Item

Amberley L. and Elsa Hanson Oral History, 2021/12/06

Media

Title (Dublin Core)

Amberley L. and Elsa Hanson Oral History, 2021/12/06

Description (Dublin Core)

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.
An interview for a History of pandemics course.

Recording Date (Dublin Core)

Creator (Dublin Core)

Type (Dublin Core)

audio

Controlled Vocabulary (Dublin Core)

Curator's Tags (Omeka Classic)

Collection (Dublin Core)

Date Submitted (Dublin Core)

12/06/2021

Date Modified (Dublin Core)

04/23/2022

Date Created (Dublin Core)

12/06/2021
05/28/2022

Interviewer (Bibliographic Ontology)

Elsa Hanson
Amberley L.

Interviewee (Bibliographic Ontology)

Elsa Hanson
Amberley L.

Language (Dublin Core)

English

Duration (Omeka Classic)

00:05:48

abstract (Bibliographic Ontology)

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.

Transcription (Omeka Classic)

Amberley L 00:02
Hi, I'm Amberly L. and I'm here with Elsa Hansen. And I'm going to be doing the COVID-19 archive project. So do I have your consent to be interviewed?

Elsa Hanson 00:15
Yes.

Amberley L 00:16
And can you state the date and time?

Elsa Hanson 00:20
It's Monday, December 6 2021. And it's 8:03pm.

Amberley L 00:27
First question for you is, what are some things that you find similar between COVID-19 and past pandemics?

Elsa Hanson 00:35
I found it super interesting how throughout all the pandemics that we like, learned about human behavior was pretty predictable. The social like unrest was like a really common theme. And then just like, politics being brought in, and religion being brought into the equation. And I also thought that it was interesting to see the similarities in just medical procedures to what we have today. Like the bird masks during the Black Death. Like I find that interesting that that's like, like, that's their version of like, our modern day, like personal protective equipment and stuff like that.

Amberley L 01:25
Do you think the way you and your family's friends reacted towards COVID? 18 is similar to how people reacted in the past?

Elsa Hanson 01:34
Um, I would say like, yes and no. My family, just like, you know, listen to what the CDC said, like, we just did what we were told. We are religious, but I didn't think that I could, like pray COVID away, so I wasn't like, doing that. But I got like vaxxed as soon as possible, like I like, so did my whole family. Um, yeah, it was just about, like, trying to get the vaccine, which I guess could be similar to like an inoculation and smallpox. Um, but yeah.

Amberley L 02:22
Do you think the US reacted well, to COVID-19 compared to past pandemics?

Elsa Hanson 02:28
Um, I think that it could have been a lot worse. But you know, there were also things that could have been better and could have been improved upon, there is like, always going to be that like, small percent of the population that doesn't like trust or believe in medicine, and like, um, I think Facebook really, like, exemplified that problem with all like, the fake news going around. And then there's also like that political leaders had their own interests in mind, rather than like the health of the citizens, but like, that's pretty common and what we've like, read about, like the history of pandemics, and I think vaccine rollout was pretty good. In the United States, but like, around the world, it wasn't as equal and like, efficient. So yeah. All right. So now I'm interviewing Amberley. Has anything changed? Has anything you learned changed your viewpoint on COVID-19.

Amberley L 03:37
Something that I learned that really changed my perspective was like, how disastrous some pandemics such as like the plague had become. And that in comparison to COVID was not as bad in the US, which like really impacted the thought for me, like while reading the diary entries written by people have witnessed it, because like hearing about, like their experiences being like, around so many people dying every day and how they accepted death was so normal was like really crazy to hear about.

Elsa Hanson 04:07
Yeah. If you could go back in time, what would you personally change about your reaction to COVID-19?

Amberley L 04:16
I personally would research more about the past epidemics and pandemics, like in general to try and comprehend more deeply how serious of an issue it was, and to understand the precautions I should take in order to keep like me and my family safe. And I would also research more about what the cause of COVID was. I think that would help me understand what's like happening around you more because I remember when I first found out about COVID, I didn't even like understand what the pandemic was, and all I knew was like, I shouldn't get sick. So I feel like researching it would have made me feel less anxious and more like cautious and aware of my surroundings.

Elsa Hanson 04:58
Do you think you The aftermath or effects of COVID-19 will be long term.

Amberley L 05:05
I believe that some epidemic effects maybe long term and some may die off like I personally think that the mask will die off because I would wear them like when I'm sick so that I wouldn't want to get other people sick but I feel like since learning about how past epidemics they had always been wearing masks, but it's not a practice that has been like continued. But I do believe that sanitizing like, for example cards in grocery stores and having hand sanitizer being put around a lot of like public areas will be.

Elsa Hanson 05:42
Yeah, awesome. That's the end of our interview.

Item sets

This item was submitted on December 6, 2021 by Elsa Hanson using the form “Share Your Story” on the site “A Journal of the Plague Year”: https://covid-19archive.org/s/archive

Click here to view the collected data.

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