Item
Angela Nelson Oral History, 2021/12/13
Media
Title (Dublin Core)
Angela Nelson Oral History, 2021/12/13
Description (Dublin Core)
Angela Nelson, a wife and mother of two, lives in Illinois on the Wisconsin border where she works from home as a Configuration management engineer. We discuss how COVID had affected her life, both work and personal, and her community, both local and statewide. She discusses what problems have occurred over the pandemic and what could have been solutions to help ease the problem.
Recording Date (Dublin Core)
Creator (Dublin Core)
Contributor (Dublin Core)
Partner (Dublin Core)
Type (Dublin Core)
oral history
video
Controlled Vocabulary (Dublin Core)
Collection (Dublin Core)
Curatorial Notes (Dublin Core)
Date Submitted (Dublin Core)
05/01/2023
Date Modified (Dublin Core)
06/20/2023
Date Created (Dublin Core)
12/13/2021
Interviewer (Bibliographic Ontology)
Trenton Nelson
Interviewee (Bibliographic Ontology)
Angela Nelson
Location (Omeka Classic)
Rockford
Illinois
United States of America
Format (Dublin Core)
video
Language (Dublin Core)
English
Duration (Omeka Classic)
00:39:12
abstract (Bibliographic Ontology)
Angela Nelson, a wife and mother of two, lives in Illinois on the Wisconsin border where she works from home as a Configuration management engineer. We discuss how COVID had affected her life, both work and personal, and her community, both local and statewide. She discusses what problems have occurred over the pandemic and what could have been solutions to help ease the problem.
Transcription (Omeka Classic)
TN 00:04
All right. Currently the date and time is 6:02pm. December 13 2021. My name is Trenton Nelson. What is your name?
AN 00:15
Angela Nelson.
TN 00:17
Wonderful. Where are you currently? Where do you live? And what is it like to live there?
AN 00:21
I am currently in Northern Illinois. And it's okay to live here.
TN 00:30
About how far are you out from Wisconsin?
AN 00:32
I am about not even 30 miles, it's probably about 20 minutes for me to get the state line.
TN 00:40
Okay. Would you mind sharing any sort of demographic information about you?
AN 00:45
I am mid 40s, white female.
TN 00:49
Thank you.
AN 00:51
You're welcome.
TN 00:52
All right. So, to begin with, uh, those were just some background questions just to say, you know, like, give people an idea of where we are what's happening currently, date time, you know, exactly where we're at in the pandemic.
AN 01:08
Okay.
TN 01:09
So, moving on to some more in depth questions. When you first learned about COVID, what were your thoughts about it?
AN 01:19
Ah, I didn't do enough. I guess, research. This is a tainted word right now. When I first learned about COVID, it was actually in January, because I worked for a international company. And they had asked that anybody coming in from any Asian companies to quarantine for two weeks, and we're like, Well, what is this all about? So we learned about COVID. But we didn't learn the full scope of what COVID entailed. Until there were talks of a shutdown, much like what Europe was doing. And to be quite honest, even with as I like to think that scientifically minded I am, I was not happy about the thoughts of a quarantine. And I thought everything was overblown. My thoughts on that have changed now that I've learned a lot more. But in the beginning, I was really frustrated with everything that was going on. I didn't want to be in shutdown. I didn't want to work from home at the time, it's felt rather unnecessary at the time.
TN 02:32
Alright, so digging into that, how have your thoughts changed mainly about the whole frustration with the work? How was your thoughts and thought processes changed since then?
AN 02:43
Well, with work my frustrations have stopped because I am now permanently remote. And that has led to being able to stay home and take care of my dogs. My children are not at home. Currently, I have a dog that gets scared of thunderstorms, so it's nice to be here. If one springs up unexpectedly. I have saved a lot of money for gas insurance. Eating out is become really nice. I've gained my crazy sleep habits back. I feel like I at times I get a lot more work done. I've actually grown to rather enjoy working from home.
TN 03:21
Wonderful. So since the beginning of the pandemic, what uh, what issues have been the most concerning for you?
AN 03:30
As for the pandemic or COVID, or both?
TN 03:33
Yes.
AN 03:35
The concerns about the pandemic is I don't get out as much as I used to a little bit of a mental health decline. Although I think that's quite common from everybody being stuck inside. As for COVID itself, once I learned more about it, and started you know, doing my reading and stuff. I realized it was a lot worse than we were originally led to believe. As in like side effects. We'll even get just getting sick from it. My husband's amnio compromised. I can never say that word properly.
TN 04:07
immuno.
AN 04:08
Yeah, so that bothered me a lot because, you know, his immune systems already deficient. What if he were to catch COVID? You know, my mother's in her 60s? What if she were to catch COVID Because it was hitting, originally hitting the older population harder. I am not. I'm in a demographic where if I get COVID It could cause a few- a little bit of pain too. And that scares me. It bothers me. So we're doing everything that we can to ensure that we don't get COVID We've all had our vaccinations. My husband's had his booster shot. I plan on getting my booster shot over Christmas. I'm planning on getting my son's booster shots over Christmas if I can fit them in. And then we wear masks everywhere. Even in states that don't require masks. We were in Ohio. No mask mandates we still wear a mask Just because I actually just don't trust people to be truthful about whether they've been vaccinated or not.
TN 05:07
So, as a quick follow up to that for people, because people may not know what is a booster?
AN 05:15
A booster shot is Well, it's just like when you have your MMR when you're a baby, you get three four sets of shots for a specific for say, like measles or mumps and stuff like that. And all this is is just a boost your immune system to make sure it's still effective enough in fighting COVID.
TN 05:35
Thank you. So, you mentioned a lot about your daily life, what are the primary things you do on a day to day basis, for example, your jobs, which we've already kind of talked about extracurricular activities, and so on, so forth.
AN 05:58
Currently, I get up, I go to my job, I work till about 3:30, 4 o'clock, depending on what I have done I exercise for half an hour, unconventional exercise. Sometimes they take the dogs for a W A L K, I don't want to say that too loud. They're right here. Beyond that, I, again, I don't get out of the house much right now. I occasionally will go to the store. But generally at night, I'm reading or watching movies, or playing games.
TN 06:37
Alright. So how has COVID affected the daily activities for your family like inside the house?
AN 06:47
I really don't think it's affected us that much in the house. We're just together more than we were. We- my husband didn't go to work because his work was shut down due to the chip shortage, which was a side effect of COVID as well. So he did renovations around the house. But beyond that, I don't think really much changed except for the fact that we were here more often than we were before, just because neither of us had to leave the house.
TN 07:20
And because, you know, you're my mom and all that. People, If they watch us, they won't know what does dad do for work.
AN 07:27
My husband works at Chrysler, he works here at the Belvedere assembly plant and the Cherokee. They build the Cherokee here. And they've been on layoff since the beginning of the year due to the global chip shortage. And the side that affects him. Actually probably pertinent to what is COVID affected us is that Chrysler [Unclear] sent out letters, offering transfers and pretty much said if you don't take the transfer, you will lose your benefits which is your medical benefits, dental, all that stuff plus your- his sub pay from the union. So we are moving to Ohio and this is a result of the pandemic. So, up until a month and a half ago, we thought everything was going fine. And now all of a sudden we're we're moving.
TN 08:22
So yeah, so would you say this has been more of a positive or negative thing? I assume it has both but you know.
AN 08:31
I've seen it more as a positive thing I am I'm not a big fan of Rockford, loves Park area. We go into Chicago, Milwaukee and Madison a lot for things that just aren't here in Rockford. Rockford also used to be a big industrial town. So when the economy downturns Rockford gets hit hard, and you know, it's surrounding little suburbs, and it can be quite difficult here. So we're trying to spin this into a big positive. Toledo has a lot of things that Rockford doesn't or that we would have to drive for typically. So we're, we're actually quite excited about it. I think the only sad thing and Trenton, I was talking to your brother about this the other day. I was the only sad thing about leaving here. We've been in this house for 20 years. So both of you have grown up in this house. We've had three dogs, two cats. You guys have gone through school, you know all of school, you've left home to go to college, both of you. The hardest part I think about all this is just going to be leaving the memories of this house behind and what's happened in this house. And just the random stupid little memories when you're driving. When you're driving if I drive by Harlem High School. I look at the baseball diamonds right? We spent how much time on those baseball diamonds Same with the HCC you went to- you started Community College at Rock Valley College You know, just little things that you may just so wimzie as you're driving by just a little thought, "oh look you know they're out playing baseball wonder how Harlem was doing" we're not going to have those things there's going to be no walking around the house because we just we renovated while shutdown was going on good. Oh, you know these cabinets used to be like this and now they're like this or you know the backyard the tree used to be this big now it's this big and we lost all these branches and you know, just little things like that. Just little memories. But beyond that, I think moving into Toledo is going to be a fresh new start. And to be honest, we really don't have a lot of family here. My mom's coming with us so you know?
TN 10:48
Yeah,
AN 10:49
yeah.
TN 10:50
All right. I'm gonna be real starting to make me tear up here. All right, calm down jesus.
AN 10:53
Oh, no, I'm sorry. I'm sorry.
TN 10:55
So, how has the breakout affected the community in Rockford? And then how do you think it's gonna affect the community when you move to Toledo?
AN 11:07
So that's interesting because i don't know i- i really don't want to bring politics in this. Rockford is a very conservative area. Maybe not Rockford itself, but the surrounding suburbs Loves Park, Machesney, Belvedere. I didn't see a lot of- You know what did change this going to be the strangest thing. I mean, everything feels normal, except for we went from having no food trucks to having 100 food trucks. We went, you know, once shutdown kind of slowed- once they started letting places open back up last summer and 2021. Or was it the end of 20? I'm sorry, end of 2020. Everybody just took the, "Yep Everything's back to normal" And you know, even when you I remember restaurants, taking fines and threats of being closed down. Because they weren't following COVID protocols. But they didn't care. Because I mean, I understand that they needed the money, or they needed the business to be going to they could have the money in, but in the same respect, right? You're messing with the health of other people. As for Toledo, I don't know because it wasn't there for all of that. I do know Toledo's a while I don't- can't say for positive but a couple days we spent there. Toledo is a very old town. Very industrialized. So I would assume that they probably struggled with shutdowns. With it heavily industrialized, as it is factory wise, man, these people live, they get paid hourly, they probably live paycheck to paycheck. That's hard. COVID's hard when you're when you're doing that we survived just fine because I make decent money your dad makes decent money even being laid off. But I feel really bad for these people that didn't have that. You know, think about the poor guy at you know, green giant who didn't work for three or four months they- I don't think green giant's unionized, so they probably didn't get sub pay. Probably got minimal unemployment. So I'm assuming again, this is just a pure assumption that Toledo was probably the same way. You know, people were struggling and I- Oh, another thing I have noticed is corner- corner and I don't want to call them beggars. But you know, people that sit at the corner with signs "I'm poor, I have no money. I'm tired. I don't have a place to sleep. I don't food", that has increased dramatically. Around here.
TN 13:50
Yeah, so how do you think that affects the overall, I guess climate, is the word of the city.
AN 13:58
Oh it's gonna drag it down. Crime increases you know, people are struggling it becomes a not very happy place, which is one of the reasons I don't like Rockford. I mean, the same thing happened in the 2008 housing bubble crash, you know, again, being a highly industrial town or a highly blue collar town. You feel all that first and you dig out of it last the economy does. And it really just, it drags your- your town down. Just an overall feeling of, what's this word I'm looking for? I don't- I can't think of the word you know, where you just don't?
TN 14:46
Yeah,
AN 14:47
Yeah, you feel like you can't dig yourself out from that hole. I mean, we've been there. Our family's been there. It's not a good feeling. And when there's not a lot of options, you know, because everything's closed It's- It's really difficult.
TN 15:02
Yeah. So have you seen the people around you change their opinions based on what has been happening you know, perhaps at the beginning of the pandemic they were very like wishy washy with how it was gonna go and now they are completely different?
AN 15:26
for some, I think- I don't have a big social group. I saw it in mostly the people I worked with again, as we got more information and we learned more we quickly started changing our, our minds. A lot of my family. Extended family, I should say, Never once. No. Mom, grandma did, Grandma did. But grandma so caught COVID and had a mild case, but it was still enough to knock her down for a month. And she is very, never want to go through it again. As matter of fact, she's working on getting her booster shot as well.
TN 16:14
So how has that affected your relationship with grandma, if it changed at all,
AN 16:20
grandma's [Unclear] nah didn't change at all.
TN 16:26
Okay, so the next- next question I had actually was, have you or anybody you known gotten sick during the outbreak. And so yeah, has there any been anyone else other than grandma that you know, who's gotten sick that you are familiar with?
AN 16:39
Yeah, so grandma got sick. She was had a mild case, just cough and tired. And it still took her a month to recover from that my aunt and uncle got COVID. But I don't know what they went through one of the ladies at work, who was- who, unfortunately was anti Vax just had apparently has been out for four weeks due to COVID. And she just came back today, but she's only working two to three hours a day. Because she's still that drained and that tired.
TN 17:08
Mm hmm.
AN 17:08
She said she felt like she was on death's bed.
TN 17:14
Yeah. So in like, how do you think that a something like that would affect people's mental health and or physical health really, just in the long run?
AN 17:24
I can't imagine. their physical health- I just the stories I've been hearing, I wouldn't want to risk getting COVID Just for the long term effects. And I'm curious about how my co worker will be over the next six months to six to 12 months. I mean, we don't know what the full long term effects are. We do know some are not pleasant. I don't know this person personally. But before the vaccine was out, lady I know not personally got COVID was sick. And she was an avid runner. She ran five miles a day she worked out she did all this stuff. And she is still battling heart problems from it. And she was extremely healthy as she goes "I get winded going up the stairs now when I used to be able to run five miles" She goes "I can't run through the house chasing my kids, I get winded", You would think that would change people's minds. But that's gonna affect your mental health. I mean, you went from being able to do all this to not be able to do all this. You know, it just kind of stops you on your tracks what it was like, what does that do to your mental health? It's really gonna, it could be bad.
TN 18:43
Yeah.
AN 18:45
So I mean, anecdotally I didn't have COVID But I had surgery and that, for the months that I couldn't do anything with my hands. It was hard. I struggled. I just can't imagine going from being an extremely healthy very active person to getting winded walking- across running across the house.
TN 19:06
Yeah. So it- might i ask if you know if this person was vaccinated
AN 19:13
It was before the vaccine came out.
TN 19:16
Okay, so have- like what was your opinion on the vaccine when it first came out?
AN 19:25
Then sign me up let's go.
TN 19:29
Do you know anyone who's had any questions or concerns about the vaccines?
AN 19:33
Uh, yeah, I know a couple my- I have a cousin who I don't particularly talk to. She is very anti Vax anti mask. She refuses. She thinks it's a government ploy. I had a lady at work when the mandates went in because of where I work. We do military contracts, so we have to follow government mandates. In order to keep side contracts, She, IM'ed me, instant messaged me and was asking about the vaccine. And I was like, You don't know anything about the vaccine? She was like, "No, I don't get shots unless somebody is telling me to", And I'm like, some of these I tell you, you don't know about COVID? And then in the end, she decided to not get shot because she thinks "Oh it's just like the flu shot. I don't- I don't get the flu shot", I'm like, Well, I don't want the flu either. Because that's horrible. I'm like, really, really, and you know, where I work, you have to have a degree, so everybody's educated. And that also goes to show. And this is just me being me saying that just because you're educated doesn't mean you're necessarily smart outside of the field that you're educated in.
TN 20:47
So I don't think we've gone over it. What is- where do you work? And what exactly is your job title, if you care to share,
AN 20:54
I work at Collins, if it's too late now I work at Collins aerospace. And I am a configuration management Engineer, so I verify drawings, electrical and mechanical drawings for airplanes to make sure that they are correct. And within government standards and Collins standards.
TN 21:18
Okay. Alright, just wanted to get that out of the way. Because I don't think we've gone over it. We've talked about your job a bit so,
AN 21:25
yeah.
TN 21:26
So have you changed new source- news sources? Or perhaps leaned more towards one or another during the pandemic? And has it changed from the beginning to now?
AN 21:40
I, um,
TN 21:43
if you want to talk about it,
AN 21:45
yeah, no that's fine. I don't care. I don't watch the news as much as I should. Because for the past previous four years, previous administration, I actually had a really hard time watching the news, it affected my mental health. So I stopped watching it. I watch and read. CNN, The Washington Post, The New York Times, Huffington Post on occasion, they're really far left leaning. So I take what I read there, and compare it to what I read in the other sources. My favorite broadcaster is Rachel Maddow. I absolutely love her. But she again is also extremely left leaning. But I again, I'm back to the point where I tend to not watch the news because I don't feel we get the full news. So if I'm interested in what is going on, I will do digging and say, ah student loans. Let's look at student loans, student loan forgiveness, I will read 20 different papers or new sources, online, watch 20 different videos or article- read articles to figure out where everybody's coming from and you're still not getting the full amount of information on said story. So I go when there is something that has piqued my interest, but I have found that reading or watching the news on a daily basis does affect my mental health. And so I search it out when I need to search it out.
TN 23:35
Okay, so
AN 23:36
it sounds odd, but,
TN 23:40
I mean, I think it's pretty reasonable. So, what do you think are- Or do you think there are important issues that media should be covering or that they're, like, trying to- not covering enough rather
AN 23:58
I think that the media has dumbed everything down to more of an entertainment I mean, even in it's been a long time media has always been biased. But at this point in time, I feel like you could be a second grader and read what they write, but they try too much to sway you I really wish we were more back in the What's that new say? I want to say the [Unclear] Associated Press where they just give you, back in the day when they use in the news stations it would be like a plane hit nine you know, a plane hit the Twin Towers and that was all they would send out and that's all there was there was no speculation there was no nothing there was an airplane hit the Twin Tower. sometimes I wish I could get my news in that format. This is what happened. I don't want the speculation. I don't want the "well let's try to sway you this way. Let's try to sway you that way" I want- I just want the information What's going on? Tell me what's going on. But that's hard to find anymore and I think that leads to a lot of what's going on in the US. And I'm sure it's the world too, because the US is not the world, but that's where a lot of this divide on COVID comes from, I really believe that the dividing COVID comes from our news sources, honestly.
TN 25:26
Okay, how do you think that's affected our government?
AN 25:34
I think our government is a partial cause of that. To be honest, I don't think what's in the news really affects our government per se, I think they've already had their minds set. And they will use what the news says and spends, and push that either side, both sides, don't don't get me wrong, I'm not blaming one side on that- thats both sides. And they will push their agenda that way. And that's where I get mad, because I don't think we're getting- we're not getting the full picture in any way, shape or form. The government will tell us what we want to hear, not what we need to hear. And I wish we heard more of what we need to hear versus what we want to
TN 26:19
do have any examples of what we need to hear versus what we want to hear.
AN 26:22
What we need to hear, honestly, about if we make this COVID specific is we need like we had, when I was a kid, Desert Storm, there were news anchors in Saudi Arabia in Bahrain, the whole nine yards covering the war, why are we not in hospitals, covering COVID, showing people like physically showing them, this is what happens when you catch COVID. This is this is how you're going to have to live if you- if you have to go on a breathing apparatus. This is what it's like, show people sitting in the hallways, in beds in the hallways because the ICUs are run out show em the trucks in Texas and Florida, where they have to put the dead bodies because there's no more room left in the mourges, you need to show these people. Now some people still won't believe it. But a lot of times, if you can show versus tell, you're gonna get a little bit more of a reaction. Right, we don't have all these variants because we're vaccinated, we have these variants, because they're unvaccinated in the- and COVID allowed to mutate. If we could actually physically, visually show that this is what COVID is doing. Yeah, it's 1% of our population or, you know, a million dead so far and there's 330 million in the US but a million deaths still too many. Right?
TN 28:00
Yeah.
AN 28:01
You know, and a lot of it could have been prevented and that- and that's the part that kills me you know me right i- That's the part that kills you have to do is wear masks What's so bad about wearing a mask? You know?
TN 28:13
So moving on from that, well i mean, moving a segue more like it, have the leaders in your community or in just a country wide leaders. How have- How do you think they've responded to the situation and do you think it's been good, bad, subpar? And so on, so forth?
AN 28:35
I will say this, I think Pritzker, Governor Pritzker of Illinois, actually really did an amazing job, trying to control COVID I really believe he was doing what he thought was best and I agreed with a lot of his policies. He ran into a lot of brick walls. He ran into a couple of lawsuits. He ran into this and that but he was following CDC, The WHO, The WHO, the World Health Organization, not the band. But he was doing what he thought best for the population of Illinois, you know, Illinois, big population and no offense to you, but I look at Wisconsin, there's no mask mandates bars open full fledged, you know, in the college towns, it's not as bad because they're generally more diverse and diversity leads to more outwardness. But the difference between Wisconsin and Illinois is- is almost Stark, and then when you look in the southern states where there were no mask mandates, there were no- there were no mandates of any sorts and their numbers are just fine. Now, that being said, the northern tier states numbers are starting to climb. But I don't, Winnebago county at this moment in time. Not at this moment in time, i About a week ago I looked at SwedishAmerican (Hospital) is at capacity. Mercy Health (Hospital) is pretty close to capacity in our ICUs, we're at a 10% COVID rate positivity rate in Winnebago County. Toledo because I happened to look was at a 13 and a half percent positivity rate. That's pretty high. We want it below seven. We were almost there. And I don't know if it has to do with winter, or if people are just tired because when I go to store now even though we have mandates, half the people are not wearing masks. Other Half are I don't know what our vaccination rate I think is it like 60%, but I know that's the reason why everything's going up. And again, maybe winter does have something to do with it. We don't fully know yet. I mean, but like the flu, you see it, seasonal dips and stuff, but we're apparently in our fifth wave. I don't think COVID is going away just because of everything that's going on. So now, we need to prevent it as much as we can. I don't think that's gonna happen. The way everybody wants it to happen. I was really proud of Biden, he was gonna get a million shots or million shots was 100,000 shots or a million no, 30 million shots in his first 30 days, something like that. I can't remember. But he exceeded those numbers. And then the numbers dropped. But I haven't seen any more pushes for the vaccine except for these mandates, which people are still fighting over as well. And still getting religious exemptions when you have the pope saying get it when you have the head of the, ah, Judaism the head of their- their head saying get vaccinated. The Mormon Church is saying getting vaccinated. So I don't know. I don't know. I think people have things set in their brain and their minds. And that's where they're gonna go. And they are not going to change their mind because they're stubborn, or they just don't want to be proven wrong.
TN 32:04
So with you being so close to the Wisconsin border, do you think there's any- been any pour over from Wisconsin mandates over into Illinois, from mainly the restrictions or state laws or so on so forth that traverse between the two?
AN 32:22
Yeah, I know a lot of people not know, again, my social circle is small, but I know of people who have very specifically gone to Beloit, or Janesville to do things, because there are no mandates. Whereas in Illinois, there's the mask mandates and everything so they leave Illinois and go to Wisconsin, across the border go up there. The same when everything was opening. Pritzker opened everything up very slowly. Grocery stores, restaurants, the whole nine yards, Wisconsin went a little faster. So people were leaving, and going to Wisconsin to go enjoy all these things that they'd missed for however long they missed it six months a year, whatever. I get it, I can't say I don't get it. I get it. I'm tired of this. I want life to go back to normal man live- let live portion of my life at this moment with COVID. But, in the same respect. If we had done our due diligence- due diligence in the beginning, I don't think we'd be where we're at now.
TN 33:18
Yeah. So how do you think the future is looking at this point?
AN 33:24
I think the future is looking like we're gonna get a COVID shot booster every year like we get a flu shot. I think it's I think it's here to stay. We have another lovely variant that has come out Omicron. Omnicon? No omicron. I don't think it's going away anytime soon. What I do think, is that with the vaccine, because this is the m&r- mRNA, which has been out for a very long time, but this has never been used the scale. And I have done some reading that has suggested that they think that they might be able to get a vaccine for- because COVID Also, a different form of COVID also causes the common cold. But then we might have a vaccine for the common cold or different, What was the one I read several, or a month ago, but I haven't gone back and look and see. And it was something like they found the super portion of COVID. And they might be able to create a vaccine that covers like seven different varieties of COVID strains. You know, I read something that said some with the M- mRNA all the numbers coming back from this, because really, I mean, we are a big, a huge scale experiment in the end, that they might be able to use this to not so much create a cancer vaccine but to actually help fight cancer versus using chemotherapy. So if there's any good that came out of this, it's the medical research that we can advance unfortunately had to come at the cost that it came at. But we will have some medical advancements come out of this.
TN 35:11
Yeah. So how has your experience transformed how you think about your family, friends and community, and in what ways?
AN 35:25
Honestly, it kind of makes me happy that I don't hang out with my extended family anymore. Which is sad to say, but makes it easier to do the move to Toledo because I'm not connected to my community, because I just, again, honestly, it's a piece of cloth, wear it for the other people, right? So I'm ready to move on and try something new. I've separated myself from a lot of that just because I couldn't handle the selfishness of everybody. Not that I'm fully selfless. But it's really hard to care for someone that doesn't care about anybody else. Did I get your question? I think I went on a tangent.
TN 36:18
No, no, that's, that's fine. Good. Good answer. And for the final question I have knowing what you know, now, what do you think that individuals, communities or governments need to keep in mind for the future?
AN 36:38
For all things, not just COVID, just shoot- Don't sugarcoat things. Don't try to appease to people. This was bad. This was bad. Let's- And if you're going to put in mandates, can we enforce them? Even if they're minor fines? Just honesty, man, that would be the greatest thing ever. I know, we're never going to get it. But that would be fantastic. I think that if the previous administration would have been upfront to begin with, I don't think we would be where we're at, quite honestly, the truth can be hard to tell. But sometimes you just gotta do it. That's honestly what I would like, I would just like some honesty, I would like some clarity. I would like to be able to trust what my government tells me. But even with a Democrat in the office, I still have a hard time with that.
TN 37:43
So how do you think this affects people? Or rather, how do you think? What do you think individuals should know, for the future?
AN 37:51
Individuals should know for the future is basically a lot of this comes down to is common courtesy and caring for the people in your community. And I think a lot of what is turned up from this is that people don't care about their community, they only care about themselves, number one. ,I but that is part of the American way, unfortunately. And we need to change that. You know, the whole pull you up by your bootstraps, you need to do it yourself? No, no, it's okay to ask for help. And it's okay to help others. And it's okay to care about somebody you don't know about, right? So my biggest complaint about this whole thing was fine, you want to get COVID, that's fine. But when you take it home to your grandparents, or somebody- give it to somebody who takes the home to their grandparents, and there wasn't even a care in the world, for the older community, or the younger ones, the babies that can't- still can't get vaccinated. So that, to me is the biggest. I forgot what the original question was. That to me is the biggest,
TN 38:54
for the individual,
AN 38:55
for the individual to care about other individuals and not just themselves.
TN 39:00
Alright. Thank you for joining me.
AN 39:03
You're quite welcome.
TN 39:04
All right. I don't exactly know how to end this. So I'll just end it there. Thanks for joining. Have a nice day.
AN 39:10
Thanks you too Trenton.
All right. Currently the date and time is 6:02pm. December 13 2021. My name is Trenton Nelson. What is your name?
AN 00:15
Angela Nelson.
TN 00:17
Wonderful. Where are you currently? Where do you live? And what is it like to live there?
AN 00:21
I am currently in Northern Illinois. And it's okay to live here.
TN 00:30
About how far are you out from Wisconsin?
AN 00:32
I am about not even 30 miles, it's probably about 20 minutes for me to get the state line.
TN 00:40
Okay. Would you mind sharing any sort of demographic information about you?
AN 00:45
I am mid 40s, white female.
TN 00:49
Thank you.
AN 00:51
You're welcome.
TN 00:52
All right. So, to begin with, uh, those were just some background questions just to say, you know, like, give people an idea of where we are what's happening currently, date time, you know, exactly where we're at in the pandemic.
AN 01:08
Okay.
TN 01:09
So, moving on to some more in depth questions. When you first learned about COVID, what were your thoughts about it?
AN 01:19
Ah, I didn't do enough. I guess, research. This is a tainted word right now. When I first learned about COVID, it was actually in January, because I worked for a international company. And they had asked that anybody coming in from any Asian companies to quarantine for two weeks, and we're like, Well, what is this all about? So we learned about COVID. But we didn't learn the full scope of what COVID entailed. Until there were talks of a shutdown, much like what Europe was doing. And to be quite honest, even with as I like to think that scientifically minded I am, I was not happy about the thoughts of a quarantine. And I thought everything was overblown. My thoughts on that have changed now that I've learned a lot more. But in the beginning, I was really frustrated with everything that was going on. I didn't want to be in shutdown. I didn't want to work from home at the time, it's felt rather unnecessary at the time.
TN 02:32
Alright, so digging into that, how have your thoughts changed mainly about the whole frustration with the work? How was your thoughts and thought processes changed since then?
AN 02:43
Well, with work my frustrations have stopped because I am now permanently remote. And that has led to being able to stay home and take care of my dogs. My children are not at home. Currently, I have a dog that gets scared of thunderstorms, so it's nice to be here. If one springs up unexpectedly. I have saved a lot of money for gas insurance. Eating out is become really nice. I've gained my crazy sleep habits back. I feel like I at times I get a lot more work done. I've actually grown to rather enjoy working from home.
TN 03:21
Wonderful. So since the beginning of the pandemic, what uh, what issues have been the most concerning for you?
AN 03:30
As for the pandemic or COVID, or both?
TN 03:33
Yes.
AN 03:35
The concerns about the pandemic is I don't get out as much as I used to a little bit of a mental health decline. Although I think that's quite common from everybody being stuck inside. As for COVID itself, once I learned more about it, and started you know, doing my reading and stuff. I realized it was a lot worse than we were originally led to believe. As in like side effects. We'll even get just getting sick from it. My husband's amnio compromised. I can never say that word properly.
TN 04:07
immuno.
AN 04:08
Yeah, so that bothered me a lot because, you know, his immune systems already deficient. What if he were to catch COVID? You know, my mother's in her 60s? What if she were to catch COVID Because it was hitting, originally hitting the older population harder. I am not. I'm in a demographic where if I get COVID It could cause a few- a little bit of pain too. And that scares me. It bothers me. So we're doing everything that we can to ensure that we don't get COVID We've all had our vaccinations. My husband's had his booster shot. I plan on getting my booster shot over Christmas. I'm planning on getting my son's booster shots over Christmas if I can fit them in. And then we wear masks everywhere. Even in states that don't require masks. We were in Ohio. No mask mandates we still wear a mask Just because I actually just don't trust people to be truthful about whether they've been vaccinated or not.
TN 05:07
So, as a quick follow up to that for people, because people may not know what is a booster?
AN 05:15
A booster shot is Well, it's just like when you have your MMR when you're a baby, you get three four sets of shots for a specific for say, like measles or mumps and stuff like that. And all this is is just a boost your immune system to make sure it's still effective enough in fighting COVID.
TN 05:35
Thank you. So, you mentioned a lot about your daily life, what are the primary things you do on a day to day basis, for example, your jobs, which we've already kind of talked about extracurricular activities, and so on, so forth.
AN 05:58
Currently, I get up, I go to my job, I work till about 3:30, 4 o'clock, depending on what I have done I exercise for half an hour, unconventional exercise. Sometimes they take the dogs for a W A L K, I don't want to say that too loud. They're right here. Beyond that, I, again, I don't get out of the house much right now. I occasionally will go to the store. But generally at night, I'm reading or watching movies, or playing games.
TN 06:37
Alright. So how has COVID affected the daily activities for your family like inside the house?
AN 06:47
I really don't think it's affected us that much in the house. We're just together more than we were. We- my husband didn't go to work because his work was shut down due to the chip shortage, which was a side effect of COVID as well. So he did renovations around the house. But beyond that, I don't think really much changed except for the fact that we were here more often than we were before, just because neither of us had to leave the house.
TN 07:20
And because, you know, you're my mom and all that. People, If they watch us, they won't know what does dad do for work.
AN 07:27
My husband works at Chrysler, he works here at the Belvedere assembly plant and the Cherokee. They build the Cherokee here. And they've been on layoff since the beginning of the year due to the global chip shortage. And the side that affects him. Actually probably pertinent to what is COVID affected us is that Chrysler [Unclear] sent out letters, offering transfers and pretty much said if you don't take the transfer, you will lose your benefits which is your medical benefits, dental, all that stuff plus your- his sub pay from the union. So we are moving to Ohio and this is a result of the pandemic. So, up until a month and a half ago, we thought everything was going fine. And now all of a sudden we're we're moving.
TN 08:22
So yeah, so would you say this has been more of a positive or negative thing? I assume it has both but you know.
AN 08:31
I've seen it more as a positive thing I am I'm not a big fan of Rockford, loves Park area. We go into Chicago, Milwaukee and Madison a lot for things that just aren't here in Rockford. Rockford also used to be a big industrial town. So when the economy downturns Rockford gets hit hard, and you know, it's surrounding little suburbs, and it can be quite difficult here. So we're trying to spin this into a big positive. Toledo has a lot of things that Rockford doesn't or that we would have to drive for typically. So we're, we're actually quite excited about it. I think the only sad thing and Trenton, I was talking to your brother about this the other day. I was the only sad thing about leaving here. We've been in this house for 20 years. So both of you have grown up in this house. We've had three dogs, two cats. You guys have gone through school, you know all of school, you've left home to go to college, both of you. The hardest part I think about all this is just going to be leaving the memories of this house behind and what's happened in this house. And just the random stupid little memories when you're driving. When you're driving if I drive by Harlem High School. I look at the baseball diamonds right? We spent how much time on those baseball diamonds Same with the HCC you went to- you started Community College at Rock Valley College You know, just little things that you may just so wimzie as you're driving by just a little thought, "oh look you know they're out playing baseball wonder how Harlem was doing" we're not going to have those things there's going to be no walking around the house because we just we renovated while shutdown was going on good. Oh, you know these cabinets used to be like this and now they're like this or you know the backyard the tree used to be this big now it's this big and we lost all these branches and you know, just little things like that. Just little memories. But beyond that, I think moving into Toledo is going to be a fresh new start. And to be honest, we really don't have a lot of family here. My mom's coming with us so you know?
TN 10:48
Yeah,
AN 10:49
yeah.
TN 10:50
All right. I'm gonna be real starting to make me tear up here. All right, calm down jesus.
AN 10:53
Oh, no, I'm sorry. I'm sorry.
TN 10:55
So, how has the breakout affected the community in Rockford? And then how do you think it's gonna affect the community when you move to Toledo?
AN 11:07
So that's interesting because i don't know i- i really don't want to bring politics in this. Rockford is a very conservative area. Maybe not Rockford itself, but the surrounding suburbs Loves Park, Machesney, Belvedere. I didn't see a lot of- You know what did change this going to be the strangest thing. I mean, everything feels normal, except for we went from having no food trucks to having 100 food trucks. We went, you know, once shutdown kind of slowed- once they started letting places open back up last summer and 2021. Or was it the end of 20? I'm sorry, end of 2020. Everybody just took the, "Yep Everything's back to normal" And you know, even when you I remember restaurants, taking fines and threats of being closed down. Because they weren't following COVID protocols. But they didn't care. Because I mean, I understand that they needed the money, or they needed the business to be going to they could have the money in, but in the same respect, right? You're messing with the health of other people. As for Toledo, I don't know because it wasn't there for all of that. I do know Toledo's a while I don't- can't say for positive but a couple days we spent there. Toledo is a very old town. Very industrialized. So I would assume that they probably struggled with shutdowns. With it heavily industrialized, as it is factory wise, man, these people live, they get paid hourly, they probably live paycheck to paycheck. That's hard. COVID's hard when you're when you're doing that we survived just fine because I make decent money your dad makes decent money even being laid off. But I feel really bad for these people that didn't have that. You know, think about the poor guy at you know, green giant who didn't work for three or four months they- I don't think green giant's unionized, so they probably didn't get sub pay. Probably got minimal unemployment. So I'm assuming again, this is just a pure assumption that Toledo was probably the same way. You know, people were struggling and I- Oh, another thing I have noticed is corner- corner and I don't want to call them beggars. But you know, people that sit at the corner with signs "I'm poor, I have no money. I'm tired. I don't have a place to sleep. I don't food", that has increased dramatically. Around here.
TN 13:50
Yeah, so how do you think that affects the overall, I guess climate, is the word of the city.
AN 13:58
Oh it's gonna drag it down. Crime increases you know, people are struggling it becomes a not very happy place, which is one of the reasons I don't like Rockford. I mean, the same thing happened in the 2008 housing bubble crash, you know, again, being a highly industrial town or a highly blue collar town. You feel all that first and you dig out of it last the economy does. And it really just, it drags your- your town down. Just an overall feeling of, what's this word I'm looking for? I don't- I can't think of the word you know, where you just don't?
TN 14:46
Yeah,
AN 14:47
Yeah, you feel like you can't dig yourself out from that hole. I mean, we've been there. Our family's been there. It's not a good feeling. And when there's not a lot of options, you know, because everything's closed It's- It's really difficult.
TN 15:02
Yeah. So have you seen the people around you change their opinions based on what has been happening you know, perhaps at the beginning of the pandemic they were very like wishy washy with how it was gonna go and now they are completely different?
AN 15:26
for some, I think- I don't have a big social group. I saw it in mostly the people I worked with again, as we got more information and we learned more we quickly started changing our, our minds. A lot of my family. Extended family, I should say, Never once. No. Mom, grandma did, Grandma did. But grandma so caught COVID and had a mild case, but it was still enough to knock her down for a month. And she is very, never want to go through it again. As matter of fact, she's working on getting her booster shot as well.
TN 16:14
So how has that affected your relationship with grandma, if it changed at all,
AN 16:20
grandma's [Unclear] nah didn't change at all.
TN 16:26
Okay, so the next- next question I had actually was, have you or anybody you known gotten sick during the outbreak. And so yeah, has there any been anyone else other than grandma that you know, who's gotten sick that you are familiar with?
AN 16:39
Yeah, so grandma got sick. She was had a mild case, just cough and tired. And it still took her a month to recover from that my aunt and uncle got COVID. But I don't know what they went through one of the ladies at work, who was- who, unfortunately was anti Vax just had apparently has been out for four weeks due to COVID. And she just came back today, but she's only working two to three hours a day. Because she's still that drained and that tired.
TN 17:08
Mm hmm.
AN 17:08
She said she felt like she was on death's bed.
TN 17:14
Yeah. So in like, how do you think that a something like that would affect people's mental health and or physical health really, just in the long run?
AN 17:24
I can't imagine. their physical health- I just the stories I've been hearing, I wouldn't want to risk getting COVID Just for the long term effects. And I'm curious about how my co worker will be over the next six months to six to 12 months. I mean, we don't know what the full long term effects are. We do know some are not pleasant. I don't know this person personally. But before the vaccine was out, lady I know not personally got COVID was sick. And she was an avid runner. She ran five miles a day she worked out she did all this stuff. And she is still battling heart problems from it. And she was extremely healthy as she goes "I get winded going up the stairs now when I used to be able to run five miles" She goes "I can't run through the house chasing my kids, I get winded", You would think that would change people's minds. But that's gonna affect your mental health. I mean, you went from being able to do all this to not be able to do all this. You know, it just kind of stops you on your tracks what it was like, what does that do to your mental health? It's really gonna, it could be bad.
TN 18:43
Yeah.
AN 18:45
So I mean, anecdotally I didn't have COVID But I had surgery and that, for the months that I couldn't do anything with my hands. It was hard. I struggled. I just can't imagine going from being an extremely healthy very active person to getting winded walking- across running across the house.
TN 19:06
Yeah. So it- might i ask if you know if this person was vaccinated
AN 19:13
It was before the vaccine came out.
TN 19:16
Okay, so have- like what was your opinion on the vaccine when it first came out?
AN 19:25
Then sign me up let's go.
TN 19:29
Do you know anyone who's had any questions or concerns about the vaccines?
AN 19:33
Uh, yeah, I know a couple my- I have a cousin who I don't particularly talk to. She is very anti Vax anti mask. She refuses. She thinks it's a government ploy. I had a lady at work when the mandates went in because of where I work. We do military contracts, so we have to follow government mandates. In order to keep side contracts, She, IM'ed me, instant messaged me and was asking about the vaccine. And I was like, You don't know anything about the vaccine? She was like, "No, I don't get shots unless somebody is telling me to", And I'm like, some of these I tell you, you don't know about COVID? And then in the end, she decided to not get shot because she thinks "Oh it's just like the flu shot. I don't- I don't get the flu shot", I'm like, Well, I don't want the flu either. Because that's horrible. I'm like, really, really, and you know, where I work, you have to have a degree, so everybody's educated. And that also goes to show. And this is just me being me saying that just because you're educated doesn't mean you're necessarily smart outside of the field that you're educated in.
TN 20:47
So I don't think we've gone over it. What is- where do you work? And what exactly is your job title, if you care to share,
AN 20:54
I work at Collins, if it's too late now I work at Collins aerospace. And I am a configuration management Engineer, so I verify drawings, electrical and mechanical drawings for airplanes to make sure that they are correct. And within government standards and Collins standards.
TN 21:18
Okay. Alright, just wanted to get that out of the way. Because I don't think we've gone over it. We've talked about your job a bit so,
AN 21:25
yeah.
TN 21:26
So have you changed new source- news sources? Or perhaps leaned more towards one or another during the pandemic? And has it changed from the beginning to now?
AN 21:40
I, um,
TN 21:43
if you want to talk about it,
AN 21:45
yeah, no that's fine. I don't care. I don't watch the news as much as I should. Because for the past previous four years, previous administration, I actually had a really hard time watching the news, it affected my mental health. So I stopped watching it. I watch and read. CNN, The Washington Post, The New York Times, Huffington Post on occasion, they're really far left leaning. So I take what I read there, and compare it to what I read in the other sources. My favorite broadcaster is Rachel Maddow. I absolutely love her. But she again is also extremely left leaning. But I again, I'm back to the point where I tend to not watch the news because I don't feel we get the full news. So if I'm interested in what is going on, I will do digging and say, ah student loans. Let's look at student loans, student loan forgiveness, I will read 20 different papers or new sources, online, watch 20 different videos or article- read articles to figure out where everybody's coming from and you're still not getting the full amount of information on said story. So I go when there is something that has piqued my interest, but I have found that reading or watching the news on a daily basis does affect my mental health. And so I search it out when I need to search it out.
TN 23:35
Okay, so
AN 23:36
it sounds odd, but,
TN 23:40
I mean, I think it's pretty reasonable. So, what do you think are- Or do you think there are important issues that media should be covering or that they're, like, trying to- not covering enough rather
AN 23:58
I think that the media has dumbed everything down to more of an entertainment I mean, even in it's been a long time media has always been biased. But at this point in time, I feel like you could be a second grader and read what they write, but they try too much to sway you I really wish we were more back in the What's that new say? I want to say the [Unclear] Associated Press where they just give you, back in the day when they use in the news stations it would be like a plane hit nine you know, a plane hit the Twin Towers and that was all they would send out and that's all there was there was no speculation there was no nothing there was an airplane hit the Twin Tower. sometimes I wish I could get my news in that format. This is what happened. I don't want the speculation. I don't want the "well let's try to sway you this way. Let's try to sway you that way" I want- I just want the information What's going on? Tell me what's going on. But that's hard to find anymore and I think that leads to a lot of what's going on in the US. And I'm sure it's the world too, because the US is not the world, but that's where a lot of this divide on COVID comes from, I really believe that the dividing COVID comes from our news sources, honestly.
TN 25:26
Okay, how do you think that's affected our government?
AN 25:34
I think our government is a partial cause of that. To be honest, I don't think what's in the news really affects our government per se, I think they've already had their minds set. And they will use what the news says and spends, and push that either side, both sides, don't don't get me wrong, I'm not blaming one side on that- thats both sides. And they will push their agenda that way. And that's where I get mad, because I don't think we're getting- we're not getting the full picture in any way, shape or form. The government will tell us what we want to hear, not what we need to hear. And I wish we heard more of what we need to hear versus what we want to
TN 26:19
do have any examples of what we need to hear versus what we want to hear.
AN 26:22
What we need to hear, honestly, about if we make this COVID specific is we need like we had, when I was a kid, Desert Storm, there were news anchors in Saudi Arabia in Bahrain, the whole nine yards covering the war, why are we not in hospitals, covering COVID, showing people like physically showing them, this is what happens when you catch COVID. This is this is how you're going to have to live if you- if you have to go on a breathing apparatus. This is what it's like, show people sitting in the hallways, in beds in the hallways because the ICUs are run out show em the trucks in Texas and Florida, where they have to put the dead bodies because there's no more room left in the mourges, you need to show these people. Now some people still won't believe it. But a lot of times, if you can show versus tell, you're gonna get a little bit more of a reaction. Right, we don't have all these variants because we're vaccinated, we have these variants, because they're unvaccinated in the- and COVID allowed to mutate. If we could actually physically, visually show that this is what COVID is doing. Yeah, it's 1% of our population or, you know, a million dead so far and there's 330 million in the US but a million deaths still too many. Right?
TN 28:00
Yeah.
AN 28:01
You know, and a lot of it could have been prevented and that- and that's the part that kills me you know me right i- That's the part that kills you have to do is wear masks What's so bad about wearing a mask? You know?
TN 28:13
So moving on from that, well i mean, moving a segue more like it, have the leaders in your community or in just a country wide leaders. How have- How do you think they've responded to the situation and do you think it's been good, bad, subpar? And so on, so forth?
AN 28:35
I will say this, I think Pritzker, Governor Pritzker of Illinois, actually really did an amazing job, trying to control COVID I really believe he was doing what he thought was best and I agreed with a lot of his policies. He ran into a lot of brick walls. He ran into a couple of lawsuits. He ran into this and that but he was following CDC, The WHO, The WHO, the World Health Organization, not the band. But he was doing what he thought best for the population of Illinois, you know, Illinois, big population and no offense to you, but I look at Wisconsin, there's no mask mandates bars open full fledged, you know, in the college towns, it's not as bad because they're generally more diverse and diversity leads to more outwardness. But the difference between Wisconsin and Illinois is- is almost Stark, and then when you look in the southern states where there were no mask mandates, there were no- there were no mandates of any sorts and their numbers are just fine. Now, that being said, the northern tier states numbers are starting to climb. But I don't, Winnebago county at this moment in time. Not at this moment in time, i About a week ago I looked at SwedishAmerican (Hospital) is at capacity. Mercy Health (Hospital) is pretty close to capacity in our ICUs, we're at a 10% COVID rate positivity rate in Winnebago County. Toledo because I happened to look was at a 13 and a half percent positivity rate. That's pretty high. We want it below seven. We were almost there. And I don't know if it has to do with winter, or if people are just tired because when I go to store now even though we have mandates, half the people are not wearing masks. Other Half are I don't know what our vaccination rate I think is it like 60%, but I know that's the reason why everything's going up. And again, maybe winter does have something to do with it. We don't fully know yet. I mean, but like the flu, you see it, seasonal dips and stuff, but we're apparently in our fifth wave. I don't think COVID is going away just because of everything that's going on. So now, we need to prevent it as much as we can. I don't think that's gonna happen. The way everybody wants it to happen. I was really proud of Biden, he was gonna get a million shots or million shots was 100,000 shots or a million no, 30 million shots in his first 30 days, something like that. I can't remember. But he exceeded those numbers. And then the numbers dropped. But I haven't seen any more pushes for the vaccine except for these mandates, which people are still fighting over as well. And still getting religious exemptions when you have the pope saying get it when you have the head of the, ah, Judaism the head of their- their head saying get vaccinated. The Mormon Church is saying getting vaccinated. So I don't know. I don't know. I think people have things set in their brain and their minds. And that's where they're gonna go. And they are not going to change their mind because they're stubborn, or they just don't want to be proven wrong.
TN 32:04
So with you being so close to the Wisconsin border, do you think there's any- been any pour over from Wisconsin mandates over into Illinois, from mainly the restrictions or state laws or so on so forth that traverse between the two?
AN 32:22
Yeah, I know a lot of people not know, again, my social circle is small, but I know of people who have very specifically gone to Beloit, or Janesville to do things, because there are no mandates. Whereas in Illinois, there's the mask mandates and everything so they leave Illinois and go to Wisconsin, across the border go up there. The same when everything was opening. Pritzker opened everything up very slowly. Grocery stores, restaurants, the whole nine yards, Wisconsin went a little faster. So people were leaving, and going to Wisconsin to go enjoy all these things that they'd missed for however long they missed it six months a year, whatever. I get it, I can't say I don't get it. I get it. I'm tired of this. I want life to go back to normal man live- let live portion of my life at this moment with COVID. But, in the same respect. If we had done our due diligence- due diligence in the beginning, I don't think we'd be where we're at now.
TN 33:18
Yeah. So how do you think the future is looking at this point?
AN 33:24
I think the future is looking like we're gonna get a COVID shot booster every year like we get a flu shot. I think it's I think it's here to stay. We have another lovely variant that has come out Omicron. Omnicon? No omicron. I don't think it's going away anytime soon. What I do think, is that with the vaccine, because this is the m&r- mRNA, which has been out for a very long time, but this has never been used the scale. And I have done some reading that has suggested that they think that they might be able to get a vaccine for- because COVID Also, a different form of COVID also causes the common cold. But then we might have a vaccine for the common cold or different, What was the one I read several, or a month ago, but I haven't gone back and look and see. And it was something like they found the super portion of COVID. And they might be able to create a vaccine that covers like seven different varieties of COVID strains. You know, I read something that said some with the M- mRNA all the numbers coming back from this, because really, I mean, we are a big, a huge scale experiment in the end, that they might be able to use this to not so much create a cancer vaccine but to actually help fight cancer versus using chemotherapy. So if there's any good that came out of this, it's the medical research that we can advance unfortunately had to come at the cost that it came at. But we will have some medical advancements come out of this.
TN 35:11
Yeah. So how has your experience transformed how you think about your family, friends and community, and in what ways?
AN 35:25
Honestly, it kind of makes me happy that I don't hang out with my extended family anymore. Which is sad to say, but makes it easier to do the move to Toledo because I'm not connected to my community, because I just, again, honestly, it's a piece of cloth, wear it for the other people, right? So I'm ready to move on and try something new. I've separated myself from a lot of that just because I couldn't handle the selfishness of everybody. Not that I'm fully selfless. But it's really hard to care for someone that doesn't care about anybody else. Did I get your question? I think I went on a tangent.
TN 36:18
No, no, that's, that's fine. Good. Good answer. And for the final question I have knowing what you know, now, what do you think that individuals, communities or governments need to keep in mind for the future?
AN 36:38
For all things, not just COVID, just shoot- Don't sugarcoat things. Don't try to appease to people. This was bad. This was bad. Let's- And if you're going to put in mandates, can we enforce them? Even if they're minor fines? Just honesty, man, that would be the greatest thing ever. I know, we're never going to get it. But that would be fantastic. I think that if the previous administration would have been upfront to begin with, I don't think we would be where we're at, quite honestly, the truth can be hard to tell. But sometimes you just gotta do it. That's honestly what I would like, I would just like some honesty, I would like some clarity. I would like to be able to trust what my government tells me. But even with a Democrat in the office, I still have a hard time with that.
TN 37:43
So how do you think this affects people? Or rather, how do you think? What do you think individuals should know, for the future?
AN 37:51
Individuals should know for the future is basically a lot of this comes down to is common courtesy and caring for the people in your community. And I think a lot of what is turned up from this is that people don't care about their community, they only care about themselves, number one. ,I but that is part of the American way, unfortunately. And we need to change that. You know, the whole pull you up by your bootstraps, you need to do it yourself? No, no, it's okay to ask for help. And it's okay to help others. And it's okay to care about somebody you don't know about, right? So my biggest complaint about this whole thing was fine, you want to get COVID, that's fine. But when you take it home to your grandparents, or somebody- give it to somebody who takes the home to their grandparents, and there wasn't even a care in the world, for the older community, or the younger ones, the babies that can't- still can't get vaccinated. So that, to me is the biggest. I forgot what the original question was. That to me is the biggest,
TN 38:54
for the individual,
AN 38:55
for the individual to care about other individuals and not just themselves.
TN 39:00
Alright. Thank you for joining me.
AN 39:03
You're quite welcome.
TN 39:04
All right. I don't exactly know how to end this. So I'll just end it there. Thanks for joining. Have a nice day.
AN 39:10
Thanks you too Trenton.