C19OH

This interview was recorded as part of The Covid 19 Oral History Project, a project of the IUPUI Arts and Humanities Institute associated with The Journal of a Plague Year: A Covid 19 Archive. This interview was conducted through the University of Cincinnati in partial fulfillment of credit for HIST3158 under the supervision of Dr. Rebecca S. Wingo.

In this interview the interviewee wished to be anonymous. In the interview we will be interviews a gentleman from Bulgaria in Eastern Europe. He works in a for a tech company and had to move into the city to find the job away from his small hometown. He tells us what it like in the city and why he would rather be in his hometown. As well he talks how COVID-19 has affected his job and family life and life around the city. In addition, he gives on interesting perspective on how the Bulgarian government is handling the pandemic. As well as what many people in Bulgaria think of the virus such as conspiracy theories and protests not things he personally believes but what citizens around him think at times.

C19OH

My life feels weird. I feel like everything almost moved too fast, but not fast enough. I think due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we all have a weird feeling of how time works. It seems almost as if the days pass by faster than I can imagine, let alone each month. I blink and the semester is practically at a close. My life feels busy. My days are consumed with school work and nannying, as almost every week feels the same. I try to incorporate different aspects of my daily life into each day to have a feeling of change, yet also normalcy. I personally have faced academic and personal challenges. I feel as though I do not have the same energy I did when in the classroom. I felt like I have lost my passion for learning, as it almost feels more forced than it did before. To do all your work through a computer screen is not easy, let alone to do it for years on end. Personally, I have had a hard time with a lack of communication with family and friends. Some of my peers and I discussed the difficulty with just talking to people now! It just feels so strange. The sudden change to college was weird. I started off at a University and hated it. I think due to COVID, I had a hard time picking out what I needed in a school, as I also didn't know how the upcoming school year would look with the pandemic. I feel as though I have adapted, but I wish things could go back to the way they were. Nothing feels the same anymore and I feel as if my life is slipping through my fingers. Therefore, I try to embrace the time I do have, even though we are still living through the midst of a pandemic.

I am currently a senior majoring in communication sciences and disorders. Last year, student clinicians provided services entirely online through teletherapy. For clinicians, the transition to online was very difficult. It required relearning how to implement services that were just as engaging and effective as in-person therapy. For clients, some struggled immensely. Furthermore, sometimes the clients had trouble staying focused and supports could not be implemented the same way they normally would be in person. Some clients excelled online and have chosen to continue teletherapy even after in-person therapy was offered. For the future, I think SLPs and student clinicians will have to view the way they provide therapy differently. It is now expected that any clinician can successfully provide therapy in multiple different modes.

This pandemic has been an eye-opening experience as to how reactionary humans are during times of need. Variations of this sign have been placed around my university’s campus in the hopes that people will stop taking handfuls of masks and will only take one (i.e., what is needed). It is odd how this theme of greed has echoed throughout the last two years. The same people preaching to “be a decent human being during unprecedented times” will hoard basic necessities and stockpile their garage with hand sanitizer and paper towels. It is unfortunate that pandemics can sometimes bring out the worst people. Hopefully, 2022 will be different.

[CURATOR'S NOTE] This is an piece of fiction submitted to the archive by the author.

On March 31st 2020, my state governor, J.B. Pritzker announced that school would be out of session till the 30th of April. I was a senior in high school, and hearing that broke my heart as the last day of school for the seniors was May 8th 2020. The biggest year of most young adults lives is their senior year of high school, as it signifies their last moments of childhood before embracing adulthood. I was in my mother's bedroom sitting on her bed with my sister watching the live newscast. My sister was a freshman in college at the time and about two weeks before had to clear out her dorm room and bring it all home shortly after her Spring Break had ended. She didn't have a particular reaction to it, not that I can remember. After the governor stated that school was out for another month, I began to cry. My mother cried for me, as she knew how much I had been looking forward to my senior year, and graduation, and prom. While I was crying and watching the newscast continue on, I took a photo of myself on Snapchat, and typed out "I hate this so much". I did hate it, because there was nothing I could have done about it, and I was being robbed of a particularly precious moment in my life. Many seniors in the class of 2020, both high school and college, were robbed of what they deserved that year. I'm submitting this because this is one of many real reactions students in my age group had, and it is important to me since I am currently in college to become a history teacher. I'm living through a historic time that I will be teaching my future students about, and I will use the photos and videos I took as primary sources for it.

These memes show just how "zooming" was while doing school when we went online because of the Covid pandemic. Waking up and going to class was never easier. How it usually went is I would set my alarm for 5 minutes before class, make my coffee downstairs with my blankets wrapped around me and sit back down, just like it shows in the one meme I attached. Another way I would do things is set my alarm 2 minutes before class, login to zoom and go right back to sleep with my audio on only. I think many people can relate to these memes from the past year and it really sums up how online school or work went while on zoom. It is unforgettable.

Back in March of 2020 when Covid first hit, I will never forget when my school was on an extended 2 week spring break because of Covid scares. At the time, I was a senior and we were getting ready for all of the end of the year fun things going on. Unfortunately, that got cut short. During this 2 week time off- it continued to get extended and eventually we got officially put online until the rest of the year. It was very sad for us seniors as we had no idea that day back in March would be our last day of high school. I cried as well did many of my friends as we did not get a proper end or proper goodbyes to our high school experience. Never did I think walking into school would I not be able to have a real graduation because of a virus. Graduation ceremony was online as they put photos of each graduate. It was all very depressing and a sad way to end the year. No one saw this coming and I as well all high school or college seniors around the world will never forget it. I cannot wait till tell my children about this in hope everything is back to normal in the way future and that they can properly graduate.

It illustrates what college was like during the pandemic

During the Covid-19, I experienced a stressful time period just like most people. When the lockdown first happened I was scared and uncertain of what would happen. It was the first time in my life that I have ever had the feeling of being unable to hang out with friends and see family members. Many people I knew were still hanging out with people and doing social activities just like there was not a pandemic going on. I wanted to still do social activities with them and visit people but I was unsure if that was safe to do, so I decided to just stay in the house and be safe. My grandma is going through chemotherapy and I did not want her to catch covid if I did happen to get it, so my whole family was being extra careful to not catch the virus. During this time period I kept in touch with friends by playing online video games and facetiming my family members. The strangest part of this time period for me was the social aspect of the pandemic. Whenever you would go to the store in my area the shelves would be empty, and people would just walk past you and were not willing to talk to anyone. I usually take in person classes for school, and I had to make the transition to doing classes online for the first time. All sports had to cancel all of their events so I was not able to compete in any of the events for the entire year. This was definitely a year of fear and uncertainty for many people, but when I look back there were a lot of positives that happened. The most positive thing was that I got to spend a lot of time with my family. Mostly everyone in my household is busy all the time and we all never get too much time to just sit and talk even though we all live in the same house. During the lockdown we all got the chance to spend a lot of time together since there was not a whole lot going on. I was also able to spend a lot of time talking with friends that I have not talked to in a long time over online video games, and I got back into skateboarding which is a hobby that I have not done in seven years. Even though I was fearful of the virus, I experienced a time period where I could focus a lot on being as productive as possible, and it gave me a lot of gratitude for how things are today where things are mostly back to normal. Just like it was for a lot of people, there were definitely a lot of bad experiences that happened during the Covid -19 period for me, but there are also good things that I am thankful for. Hopefully people can focus on the positives that happened during that time period as we push forward past it.

Right when the pandemic was peeking in March me being a senior, thinking we had two extra weeks of spring break, and then realizing that everything went hybrid online and we were going to have a graduation and prom or nothing. This is important to me and my peers because we never really got to see each other for one last time properly.

12/10/21 Once I enter the school, I must be wearing a mask and have cleaned/sanitized my hands. Once I reach my classroom, I see a clean and disinfected classroom. It is part of my job to make sure the students stay in a safe, risk-free environment where they can learn without the fear of transmitting diseases such as COVID. I use special wipes that were given to eveery classroom that is specifically designed to kill germs found in COVID-19 strains when I wipe desks, chairs, toys, books, ect. Pencils have always been kept in the classroom and now, so are lysol spray bottles! When the kids get to class, they must keep their masks on, or they atleast try to. I work with SPED, so it's hard for them to follow this rule consistently for various reasons, i.e., the feeling of the mask might be too much stimulation for them at times. They sanitize their hands before and after each recess, as well as lunch, and when they need to use the restrooms, only two students are permitted in the bathroom at a time. This is to reduce traffic, therefore keeping the children safer from germs and contamination. Lastly, before the students go home, I clean and disinfect everything all over again, for their safety, as well as mine. Being an instructional aid also means being a cleaning nanny!

March 19th 2020 started off as a very normal day, I very clearly remember dropping off my son at school and heading into the office for work. I was a Senior Purchasing Agent at a fairly large IT solutions company and we were busy preparing for the Fiscal Year End as it was only a week and a half away. At around 10 am, my phone buzzed, I looked down and noticed it was an email notification from my son’s school which was fairly uncommon during school hours. I quickly opened it up and saw that the schools were going to be shut down for two whole weeks, which was absurd to me at the time, I had never heard of such a thing happening. I quickly let my supervisor know in hopes of being able to work from home. At the time we were piloting working from home one assigned day per week to see if we could make it a long term perk. She quickly approved me to stay home with my son, I am a single mother, and we all know how expensive childcare in California is. Moments later, I heard everyone who was in the office shuffle into the breakroom to watch a press conference on the news. President Trump was on the podium announcing that he was issuing a “Stay at home” order for the whole country. I immediately got chills down my spine and was in complete panic wondering how dangerous the Covid-19 virus truly was. I then quickly grabbed my phone to text in my family’s group text to check in on them. We all thought that it was absurd but understood that it was for everyone’s safety. Next, there was panic in what seemed like every corner of the United States, as almost no one had enough supplies to cover their entire families for two weeks without going to the stores. This caused complete havoc! For some reason, the hot commodity at the time was toilet paper. It was flying off the shelves and obsolete for some time. My mother and I went to stand in line the next morning at 4:45am in hopes of getting enough food and basic necessities to last our family. Upon arrive at the store about five minutes later there were a hundred people in line waiting for the store to open. Inside the store, people were dashing to get whatever they could and manners were completely out the window. It seemed very apocalyptic. Little did we know that the lockdown would not end for six months. I personally lost an aunt and very good family friend to the virus. Even today, December 10th, 2021, there are mask mandates, and now variants of the virus. Although there is only a vaccine, not a cure, we are learning how to safely navigate life again.

It seems as though every winter all of the kids in schools get a cold. Classrooms have a chorus of sniffles and coughs until springtime and we all suffer sickness together. At least, that’s how it started. My college sent an email to all students, staff, and faculty, saying the school would be monitoring the COVID-19 situation in other countries on February 10th, 2020 and there was no threat to worry about. Everyone left for spring break on March 8th, 2020, expecting to be back in a week. Instead, we got an “extra week” of the break to make sure anyone who traveled could quarantine, just in case. That week turned into a handful more and started online classes ASAP. Students were given the opportunity to go back to the college in a 3-hour window to retrieve any materials necessary for a few weeks online until the surge dies down. Fortunately, I am studying computer science, so a majority of my professors had minimal difficulty making the change, but others were not as fortunate. Quickly, the handful of weeks became the remainder of the semester. All courses would be graded on the basis of pass/fail if the students elected for each individual course they were enrolled in, due to the nature of this huge and unprecedented turnaround. All exams were online, many professors canceled their midterms to alleviate stress from the students and fears of cheating. We would receive semi-weekly updates from the college, mostly fluff pieces about missing the student body with information that was important sprinkled in. Eventually, we were permitted to sign up for a window of time to go and move our belongings out of the dorms, once the state allowed outside travelers in. In the midst of all of the chaos, I transferred colleges and started the next academic year attending one that was much larger and had more resources at its disposal to deal with COVID-19. This school had planned to welcome students back to campus in fall 2020 with a few expectations in place. They had devised a “COVID-19 Compliance” system to keep the population safe and maintain records of who was following protocol. Students would have a “green badge” assigned to them in the morning if: they had completed a daily symptom check-in that was negative, they were up-to-date on their twice-weekly COVID tests and had not been marked as a close contact to someone who had tested positive. Had one of these not been completed, you would have a yellow badge to mark non-compliance, a red badge for isolation, or an orange badge if you were symptomatic. Students must show a green badge to enter ANY campus building. Some classes were online, others hybrid in-person/online at the discretion of the professors. Masks were to be worn at all times, students must get vaccinated once they were eligible, dining areas were to-go only, the campus was littered with signs to promote 6 feet of social distancing, and a student-run campaign called “F*ck It Won’t Cut It” was started to bring attention to the urgency of staying compliant to stay on campus. We would receive weekly updates about the status of the campus’s overall positivity rate. It felt like a shell of a college experience, as students could not visit other students’ residences, no clubs could have in-person meetings, attendance at sporting events was prohibited, and students reporting other students for non-compliance created an atmosphere of disdain. We are now in the second full academic year of the pandemic and there are a few deviations from what I described for fall 2020. Now, COVID tests are once weekly rather than twice, students can now visit other residences and attend sporting events, all of the dining spaces have opened up to sit-in dining, masks are still required at all times, all classes are in person, and the “F*ck It Won’t Cut It” campaign has been retired. It seems as though we are creeping towards the idea of a “typical” college experience, but it feels like this will have an everlasting impact on the next few incoming classes of students and change college as people know it.

[SL] and [S] (Last name unknown) take turns interviewing each other on the topics of covid-19 and how it relates to past pandemics in history.

How our viewpoints on Covid-19 have changed after learning about past pandemics.

In this interview, the focus will be less about your experiences in the pandemic (although your experience in college during the pandemic is certainly something that you might want to talk about) and more about the ways learning about past pandemics has or has not affected your attitude toward, or perception of, the current pandemic.

In this interview we discussed what we learned in our History of Global Pandemics class and how that has affected our perspective of pandemics, including COVID-19.

A discussion with a peer about what we have learned about the COVID-19 pandemic through learning about other pandemics.

My name is Niki, I'm 38 and live in Clovis CA. In March of 2020, I was about 8 and a half months pregnant with my son, Tate. I went to school part time, majoring in Early Childhood Development. I was also a stay at home Mom to my then 3 year old daughter, Quinn. She’s my driving force in school because she is on the autism spectrum. In March she was just beginning to talk and have real words,and her brother was coming, it was an exciting time. My husband Mike, is what they call an over the road trucker. Meaning he was gone all week and home for 30 hours over the weekend. The situation was not ideal for us, but it worked to give me the freedom to be with Quinn to take her to the therapies she needed. Then Covid came to the US. Everyone was forced inside. School shut down. The daycare closed. All therapies were put on hold. Everyone was told to wear a mask and sanitize everything. My baby shower was canceled too many people, myself included, were too scared to get together. Mike was not allowed to come home, in fear of being exposed or exposing us. He had to stay on the truck and keep delivering supplies. Then the hospital called and said I needed to prepare that the beds might fill up in the maternity wards with Covid cases and I might need to do a home birth. Could I find someone to assist me ? I had no one! We had only lived here for a year and I haven't made many friends. I had my Mom but she’s older, not able to deliver a baby and quarantined for her health. My sister lived kinda close but she was with her family and was quarantined like everyone else.I had my three-year-old who only had 4 real words !! Then the hospitals call and say “ Don’t worry you can give birth here, no one can be with you and we might take your baby from you right away and keep them from you for about two weeks to make sure they dont have Covid '' Um No ! Home birth sounds good right about now. I had the worst dreams up until my son’s birth. Thankfully, there were beds open in the maternity ward. Thankfully my husband's dispatch got him home just in time for Tate’s arrival. The hospitals allowed one support person in the room for the birth, so he was there. It was the scariest experience. I begged everyone to not take my baby. The hospital didn’t look like a hospital. Everything was covered in white plastic from ceiling to floors. Everyone had on masks and face coverings. It was a scene from a scifi movie.It was one of the scariest times of my life. Amidst all the chaos and stress my beautiful chunky completely healthy son made his entrance into this world on April 29th, 2020. We stayed in the hospital for two days and no one took him from me. I made sure of that. We went home and adjusted to life with a newborn and living with Covid like everyone else. Its been a year and a half and the hospitals have not changed the rules about only allowing one support person in the delivery room. I try to share as much information to expecting mothers as I can. There are no in and out privileges anymore.Once you are in the hospital, you have to stay there. You need to pack snacks! Or you can have food delivered to the hospital. Still can't have visitors. Have an extensive “go bag” ready for when it’s time to go. I hope with all the advances with the vaccine and lowering cases and people being more conscious of their health the hospitals will relax a little on the support team numbers for expecting moms soon. That’s my Covid19 share.

She made this costume herself to go trick-or-treating in the City with classmates. Apparently, they don't think high school is too old for that nowadays. Last year, we didn't let her go out and we didn't hand out candy either. With a sick grandmother in the home who uses oxygen, it was just not a risk we could afford. She came back and said that the trick-or-treating was pretty skimpy. We didn't get many kids at home either... but that might have been because Halloween fell on a Sunday this year.

This story is an update to our first post where we talk about how learning about previous pandemics in our college course History of Global Pandemics has provided insight and consoled us as we experience the current Covid-19 pandemic.

The audios I have uploaded share different perspectives on Covid-19 after learning about past pandemics

Ever since I was a kid, I waited for the day I would get to walk across the stage inside a huge stadium to receive my diploma, with my family and friends watching. That day did not turn out quite as expected. My senior year began in August of 2020, during the height of COVID. No one knew when or if we would be going back to school in person. We lost football games, homecoming, the senior trip, and almost two semesters of getting to spend time in class with friends. We missed out on finally being a senior. All we could hope for was to be able to have more than a drive-thru graduation. Our class was lucky enough to be able to go back to school for a few months and we got to have an in-person graduation on the football field. Even though there were only just under 200 students per day over the course of our 4-day graduation ceremonies, it was definitely an experience I will never forget. I was grateful that I got to walk across that stage with my family watching. I was grateful that I got to watch my friends who I have known for years, and with who I began this journey, get their diplomas as well. This photo encapsulates the moment that we had officially graduated. As we went in for a masked-up embrace, I thought about so much I had to go through to get to that moment. All of the highs, lows, long nights up studying, fun school events, losing friends who were near and dear to my heart, and making it through what is supposed to be the best year of high school during a worldwide pandemic. It was a bittersweet moment, marking the end of one journey, but the start of the next. I do not know what the future holds, but I hope to never have to experience more masked goodbyes.

Remembering past pandemics and comparing and contrasting them to covid-19

It says how educating yourself on the past can always provide insight on current struggles.

This interview is about our thoughts and understandings of the Covid-19 pandemic after having taken a semester-long course about the history of pandemics spanning from the black plague until the Spanish flu. We've discussed how we think the world could have handled this pandemic differently, the similarities and differences between this pandemic and previous pandemics, and how this pandemic affected our personal lives.

This map shows how many international students St. Mary's University has in Fall 2021. This year St. Mary's received approximately 50 new international students which is only half of the total they were supposed to have in Fall 2021. In Spring 2022 they hope to receive more than 30 international students, making this map just bigger. The biggest amount of International Students St. Mary's has come from Peru and Honduras, with a total of 25 students. Mexico goes in second place with 24 students and in third place, Saudi Arabia with 18 students.

We are discussing the comparisons between COVID-19 and previous pandemics, as well as how the pandemic has impacted our first year of college.

It connects the COVID pandemic to past pandemics, and the future.

This is an interview of two college students from a class over the History of Global Pandemics

This podcast covers the ways that learning about past pandemics has affected our attitude toward, or perception of, the current pandemic.

Most consider dying during the pandemic the end of the story, but for my family and myself, the death of my sister was the undoing of our culture. On March 13, 2021, just over a year since Covid-19 was declared a pandemic, my younger sister took her own life after a life-long battle with epilepsy, anxiety, depression, and PTSD. She was the youngest of my five siblings, aunt to fourteen nieces and nephews, and mother to two sons. My entire family, with the exception of one sister, all live within minutes of one another. Although we were raised as a close-knit family, disagreements had developed, resentments grew, and we all allowed “social distancing” to justify our lack of contact and communication for almost the entire year. And just like the rest of the nation, our family was divided by political and pandemic beliefs. As I mentioned above, my sister overcame her relentless struggles every day for almost forty years and on March 13, 2021, she lost that battle. Since that day, we have all theorized how the isolation brought on by the pandemic must have played a major role. However, we are only left with assumptions as she didn’t leave a note. What I do know for certain, is my family and I had no idea how to grieve during the pandemic. Social distancing, occupancy restrictions, stay-at-home orders and mask mandates challenged every aspect of how our Hispanic culture grieves. After an entire year of living in isolation, coming together as family, came with conflicted feelings of cultural proclivity and the health of our loved ones. As my family rushed to my parents’ home upon hearing the tragic news, there was a twinge of apprehension as we sought comfort one another’s arms. By midafternoon, their home was overcome with family overwhelmed with anguish, while instinctively gauging six feet distance. While notifying friends and family, tears and words of comfort gave way to requests to leave a note at the makeshift shrine in the front yard in lieu coming inside. Making arrangements meant we had to settle for any location willing to allow all forty of us at the memorial. Non-family members would only be allowed to walk through to say their last good-bye, once the family left the building to not exceed occupation restrictions. The cemetery would only allow fifteen people at the gravesite, not the dozens of friends and family who wanted to share their condolences. My mom, still reeling with loss, wanted to include those she loved and who loved my sister and chose a plot next to the street so the other family members could stand off the property while my sister was laid to rest. Following the burial, instead of opening our home and coming together to celebrate her life, we selected a secret location that wouldn’t be known to non-family members. Nine months later, despite continued cases and deaths, Covid restrictions have lessened and most people have resumed their lives as they were pre-Covid. For my family and I, losing my sister still feels unreal. I saw her in her final resting place, but grieving in my culture looks and feels so different than what I experienced. We find comfort and healing in community and in each other’s arms. We open our home to friends and family and welcome their offerings of condolences. We come together to share food, memories, and loss and we find healing. The pandemic unraveled all we knew about how to deal with loss, and the grief remains in isolation, unable to transition into acceptance.

We took a class about global pandemics, and we are explaining how our perspectives on pandemics have changed.

I uploaded a photo of the toilet paper shortage during the covid-19 pandemic. I found this photograph the best suited to show the effects of the pandemic. Shortages are occurring everywhere since the pandemic has started which is also affecting our supply chain. This is important to me because the photograph shows struggles we individuals had to face from covid-19.

After learning about four major pandemics, we discussed how our views of the COVID-19 pandemic have changed over the course of the semester, and how our perceptions of pandemics as a whole have changed.

Marc & Niccola discuss their experiences with COVID-19 and relate it to past pandemics that they learned about in class

I was at my grandmas house with my siblings because my parents had work that day and needed someone to watch us. I was watching tik tok when our phones buzzed. I was in a cushy white lazy boy chair with a white throw blanket wrapped around me. The email detailed that we would get an extra week of spring break. We were so happy we got an extra couple days of break thinking we’d go back after a week or two. While this email isn’t the exact email they sent us that told us they were extending spring break, it shows how we were supposed to have a normal spring break. There was only supposed to be one week of spring break, but now I know the exact spot where I was sitting when the world nearly fell apart.

Elsa Hanson and Amberley L. interview each other about how they think COVID-19 compares to past pandemics. They also discuss how the public has dealt with the pandemic if there will be long term effects of the pandemic, and what precautions they have been taking.

It explains how past pandemics have affected how we view COVID-19.

Northeastern University students, Suhani Rathi and Lilly Daughterty interview each other in this school assignment. In this interview they take turns comparing the COVID 19 pandemic to past pandemics. They discuss the similarities.

Kamala Harris, dazed and confused

Christine Bethke interviews Charlene Bethke. They discuss vaccinations, what Charlene’s career has been like as a public accountant, COVID fears, COVID guidelines, the news/media, social distancing, and dealing with anti-maskers/COVID skeptics in the workplace.

Liz Haynes discusses her life pre-COVID and how she has been affected during COVID as a cancer survivor. She talks about her love of travel and hopefully future plans, politics (local and federal), and ends with positive outlook for the future.

Rose Yang is a dental assistant and licensed realtor in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Rose is interviewed by Kristopher Strebe in regard to her work, personal life, and role as a healthcare provider during the pandemic. Rose goes into depth about her jobs’ protocols against the pandemic and defends why she believes that pandemic will never be truly over for health officials working in healthcare.