 4 In addition, the CDC estimates that each year RSV leads to more than 235 000 hospitalizations and 15 000 deaths in the US. 3 This would translate into a risk threshold of approximately 35 000 hospitalizations and 3000 deaths (<1 death/100 000 population) in the worst week.

Today, the US is far from these thresholds. For the week of December 13, 2021, the CDC reported the US experienced more than 900 000 COVID-19 cases, more than 50 000 new hospitalizations for COVID-19, and more than 7000 deaths. 5 , 6 The tolerance for disease, hospitalization, and death varies widely among individuals and communities. What constitutes appropriate thresholds for hospitalizations and death, at what cost, and with what trade-offs remains undetermined.

This peak week risk threshold serves at least 2 fundamental functions. This risk threshold triggers policy recommendations for emergency implementation of mitigation and other measures. In addition, health systems could rely on this threshold for planning on the bed and workforce capacity they need normally, and when to institute surge measures.

Rebuilding Public Health

To cope with pandemic, and eventually, endemic SARS-CoV-2 and to respond to future public health threats requires deploying real-time information systems, a public health implementation workforce, flexible health systems, trust in government and public health institutions, and belief in the value of collective action for public good. 7 , 8

First, the US needs a comprehensive, digital, real-time, integrated data infrastructure for public health. As Omicron has reemphasized, the US is operating with imprecise estimates of disease spread, limited genomic surveillance, projections based on select reporting sites, and data from other countries that may not be generalizable. These shortcomings are threatening lives and societal function.

The US must establish a modern data infrastructure that includes real-time electronic collection of comprehensive information on respiratory viral infections, hospitalizations, deaths, disease-specific outcomes, and immunizations merged with sociodemographic and other relevant variables. The public health data infrastructure should integrate data from local, state, and national public health units, health care systems, public and commercial laboratories, and academic and research institutions. Using modern technology and analytics, it is also essential to merge nontraditional environmental (air, wastewater) surveillance data, including genomic data, with traditional clinical and epidemiological data to track outbreaks and target containment.

Second, the US needs a permanent public health implementation workforce that has the flexibility and surge capacity to manage persistent problems while simultaneously responding to emergencies. Data collection, analysis, and technical support are necessary, but it takes people to respond to crises. This implementation workforce should include a public health agency–based community health worker system and expanded school nurse system.

A system of community public health workers could augment the health care system by testing and vaccinating for SARS-CoV-2 and other respiratory infections; ensuring adherence to ongoing treatment for tuberculosis, HIV, diabetes, and other chronic conditions; providing health screening and support to pregnant individuals and new parents and their newborns; and delivering various other public health services to vulnerable or homebound populations.

School nurses need to be empowered to address the large unmet public health needs of children and adolescents. As polio vaccination campaigns showed, school health programs are an efficient and effective way to care for children, including preventing and treating mild asthma exacerbations (often caused by viral respiratory infections), ensuring vaccination as a condition for attendance, and addressing adolescents’ mental and sexual health needs. School clinics must be adequately staffed and funded as an essential component of the nation’s public health infrastructure.

Third, because respiratory infections ebb and flow, institutionalizing telemedicine waivers, licensure to practice and enable billing across state lines, and other measures that allow the flow of medical services to severely affected regions should be a priority.

Fourth, it is essential to rebuild trust in public health institutions and a belief in collective action in service of public health. 7 Communities with higher levels of trust and reciprocity, such as Denmark, have experienced lower rates of hospitalization and death from COVID-19. 7 Improving public health data systems and delivering a diverse public health workforce that can respond in real time in communities will be important steps toward building that trust more widely.

Conclusions

After previous infectious disease threats, the US quickly forgot and failed to institute necessary reforms. That pattern must change with the COVID-19 pandemic. Without a strategic plan for the “new normal” with endemic COVID-19, more people in the US will unnecessarily experience morbidity and mortality, health inequities will widen, and trillions will be lost from the US economy. This time, the nation must learn and prepare effectively for the future.

The resources necessary to build and sustain an effective public health infrastructure will be substantial. Policy makers should weigh not only the costs but also the benefits, including fewer deaths and lost productivity from COVID-19 and all viral respiratory illnesses. Indeed, after more than 800 000 deaths from COVID-19, and a projected loss of $8 trillion in gross domestic product through 2030, 8 these interventions will be immensely valuable.

Corresponding Author: Ezekiel J. Emanuel, MD, PhD, Medical Ethics and Health Policy, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, 423 Guardian Dr, Blockley Hall, Philadelphia, PA 19104 ( [email protected] ).

Published Online: January 6, 2022. doi:10.1001/jama.2021.24282

Conflict of Interest Disclosures: Dr Emanuel reported personal fees, nonfinancial support, or both from companies, organizations, and professional health care meetings and being a venture partner at Oak HC/FT; a partner at Embedded Healthcare LLC, ReCovery Partners LLC, and COVID-19 Recovery Consulting; and an unpaid board member of Village MD and Oncology Analytics. Dr Emanuel owns no stock in pharmaceutical, medical device companies, or health insurers. No other disclosures were reported.

Additional Information: Drs Emanuel, Osterholm, and Gounder were members of the Biden-Harris Transition COVID-19 Advisory Board from November 2020 to January 2021.

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Emanuel EJ , Osterholm M , Gounder CR. A National Strategy for the “New Normal” of Life With COVID. JAMA. 2022;327(3):211–212. doi:10.1001/jama.2021.24282

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Sierra Schumann

Contributing Writer

The introduction of COVID-19 has undoubtedly changed everyone’s lives over the past few years. Living through this event, which will be taught in history classes for years to come, is both terrifying and unique. 

While science has made grand improvements and monumental strides in overcoming this earth-shaking virus, it seems that every time we approach “normal” life, a new surge of sickness or a new variant arises, and we are swept back into the tumultuous cycle of mask mandates and online classes. This seemingly never-ending cycle poses a contentious question: will we ever go back to normal life? 

Here at UC Santa Barbara (UCSB), students were hopeful, as the fall quarter allowed for the return to in-person instruction. Yet just as school was on its way back to normal, the Omicron variant took over, reintroducing Zoom lectures and asynchronous learning. 

COVID-19, despite its unpredictability, has made itself so predictable to the point where the promise of “only two weeks of online classes” is no longer believable. Going online for the full month of January was no surprise to many after the first two-week interval was introduced. 

As recent history has proved, and as first-year UCSB undergraduate Annika Hando told The Bottom Line (TBL), “Two weeks is never just two weeks. In 2019, we all were so excited for an extra-long spring break, but those two weeks ended up to be a two-year-and-counting escapade.”

When considering whether we will ever return to normal life again, students hope the answer is yes, but realize that reality disagrees. While we are certainly in a far more advanced and knowledgeable position compared to a year and a half ago, it feels like every time there is a glimpse of hope, something new comes along. It is a never-ending fight, and it is hard to imagine that life will ever be the same as it was before the pandemic. 

From the suffering of so many families to drastic changes in mental health, everyone underwent some form of personal change during the months of isolation. 

When TBL spoke with Sean Andampour, another freshman at UCSB, he reflected on the pandemic. “It made me feel more sensitive because while being isolated from everyone, there is a certain amount of anxiety that builds up, so I feel like I have become more empathetic and understanding of others,” he said. This illustrates one of the many ways in which COVID-19 has changed people on a level that will remain unaltered, even if life returns to so-called “normal.”

In addition to the personal changes brought on by isolation, there are many logistical areas that have drastically shifted to accommodate social distancing. COVID-19 has shown affluent countries like the United States that we are able to get just about anything done with technology in a much faster, and sometimes simpler way. Time can be used more efficiently as we can multitask Zoom calls and household chores. With this considered, the transition to online schooling and working from home could quite possibly be the new normal.

Furthermore, after seeing how easy and enjoyable it can sometimes be to work or do school from home in one’s pajamas, or order groceries online and forgo the effort of in-person shopping, we got a taste of a new life. For some, they may not be able to or even want to go back to a life where they have to put on a suit and tie and sit in traffic every day. 

“The pandemic forced us to become sort of hyper-advanced in using technology for everything. So many things shifted to being online, and I think some of that will stay the same as we move forward,” stated Pavel Tantchev, a first-year undergraduate at UCSB. 

While society will most likely, and has already started to, return to many of its old rituals such as the reintroduction of stores, restaurants, parties, concerts, and business as usual, the overall mentality of everyone living through this event will be forever changed. 

Pavel captured the sentiments of many students at UCSB when describing how their mindset has changed due to COVID-19. “Since COVID-19, I feel like I am a lot more conscious about germs and overall taking care of my health”, he said. Coming from a world filled with physical touch, large gatherings, and traveling, the new significance of germs has rewired many people’s brains to become hyperaware about the spread of germs and staying healthy and safe. Pavel added, “I think masks will stick around for a while.”

This surge of illnesses brought about by COVID-19 is more widespread than any other in history, and this in itself has the power to change the world’s view of what is “normal.” Changing the way we view disease and intertwining politics with human health in a way we have never seen before, the impact of COVID-19 on the media and polarization of countries like the United States is something that will forever be ingrained in our minds.

Moreover, while this exact moment of online classes, travel bans, and mask-wearing will not always be the new normal, this constant state of change and unpredictability may be. 

As said by Sean Andampour, “I think we can try to go back to normal, but it is so hard to say that will happen because I don’t even know what is considered normal anymore. I think eventually we will start to recognize a new normal.”

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Adapting to the culture of ‘new normal’: an emerging response to COVID-19

Jeff clyde g corpuz.

Theology and Religious Education Department, De La Salle University, 2401 Taft Avenue, 0922 Manila, Philippines

A year after COVID-19 pandemic has emerged, we have suddenly been forced to adapt to the ‘new normal’: work-from-home setting, parents home-schooling their children in a new blended learning setting, lockdown and quarantine, and the mandatory wearing of face mask and face shields in public. For many, 2020 has already been earmarked as ‘the worst’ year in the 21st century. Ripples from the current situation have spread into the personal, social, economic and spiritual spheres. Is this new normal really new or is it a reiteration of the old? A recent correspondence published in this journal rightly pointed out the involvement of a ‘supportive’ government, ‘creative’ church and an ‘adaptive’ public in the so-called culture. However, I argue that adapting to the ‘new normal’ can greatly affect the future. I would carefully suggest that we examine the context and the location of culture in which adaptations are needed.

To live in the world is to adapt constantly. A year after COVID-19 pandemic has emerged, we have suddenly been forced to adapt to the ‘new normal’: work-from-home setting, parents home-schooling their children in a new blended learning setting, lockdown and quarantine, and the mandatory wearing of face mask and face shields in public. For many, 2020 has already been earmarked as ‘the worst’ year in the 21st century. 1 Ripples from the current situation have spread into the personal, social, economic and spiritual spheres. Is this new normal really new or is it a reiteration of the old? A recent correspondence published in this journal rightly pointed out the involvement of a ‘supportive’ government, ‘creative’ church and an ‘adaptive’ public in the so-called culture. 2 However, I argue that adapting to the ‘new normal’ can greatly affect the future. I would carefully suggest that we examine the context and the location of culture in which adaptations are needed.

The term ‘new normal’ first appeared during the 2008 financial crisis to refer to the dramatic economic, cultural and social transformations that caused precariousness and social unrest, impacting collective perceptions and individual lifestyles. 3 This term has been used again during the COVID-19 pandemic to point out how it has transformed essential aspects of human life. Cultural theorists argue that there is an interplay between culture and both personal feelings (powerlessness) and information consumption (conspiracy theories) during times of crisis. 4 Nonetheless, it is up to us to adapt to the challenges of current pandemic and similar crises, and whether we respond positively or negatively can greatly affect our personal and social lives. Indeed, there are many lessons we can learn from this crisis that can be used in building a better society. How we open to change will depend our capacity to adapt, to manage resilience in the face of adversity, flexibility and creativity without forcing us to make changes. As long as the world has not found a safe and effective vaccine, we may have to adjust to a new normal as people get back to work, school and a more normal life. As such, ‘we have reached the end of the beginning. New conventions, rituals, images and narratives will no doubt emerge, so there will be more work for cultural sociology before we get to the beginning of the end’. 5

Now, a year after COVID-19, we are starting to see a way to restore health, economies and societies together despite the new coronavirus strain. In the face of global crisis, we need to improvise, adapt and overcome. The new normal is still emerging, so I think that our immediate focus should be to tackle the complex problems that have emerged from the pandemic by highlighting resilience, recovery and restructuring (the new three Rs). The World Health Organization states that ‘recognizing that the virus will be with us for a long time, governments should also use this opportunity to invest in health systems, which can benefit all populations beyond COVID-19, as well as prepare for future public health emergencies’. 6 There may be little to gain from the COVID-19 pandemic, but it is important that the public should keep in mind that no one is being left behind. When the COVID-19 pandemic is over, the best of our new normal will survive to enrich our lives and our work in the future.

No funding was received for this paper.

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Essays released in the 'new normal' that help make some sense of the changing world

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Essays released in the 'new normal' that help make some sense of ...

Timesofindia.com | last updated on - jul 15, 2021, 11:37 ist share fbshare twshare pinshare comments ( 0 ), 01 /12 essays released in the 'new normal' that help make some sense of the changing world.

The sudden onset of the Coronavirus pandemic took everyone across the world by surprise. We live in an ever-changing society and unprecedented times, which brings its own struggles in our everyday lives. To help make some sense of the modern world, here we list down some essay collections that released in the 'new normal' which offer some wisdom and solace. Photo: Canva

02 /12 'Intimations' by Zadie Smith

Zadie Smith's 'Intimations' released in July 2020, when the world was undergoing a lockdown due to the Coronavirus pandemic. In this short collection, Smith writes essays on one of the strangest years many of us ever experienced.

Photo: Penguin

03 /12 'How to Stay Sane' by Elif Shafak

Released in August 2020, 'How to Stay Sane' by Elif Shafak is a powerful read. Drawing from her own personal memories, in this book, Shafak writes about the power of stories and how they can bring us together. She also reveals how listening to each other nurtures empathy and democracy leading us to a kinder future.

Photo: Wellcome Collection

04 /12 'Voices of Dissent: An Essay' by Romila Thapar

In 'Voices of Dissent', one of India's most popular public intellectuals Romila Thapar sheds light on a long history and articulation of dissent in the Indian subcontinent. The book is an essential read if you would like to understand not only India's past but also the direction in which our society is headed.

Photo: Seagull Books

05 /12 'A Swim in a Pond in the Rain' by George Saunders

In 'A Swim in a Pond in the Rain', Booker Prize winner George Saunders writes about what makes great stories so successful with readers and what they tell us about ourselves and our ever-changing world today.

Photo: Bloomsbury Publishing

06 /12 'The Spirit of Enquiry' by TM Krishna

Released in May 2021, 'The Spirit of Enquiry' is Ramon Magsaysay Award 2016-winner and Carnatic tradition vocalist TM Krishna's new collection of key writings. The book is divided into five sections, namely: art and artistes; the nation state; the theatre of secularism; savage inequalities; and in memoriam, according to the book's blurb.

07 /12 'The Anthropocene Reviewed' by John Green

‘The Anthropocene Reviewed’ is John Green's first non-fiction book which is based on his popular podcast of the same name. Anthropocene is a name for our geologic age. In this series of essays, Green takes some aspects of humanity and reviews them on a scale of one to five.

Photo: Ebury Press

08 /12 'Languages of Truth' by Salman Rushdie

Salman Rushdie's 'Languages of Truth' is a new collection of essays, criticism, and speeches written during 2003-2020. And though the pieces are written pre-pandemic, they give a perspective of how the world changed in the recent past.

Photo: Penguin Hamish Hamilton

09 /12 'Notes on Grief' by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Released in May 2021, 'Notes on Grief' by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is a daughter's tribute to her late father. Adichie lost her father in a sudden turn of events in 2020. In this book, she remembers him as she grieves her irreparable loss. Many people lost their near and dear ones during the Coronavirus pandemic and though grief is a very personal experience, some readers might find solace and reliability in Adichie's words.

Photo: Fourth Estate

10 /12 'Azadi' by Arundhati Roy

In this collection of essays, writer-activist Arundhati Roy makes the readers reflect on the true meaning of freedom in a world which is leaning towards authoritarianism. "The pandemic, Roy says, is a portal between one world and another. For all the illness and devastation it has left in its wake, it is an invitation to the human race, an opportunity to imagine another world," reads the book's blurb.

11 /12 'Homo Irrealis' by Andre Aciman

Released in January 2021, Andre Aciman's 'Homo Irrealis' is a collection of thoughts about time, great artists, writers and creative minds, and notable works. The book "is a deep reflection of the imagination's power to shape our memories under time's seemingly intractable hold," according to its blurb.

Photo: Faber & Faber

12 /12 'Things Are Against Us' by Lucy Ellmann

'Things Are Against Us' is Booker 2019 nominee Lucy Ellman's new collection of essays which was released in July 2021. From matriarchy to present-day environmental and climate crisis to Donald Trump's chaotic rule in the United States-- Ellmann shares her sharp opinions on various topics in this book.

Photo: Picador India

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2 ‘New Normal’, 2001–2019

• Published: July 2022
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This chapter begins by considering examples of sentences in which the phrase ‘new normal’ was used amidst the Covid-19 outbreak in 2020. It then looks back and tracks the career of the catchphrase from US Vice President Dick Cheney’s reference to a ‘new normalcy’ of security arrangements following the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the USA. In relation to 9/11, the ‘new normal’ also indicated a traumatized environment and a pressured legal field where rule-of-law tenets seemed to be undermined. The different nuances of the catchphrase in business and investment circles, first with the 2002 dot-com crash and then more widely with the 2007–2008 financial crisis and subsequent austerity measures are outlined. The wider purchase of the catchphrase from 2010 onwards is described. Notably, it appeared as a slogan for Chinese economic policy from 2014. Other significant contexts of usage were for flexible-working drives, growing concern about climate change, and exacerbating income inequality.

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Lord Byron Was Hard to Pin Down. That’s What Made Him Great.

Two hundred years after his death, this Romantic poet is still worth reading.

“Who would write, who had anything better to do?” Byron once said. Credit... Musée Fabre/Hulton Fine Art Collection, via Getty Images

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By Benjamin Markovits

Benjamin Markovits is the author of a trilogy of novels about Lord Byron, “Imposture,” “A Quiet Adjustment” and “Childish Loves.”

• April 19, 2024

This week is the 200th anniversary of Lord Byron’s death. The most famous poet of his age (an odd phrase now) died fighting for Greek independence in the marshes of Missolonghi. “Who would write, who had anything better to do?” he once said. There was a strange contest over his body and memory: The lungs and larynx remained in Greece but friends carried the rest back to England, where huge crowds followed the funeral procession. A month after his death, his former editor burned his memoirs, worried they would damage the reputation of a superstar read around the world.

Does anyone read Byron now? He’s one of those unusual figures who have become better known for the lives they led than the books they wrote. Even some of his fans admire the letters more than the poems. It isn’t totally clear what it means to say that Byron is your favorite poet. Of the so-called Big Six Romantics, he’s the hardest to place. The hikers and the introverts read Wordsworth, the hippies love Blake, Keats is for the purists, Shelley for the political dreamers … and Byron? In spite of his fame, he lacks brand recognition. That’s partly because, halfway through his career, he decided to change the brand. “If I am sincere with myself,” he once wrote, “(but I fear one lies more to one’s self than to any one else), every page should confute, refute and utterly abjure its predecessor.”

All of which makes him a complicated sell. Academics trying to revive his reputation sometimes claim him as the anti-Romantic, a satirist who made fun of the movement’s clichés. Which is true. But he also wrote wonderful love poems, including two of his best-known lyrics, “ She Walks in Beauty ” and “ So We’ll Go No More a Roving .” Both are cleareyed about their own sentimentality, but more sad than satirical.

There are other ways of reclaiming him: as the first celebrity writer, as an early adopter of autofiction, for his sexual fluidity. He fell in love with both men and women, and slept with almost everybody, including his half sister, Augusta — which explains why his old editor, John Murray, decided to burn the memoirs.

Writers usually get famous because they touch a chord, and then keep playing it. And even if, as their work matures, they find ways to deepen the tone, it’s still recognizable; readers know what to expect from the product. And Byron touched a chord very young. His breakthrough poem — another odd phrase — was published when he was 24. “Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage,” about a moody young nobleman who travels through war-torn Europe chased by some secret sorrow, made him a household name. Fan mail flowed in; women offered themselves in assignations. (Philip Roth joked in “The Ghost Writer” that for an author to get laid in New York you need only publish a couplet.) “Childe Harold” eventually stretched to four volumes.

Movie versions of Byron’s life tend to take the Childe Harold angle, presenting him as the beautiful young nobleman and exaggerating his Gothic or camp tendencies. He’s been played by Rupert Everett and Hugh Grant. You can find those elements in his writing, too, especially in the early verse, but then a few things changed. He got married, and the marriage went badly; he left England in 1816 and didn’t return; his fame hardened, and as it hardened, he began to realize that it didn’t really fit him.

People who met Byron for the first time expected him to be someone he wasn’t. This bugged him, not just as a human being but as a writer. He asked his friend Tom Moore to tell a well-known literary critic “that I was not, and, indeed, am not even now , the misanthropical and gloomy gentleman he takes me for, but a facetious companion, well to do with those with whom I am intimate, and as loquacious and laughing as if I were a much cleverer fellow.”

Byron was writing this from Venice after his separation from his wife. It was in many ways an unhappy couple of years. Still recovering from the trauma of his marriage, he overindulged himself, sexually and otherwise. The beautiful young nobleman was growing middle-aged. “Lord Byron could not have been more than 30,” one visitor remarked, “but he looked 40. His face had become pale, bloated and sallow. He had grown very fat, his shoulders broad and round, and the knuckles of his hands were lost in fat.” Some of Byron’s reputation for scandalous living dates to his stay in Venice. But he also made another literary breakthrough, finishing one long poem, “ Beppo ,” and starting his masterpiece, written “in the same style and manner” — “ Don Juan .”

“Don Juan” would occupy him for the rest of his short life. It cost him his relationship with Murray, who disapproved of the new tone in Byron’s writing. “You have so many ‘ divine ’ poems,” Byron told him. “Is it nothing to have written a Human one?” Around the time that Shelley was writing “ To a Skylark ” (“Hail to thee, blithe Spirit!”) and Keats was working on “ Ode to a Nightingale ” (“Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!”), Byron in “Beppo” was advising visitors who come to Venice for the Carnival to bring ketchup or soy with them, because Venetians give up sauce for Lent. But he was making a broader point, too. Poetical truths, about birds, about nature, don’t always rank high on the list of what matters. Poets should spend more time talking about things like money and food.

Part of what his early success taught him was to be suspicious of it, which meant being suspicious of writers — of the ways they lie to themselves and their readers. Keats, for example, was guilty of “a sort of mental masturbation,” Byron said. “I don’t mean that he is indecent but viciously soliciting his own ideas into a state which is neither poetry nor anything else.” The work of Leigh Hunt was “disfigured only by a strange style. His answer was that his style was a system … and, when a man talks of system, his case is hopeless.” Experience, Byron believed, was the real source of literary value. “Could any man have written it,” he said of “Don Juan,” “who has not lived in the world?”

But experience relies on the honesty of the writer, and honesty, as Byron knew, is not a simple virtue. His own style became increasingly hard to pin down and hard to imitate — there is nobody who writes quite like him. Sometimes he lays on the devices pretty thick (“He rushed into the field, and, foremost fighting, fell”), the way you might scatter salt over a meal to add all-purpose flavor. But he can also write poetry that is unabashedly prosy: “There might be one more motive, which makes two.” What he’s particularly good at is achieving vividness without metaphor or adjective: “I have imbibed such a love for money that I keep some Sequins in a drawer to count, & cry over them once a week.” This is classic Byron, self-mocking and sincere at the same time.

The overall effect is like someone pitching knuckle balls. He seems to be just tossing lines at you, almost carelessly or without effort, but they’re always moving unpredictably, and when you try to do it yourself, you realize how hard it is to throw without spin. Two centuries later, this still seems a talent worth celebrating.

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