Items

• 
  2020-06-09

  George Floyd protest

  “This is from a protest on June 9th, 2020 I went to, which was in protest of the police and George Floyd’s death. The sign spoke to me and it’s the only picture I have from that day. But I feel like I was part of history that day. It was the first thing I went to with my friends or people since the lockdown started. Before that, I was alone with my family and my thoughts. And so it marked the beginning of a new world of change that we embarked upon.”
• 
  2020-07-27

  Desolation

  The moment I saw this photo, I felt the profoundness of it. The New York subway system empty. Normally people would be walking through these gates, flooding the long hall between trains and destinations. The thing that strikes me more than the emptiness is the long tunnel leading to the exit. Well over 100 feet long the tunnel seems to go on forever, a feeling that mimics the endless period of the covid lockdown. It just felt as if it would never end, and now, looking at the tunnel I feel a sense of sadness, as if a year of my life was wasted, one that no matter how much I try to forget, I cannot.
• 2020-03

  Gathering "Essentials"

  March 2020. By now we have heard all the news about how COVID-19 is spreading and made it to the United States. The lockdowns were starting. I was working in a legal marijuana dispensary. A normal weekday at 2PM is our slow period, but this was different. We saw more customers than normal since most have been excused from work to start quarantining. By now most people have hoarded supplies such as food and toilet paper. But these customers were worried about being locked down without their weed. Customers were maxing out their legal limits they could buy. Shelves once full of edibles and vapes were running low. Nobody could have guessed that recreational marijuana would be considered essential, but to a lot of people it was. And that was the beginning of working through a pandemic.
• 
  2020-06-04

  HIST30060: Loneliness

  The past three years have been incredibly lonely. I've included here a picture of my younger brother on his 18th birthday: a picture I find eerily reminiscent of Edward Hopper's Realist paintings from the 40s and 50s. My brother has always been the most popular person in any room, constantly surrounded by friends, a real party animal. But on his 18th, he was alone (with me and my parents) and couldn't celebrate in the way he would have liked. Since then, he has had a makeup party, but it isn't the same. He also finished high school during this period, and god I feel sorry for the classes of 2020 and 2021. It is easy to be sorry for myself, who has only experienced university through the lens of a post-COVID world, but I was fortunate enough to celebrate my 18th with my friends, finish high-school not on zoom, go to schoolies and travel on a gap year before we were prevented by the pandemic. Poor Sam didn't get any of that, and that really makes me sad.
• 
  2021-10-20

  Picnic in Royal Park

  This was a more joyful moment from lockdown. For long periods of Melbourne's lockdown a picnic in the park was the only way to catch up with friends. It became a very popular activity for my friends and lots of other people in Melbourne. Every evening when the weather was good the parks would be full of groups.
• 
  2020-03-20

  Letter from Mum

  With lots of extra time to spare during the lockdowns, my Mum started writing letters to me as a way to share news. This was a lovely way to stay in touch between Australia and New Zealand, although by the time the letters made it through the very very slow postal system they were weeks out of date. This particular letter from the very start of the pandemic captures the novelty and chaos of the situation very well -- most events are starting to be cancelled, the border between NZ and AU has shut, and everyone is slowly coming to terms with what's happening.
• 
  2021-09-18

  The ring of Steel

  This photo shows a newspaper article published during Melbourne's 2021 lockdown. Following significant anti-lockdown protests in the CBD, the police enacted a 'ring of steel' around the CBD to prevent further protests. I was actually turned around at one of the checkpoints (unaware that the city had been shut) earlier that morning on my morning run. This was one of the most dystopian moments from the whole pandemic and highlighted the lengths the government was willing to take to stop the protests in Melbourne.
• 
  2022-10-31

  Reflecting on COVID19 as a student who started and ended her degree in the midst of the global pandemic. (HIST30060)

  I’ve selected 5 different photos which give a little insight into being a tertiary student during the COVID19 pandemic. I started my Bachelor of Art degree in March of 2020, fresh out of high school. I was so incredibly excited and had a great first few weeks (I think one or two) and O-Week. I was lucky enough to go on a first year Arts student camp in February, where I made a handful of friends that I am still close with today; it was this small social interaction that really served as the bulk of my Uni social life for my degree because ‘going online’ severely stunted my ability to connect with new people. In the screenshot of a Zoom conference call, I am having a zoom call with some of the people I meet on this camp, a kind of ‘reunion’ during the first lockdown in 2020. Reflecting on some of the other limitations on the social life of a young student who is very social, I have included a screenshot of an Instagram post I did in April of 2020. It was my 19th birthday, and my ‘obligatory’ birthday post for the year looked a lot different to other years. Rather than being out celebrating with friends in real life, we did a group zoom call where we sang Happy Birthday and my friends watched me cut my cake through a screen. Some people got dressed up, donning dresses and a full face of makeup, to just wash it off when you clicked the camera off for the night. It was lovely to connect but looking back at these pictures now just leaves me with a strange, eerie feeling. I have included a picture of my university set up, a table in our garden and my dog, Margot. I found it really hard to study in my house all the time, so I would often try to move around to different study zones in my house. I really focused on my study during lockdown, it felt like it was a productive use of time and something I could channel my thinking into. However, thinking so much about University, and always having it in my home (it was not like I was moving between a ‘home space’ and a ‘study space’) was really tiring and draining. Every day just felt the same. I have decided to take a gap year next year rather than moving straight into post-graduate study because I don’t want to feel that same kind of burn-out again. Finally, I have two pictures which encapsulate some pass times during lockdown. One is my sister painting my bedroom walls; we did a lot of home improvement and beautification, giving ourselves little tasks and jobs that we could complete and feel satisfied with. The other picture is my sister and dog on the beach during a winter’s eve walk. I included this picture because her mask is visible. This picture was taken when there were restrictions about the quantity of family members you could walk with, the time you could leave your house, the necessity of wearing a mask and how far you could go from home. When this picture was taken, we had a curfew in place in Victoria (I think you had to be home before 10pm), you could only walk with household members, but only in groups of two at a time, you could not go further than 5km away from your home and you had to wear a face mask even when just walking your dog to a quiet beach. Reflecting on these harsh rules and the feelings I had at the time makes me feel quite sad as I feel like I missed out on so many experiences that I was promised with my university degree. My experience as a Bachelor student was so far from what it should have been; so while I am extremely proud to be graduating in a few weeks, proud that I loved what I studied, felt empowered by what I learnt and feel like my academic skills have improved so much, I feel sad that I missed out on social connection, a sense of belonging to a school community, meeting people who are outside my regular circles, experiences with clubs and teams, not being able to use campus facilities and spaces. I am so lucky that I was extremely privileged in the lockdown, my family was all healthy, safe, we had minimal arguments, and they made me smile despite the circumstances; my friends were beyond wonderful, and I had a safe place to live and access to my university and learning online. But when I think back to the lockdowns and the impact of them, I still can’t help but get emotional. More than anything, I always find myself shocked about what we all went through and how unique it was.
• 
  2020-04-04

  HIST30060: Daniel Andrews' Facebook Post

  This is a screenshot of a Facebook post made by Daniel Andrews’ public page on 4th April 2020. This post exemplifies the Victorian Premier’s ability to co-opt social media trends in promoting his own political agenda. Popular in early 2020, the meme followed the template of “Good morning to everyone except,” followed by exclusion of a relatively a niche social group. This screenshot illustrates the subtle use of social media as propaganda by the Andrews government. Andrews’ social media pages are seldom thought of as such, as the skill of his social media team has allowed him to maintain a popular and likeable social media persona. In an age of ubiquitous social media use, the Andrews government has used social media very effectively to protect its legitimacy and justify its methods. For example, the screenshot highlights the use of guilt by the Andrews government to legitimise health restrictions. The government consistently stressed that the pandemic restrictions were for the benefit of the public and necessitated complete compliance. Those who rejected health advice were endangering the entire community and “putting everyone at risk.” This post therein encapsulates sophisticated government propaganda and the co-opting of social media for political purposes. I selected this post as someone influenced by the sophisticated campaign of government messaging. It lead me to resent rule-breakers and see the prolonged restrictions as a legitimate use of government authority to protect the public. As someone who entered the pandemic as a supporter of the Labor Party and Daniel Andrews personally, I no longer think the severity and length of the lockdowns were necessary. Yet, his social media presence certainly made him likeable, funny, and relatable at the time.
• 
  2021-08-21

  HIST30060: Family Texts

  This is a screenshot of a family text conversation in August 2021. The mother, nicknamed “mrs matriarch” on the Facebook Messenger application, is relaying rumours of an intensification of the lockdown restrictions, including the involvement of the military. She also encourages the popular practice of hoarding or panic buying. This conversation encapsulates popular anxiety around the suddenness of government responses to the pandemic. The user alerts their family based on a rumour that the 8pm Victorian curfew would be moved earlier to 5pm. In hindsight, the 5pm curfew never eventuated. Instead, the 8pm curfew became 9pm, before it was later removed. The user’s fear that the military would be involved further shows the anxiety felt by Victorian residents and the sense of entrapment. The conversation also indicates the popular phenomenon of panic buying and hoarding. The text reads, “get whatever you need for today now” and “buy a bunch – we are heading for tighter restrictions in lockdowns,” even for a perishable item like strawberries. Rumours had a very real effect on the population, prompting atypical economic behaviours, including the infamous toilet paper hoarding. The low price of strawberries reported by the user also illustrates the strange supply and demand for groceries during the pandemic and excess of fruit that year.
• 
  2020-03-26

  The Sound of Sewing

  I moved back in with my parents right before lockdown during the Covid-19 pandemic never imagining how long it would go on for. Since my mother is a teacher she was at home with my younger sister and me during the entire lockdown. My father still went to work because he works for a city and was part of the emergency response to the pandemic. I remember going to the grocery store with my sister and seeing the empty shelves unsure of when they would be restocked. I remember the panic of needing face masks and not being able to find any. That is when my mother decided she would make face masks for us, our extended family and to donate. She pulled out the sewing machine, which originally was for when my grandmother would come visit, and set it on the dining table. My grandmother used to sew all the time when she would visit us and make my sister and I dresses and even matching dresses for our dolls. It was always a sound I had associated with her. I helped my mother in ordering and looking up information on which materials were recommended by health officials, then she set to work, making hundreds of face masks. Every morning I would wake up to the sound of the sewing machine and my first thought would be of my grandmother. As time went on I associated the sound with the pandemic, more specifically lockdown. My mother enjoys doing different craft projects and she really enjoyed making the face masks. It was a fun activity that I also enjoyed helping her with. She made face masks for my dad’s work which were donated to the fire and police departments. We also mailed masks to our extended family in New Mexico, California, and Mexico. We wore the masks ourselves if we had to go anywhere during lockdown. The sound of the sewing machine became a regular occurrence during those early weeks of quarantine. The sewing machine, especially the sound, used to only represent my grandmother making gifts for us. In Mexico, where my grandmother still lives, she used to have a small business making and selling clothing as a way to earn extra much needed money. It wasn’t just a hobby at that time, but a necessity for her and her family. The sound of the sewing machine, became something I not only associated of my grandmother but of the beginning of quarantine and the importance of knowing certain basic skills. Knowing how to sew, and even being able to use a sewing machine, may seem like an unimportant skill nowadays, which was something I used to think. However, that skill helped my grandmother and decades later is still helping the rest of our family.
• 
  2020-04

  2020 Planner

  This bullet journal, titled "Keep It Together," was created fresh after moving states in January of 2020. January through February are well organized, with the planner I drew out having individual days, and places for grocery lists, to-do lists and monthly goals. Even March keeps the same energy, stretching into the beginning of the pandemic, but April comes with a great shift. What was once a detailed planner has lost any sense of time, becoming an amalgamation of grocery lists for vague weeks, stream-of-consciousness poetry, and abandoned bullet lists of brainstorming what to do with my life...only for the journal to snap back into focus at the end of July, continuing its main function as a planner, what with less frills than before. This mirrors my own experience in 2020, as April-July was the period of time I spent alone, living in a new city, working at a fast food job that did not stop when the rest of the world did. I felt very much like my journal, unmoored and adrift, until a change in job and living situation and deciding to go back to school helped bring me some sense of purpose again.
• 
  2022-07-06T10:19

  Adulting On Lockdown

  I was 17 and a freshman in college when lockdown started. At the beginning of the year, COVID was just a blip on the news; the first time I'd heard of it, my mother was sharing an article on how the flu was deadlier and telling me I should get vaccinated. That February I got my first flu vaccine. A month later, I was packing up my dorm in a day and getting sent home. We went to McDonald's for lunch as fuel for the two-hour drive back to my small hometown. I wouldn't step foot in another business for a year. I spent the fall of my sophomore year away from all my newfound friends, too scared to risk infection on campus and too disappointed with the idea of spending the semester locked in a dorm room. I didn't return until the spring, now a legal adult. It would take another year for the mask mandate to be lifted; by then I'd been accepted into my school's Masters program and had moved out of my parent's place permanently. I haven't hit my 20s yet and the world still seems to be falling apart. A new variant, another mass shooting, the world burning... it's hard to believe it's ever going to end. But I keep working. Right now I'm doing research on the parallel's between Marvel's "Blip" and COVID. People ask me how I got a grant to do that, but to me it's the only way to make sense of the event that's marked my whole adult life. Superheroes make sense. They at least had control over their plague.
• 
  2022-07-02

  Taking Care of My Grandma During COVID

  This is a story of taking care of my grandma during COVID. A lot of the time I was employed as a caretaker for my grandma overlapped with the height of COVID.
• 
  2022-06-15

  Long-Term Decline in US Abortions Reverses, Showing Rising Need for Abortion as Supreme Court Is Poised to Overturn Roe v. Wade

  This is a news story from The Guttmacher Institute. This article was written before the official Supreme Court decision was released on abortion. The article states that the 30 year decline in abortions has picked up with the threat of Roe v. Wade getting overturned. At the time this article is being entered in, Roe has been officially overturned by the Supreme Court. What is more interesting to me are the numbers given on abortions in 2020, when COVID was at its peak. In 2020, there was 930,160 total abortions, which was an 8% increase from 862,320 abortions in 2017. In 2020, about 1 in 5 pregnancies ended in abortion. The increase in abortions was marked in an overall 6% decrease in births between 2017 and 2020. The article does not discuss the social reasons why more abortions were happening in 2020 compared to other years, but in my own opinion, people's fears of hospitals being too full and the financial strain of lockdowns would have made it difficult to want to carry a baby to term. At the time, people were unsure of how long lockdowns and restrictions would last, so getting the pregnancy care needed to prevent issues giving birth would have been harder to come by.
• 
  2022-06-18

  Coronavirus: which works better to handle a pandemic – democracy or autocracy?

  This is a news story from the South China Morning Post by Priyanka Shankar. This article is discussing the difference in responses based on forms of government. When it came to handling the pandemic, people from Asian countries where restrictions were much tougher rated a higher rate of satisfaction in government response compared to Latin America and Europe. This was taken from the Democracy Perception Index. According to researcher Fredrick DeVeaux, a leader in conducting this survey, the tight restrictions common in Asian countries are generally accepted because it gets associated with low death rates. The survey does make mention that in countries such as Iran and China, they hid data about the virus from their citizens, affecting their overall response to changes in lockdowns. However, Singapore is also authoritarian, and the prime minister has made an effort to create transparency in what is occurring, so items get hoarded less. Overall, the article claims that the mass mobilization of people and goods under authoritarian regimes fares better than democracies do at creating an effective COVID response.
• 
  2022-05-26

  Tucker Carlson tries to link Uvalde massacre to COVID "lockdowns" while rejecting gun restrictions

  This is a news story from Salon by Meaghan Ellis. This is an opinion piece on what this author thinks about Fox News contributor Tucker Carlson and his approach to the shooting in Texas. The news story says that Carlson claims the lockdowns increased mental illness cases. Whether this is true remains to be seen, but from my own experience with lockdowns, I did have trouble adjusting. I had at least a few mental breakdowns over feeling like a prisoner in my own home. I don't think the lockdowns would trigger everyone into becoming a potential mass shooter, but I do not think they were healthy for many people either. People need human contact regularly, and being cut off from that and only having social media or very few people to see in-person would feel isolating. I think mental health is not paid attention to enough by public health officials when it comes to lockdowns. Mental health is still part of overall health. I do understand why the lockdowns happened, but I think many went on too long, which has had a bad effect on society. It is obviously not the only reason someone would have a mental illness, but for people that already did have mental issues, it made them worse. I have high functioning autism and without a good support system, I'd possibly be doing way worse.
• 
  2022-05-03

  CDC Tracked Millions of Phones to See If Americans Followed COVID Lockdown Orders

  This is a news story from Vice by Joseph Cox. The CDC bought access to location data harvested from millions of phones in the United States. Although it was originally purchased for lockdown related reasons, it is intended to be used for non-COVID purposes too. The way they did this was through purchasing data from SafeGraph. The author of this piece mentions how the decision to do this was not without controversy, as it brings into question the freedom of movement and the rights to privacy. Google has banned SafeGraph from its app store in June.
• 
  2022-05-10

  Anasitasia Viatele Oral History, 2022/05/15

  Anasitasia Viatele is from Kent, Washington. She recounts her life during the pandemic and the struggles she has faced during that time. She discusses her family in American Samoa and touches on their struggles as well.
• 
  2022-05-09

  Predominantly Black college to shut down after Covid-19 and cyberattack burdens

  This is a news story from CNN by Omar Jimenez. After more than 150 years, Lincoln College in Illinois will be closing its doors due to struggles on cyber attacks and COVID. This college is significant because it was the only college to be named after Abraham Lincoln when he was still alive, according to the US Department of Education. COVID created many economic burdens for the college with the transition to remote learning. COVID also created drops in enrollment.
• 
  2022-04-22

  The Shanghai Lockdown. Seen from Another Angle

  This is a screenshot of an article from globalresearch.ca about looking at the most recent Shanghai Lockdown. Yet, the article does not talk about the Shanghai lockdown until maybe halfway through the article. It goes on a tirade about how the 2002-2004 SARS outbreak went after the "Chinese race" and how it became an early trial for China before COVID. Then the author states that China has "mastered the disease" and managed to reopen its economy by the end of 2020, which leads to the conclusion that China's economic growth hardly suffered during the newest outbreak. The author asserts that China will surpass the U.S. economy in 3-4 years and then launches into a world history lesson about Cold War politics. The author tends to wander in the article, going from pandemic skepticism on vaccines sterilizing women, being lied to the government, or having HIV ingredients. Then somehow, Ukraine has virus labs...I don't know. Somehow, Russia is involved in this article, but I'm not sure why. I don't know how this is supposed to persuade its audience because the author goes all over the place with his points. I suppose skeptics will like the fact that the vaccine is being questioned here? Personally, I don't even understand why skeptics would want to read this because I think they would lose even more brain cells from just trying to read it. I think this article is just a gigantic mess and it makes my brain hurt. I find myself just not understanding a single thing that is being written in this article. I don't understand why anyone would even understand or like this article. It literally makes absolutely no sense and there are even typos in it. The look of this website and article makes me want to run my virus protection at least three times because I feel like they're going to infect my computer with a Trojan horse.
• 
  2020-11-26

  Thanksgiving 2020

  This was the homemade stuffing I made for Thanksgiving of 2020. Due to social distancing my family had in order to protect people, my extended family ate at two separate locations. For me, that meant going to my parent's place next door and dining with my aunt and uncle. My grandparents had their own celebration with other family members. One interesting twist to this was that we all ended up eating the same food between both houses because it was split up. This is why I ended up making a lot more stuffing than I normally would for Thanksgiving. In addition to this, I brought over some homemade cranberry sauce and homemade jam. I had learned to make canned jam during 2020, and I had some leftover to give. Everyone enjoyed the food I made and my aunt said it was some of the best stuffing she ever tasted, and she isn't really a big fan of stuffing. Sadly, the stuffing was not enough to ease tensions on the politics happening at the time. Other parts of the day included my family getting into a political discussion on the 2020 election. I had different views on it than my family did, so I left once that started. Later on in the evening, me and my husband went over to my in-laws. My sister-in-law was sick with COVID, so my father-in-law gave her food from the evening for her to take home. I was bummed about that, but people did not want to take their chances of getting others sick, which I understood. My father-in-law invited someone that year from Egypt for the occasion. It also turned into a political discussion there. I felt more comfortable voicing my opinions there than I did with my immediate family, but it was still draining. It made an otherwise okay evening into something that I don't want to think about. 2020 was a hard year for many people, and the election being so close to Thanksgiving made it very awkward. It has toned down since then, but I think people being locked down and exposed to constant social media and news coverage made it harder for people to actually discuss things. I think it's a good thing to be informed, but I do not believe the information overload many dealt with during 2020 was healthy. It even took a toll on me, as it made my mental health worse. Between the lockdowns, protests, and election, it was hard for me to take all at once. My only real solace was school and my husband, as both forced me to think of things not happening at the very moment. As a history major, I find it easier to think of events in the past than I do the present at times. It's why I really like the medieval period in Europe because it is far enough removed from the current era, so I am less likely to get heated about some of the topics brought up. With current events, I need to take a break at times. It was very obvious that the Thanksgiving from 2020 was not something that really made my mental health better. I enjoyed the food and the company, but I had a hard time wanting to discuss politics with people that I interact with regularly. It's one thing to discuss with strangers I might never see again, but completely another to talk about it with people that you need to interact with daily. Now that things are back to normal, for the most part, the tensions are not as high. I find myself being able to discuss politics again with some family members without it going badly. Overall, I would say that Thanksgiving 2020 was a good social experiment on how much overexposure to media and lockdowns can be detrimental to personal relationships. Seeing things behind a screen too often and being away from others takes a toll on humanity. This is why I was so glad when things started opening up again because people need to be out more and with others. As much as technology has helped us communicate, it still can't make up for the human interaction everyone needs. My own mental health has been much better since the ending of the restrictions and I don't want to go back to them again.
• 
  2022-05-06

  Plastic bag ban stalls in Chihuahua, a casualty of the pandemic

  This is a news story from El Paso Matters. This story is about Mexico's environmental issues that have risen due to COVID. In August 2019, Chihuahua became the latest state to ban single-use plastic bags. This changed with COVID, when household and medical waste rose to 80,000 tons per day. Fines for violating Chihuahua’s plastic bag ban range from 2,000 Mexican pesos ($97) to 250,000 pesos ($12,200). But authorities have refrained from enforcing it, noting that single-use items were necessary to meet coronavirus safety requirements. The pandemic’s negative impact on the economy and available workforce also presented obstacles, says Gilberto Wenglas Lara, director of ecology at the Ministry of Urban Development and Ecology.
• 
  2022-05-06

  'Zero-COVID' lockdowns cancel AP exams for students in China

  This is a news story from ABC News by Carolyn Thompson. Due to China's COVID policy, the Advanced Placement (AP) tests have been canceled due to restrictions. Students are unable to visit for in-person tests that are used for AP tests. The College Board offered an online version of these tests, but that was only intended to be temporary. Some tests are being offered digitally, such as the ACT. The SAT remains impacted due to restrictions. Parents have accused The College Board of being indifferent to affected students that need these tests.
• 
  2022-04-28

  Xi Jinping Is Betting It All on Zero Covid

  This is a news story from The Wall Street Journal by Eyck Freymann. This article is about President Xi Jinping's zero COVID goal. The author argues that this is a risky move for President Xi, as enforcing a zero COVID policy could have many economic ramifications. As of Monday, 45 cities with 373 million people, representing 40% of China’s gross domestic product, were under partial or full lockdown, according to Nomura estimates. More cities and counties are under “static management,” a euphemism for quasi-lockdown. President Xi's COVID policy gets compared to Chairman Mao Zedong's Great Leap Forward, where it can start with a noble intention, but turn deadly for the population. Just like Mao faced great food shortages after the Great Leap Forward, locking down centers that produce a lot of the country's GDP is a risk too.
• 
  2022-04-10

  Virus Questions Raised in China

  This is a newspaper article detailing the repercussions of China's "Zero-COVID" policy and the impact it has on families. The story reports a rise in deaths at a Shanghai hospital for the elderly and a further rise in COVID cases in Shanghai. Extensive regulations at the hospital have forced a decrease in hospital staff to manage the many elderly patients suffering with COVID. The article details that a significant number of patients are asymptomatic, yet are placed in strict quarantine to minimize the spread. There are reports of several patients dying due to a lack of proper care from medical professionals who are forced to be absent from the patient as they are locked in strict quarantine. The article further suggests that perhaps China's "Zero-COVID" policy approach is creating far more significant damage to individuals and their families than good. I think this article is interesting because it details an alternative approach to U.S. policy which has maintained a very relaxed and hands-off attitude for a majority of the pandemic. While many states took arguably excessively extreme measures, many states were lax on quarantine, mask enforcement, lockdown protocols, etc. Furthermore, China's policy seems a bit excessive, so perhaps the right answer lies somewhere in the middle. This Article was published April 10th, 2022 in the Northwest Arkansas Democrat Gazette.
• 
  2022-04-15

  It’s time to think outside the mask mandate

  This is a news story from Vox by Keren Landman. The author interviews an epidemiologist on new solutions to tackling the virus that do not require shutting things down or forcing masks. The epidemiologist, Jennifer Nuzzo, says that instead of forcing masks, make things more equitable with having rapid testing more readily available, in addition to vaccines, so that people can continue on with their lives without as much interruption. She believes that masks and lockdowns are okay short-term when not much is known about the virus, but since we know more now, and have more testing, vaccines, and treatments, that we do not need these things. Luzzo thinks we should focus on low-access places so that more people have a chance of protecting themselves.
• 
  2022-04-03

  COVID: China struggles to contain large outbreak

  This is a news story by DW News. It is a story about how the outbreak of COVID has not been very well controlled in China, with China reporting 13,146 new cases, the most since the beginning of the pandemic in 2020. Despite these numbers, the Chinese government has claimed that there have been no new deaths despite the high number of infections. Shanghai is the worst affected region in China, in which as city of 25 million has been under lockdown. Vice President Sun Chunlan, who is on the Communist Party's Politburo claims that swift actions taken will help stop the spread of the virus. In Beijing, there have been lockdowns, mass testing, and travel restrictions placed on the populace. Residents of Shanghai are worried about the lockdowns exceeding four days, as it will limit their ability to obtain fresh food. Parents also fear being separated from their children for too long under strict quarantine. The article mentions Xi being in tough spot with this too, as these lockdowns will have an ill effect on an already fragile economic situation.
• 
  2020-04-08

  Neighborhood Sidewalk Art

  A few weeks into quarantine our neighborhood decided to decorate all the sidewalks and driveways with sidewalk chalk. This was a great way for the kids of the neighborhood to express themselves and feel a sense of togetherness, even though they were all apart. With the use of the neighborhood Facebook group, we were able to coordinate times for the kids to go around and check out all the cool sidewalk art and leave messages for their friends to read. This really made my son feel like part of something, as a kindergartener he was just getting used to being in school, and then after Spring Break he was not able to return to class and we had to get creative. This neighborhood art project was a bright spot in a very difficult and uncertain time.
• 
  2022-03-10

  Why have women been so disproportionately affected by Covid-19? Experts explain

  This is a news story from CNN by Alice McCool. This story talks about the inequalities women have faced during COVID-19. In a CNN poll, women in the G7 countries (US, UK, France, Germany, Canada, Japan, and Italy) felt less supported by their leaders than men did. Some of these inequalities include women being more likely to lose their jobs or take on more uncompensated care work. Other things, such as abortion services, were considered non-essential in some countries during COVID. Minority women and poor women were also more likely to work low-paying jobs and bear much of the economic strain. Additionally, trans healthcare was also viewed as non-essential in many places. In places like Uganda, many women lost their safety net provided from schools, resulting in rising teen pregnancies and early marriages. This article continues showing more examples of the hoops women had to jump through compared to men and demonstrates the social issues that got worse as a result from COVID lockdowns.
• 
  2022-03-31

  'A Cry for Help': More than a Third of High Schoolers Report Poor Mental Health During COVID, CDC Study Finds

  This is a story from USA Today by Adrianna Rodriguez. This is about the mental health in teens during the pandemic and how it has affected them. The CDC study that is cited says that 44% of high schoolers reported feeling persistently sad or helpless during 2021. Over half of the students surveyed were reported to have experienced emotional abuse from a parent, with 11% saying they have experienced physical abuse. Nearly 30% of students reported a parent or another adult in their house had lost a job. In a demographics breakdown, LGBT students reported more suicide attempts and poorer mental health than their counterparts. One third of students say that they have experienced racism. This article is meant to help show the impact COVID has had on people and the way lockdowns have impacted high schoolers specifically.
• 
  2021-07-05

  Lockdowns Were a Gift to Big Business Designed to Kill Small Biz

  This is an opinion piece by Carol Roth for the New York Post. This news story is about ways in which the lockdowns in 2020/2021 hurt small businesses, but helped big businesses. Roth claims that during the pandemic, small businesses are hitting half or less than half of their pre-lockdown revenue. Some businesses, Roth claims, possibly won’t recover at all. This article says that in 2020, the Hamilton Project accounted for 400,000 closures. I find this article to be important, as I think the business side of the pandemic needs to be told more, as these effects on small businesses impact the local and state economies, in addition to what jobs are available for people looking to go back to work after lockdowns end.
• 
  2022-03-16

  COVID Surge in American Samoa

  American Samoa, a small U.S territory located in the South Pacific, was the last place to experience the surging numbers of covid cases. When the coronavirus was declared a pandemic at the beginning of 2020, American Samoa was the only place on earth not to have any cases of COVID. To combat the disease, the government of American Samoa barred incoming flights for a whole year from the United States and their neighboring island of Western Samoa. Although the island did not have any COVID cases, the government promoted and maintained the restrictions throughout the island. However, after opening the borders for inbound flights after a year, American Samoa did not report its first Covid case until September 2021. Since then, travel restrictions and quarantine for travelers were enforced, but eventually, a big surge of cases began to be seen in mid-February of this year. The opening of borders to inbound flights brought the disease into the island. Coronavirus cases jumped from only a hundred to 555. It is still considered relatively low worldwide, but it is high for a small island. Fortunately, no fatalities are reported, with more than 80 percent of the population vaccinated. The attached image is data reported weekly by the American Samoa Department of Health to the public to show how many cases are positive in each village and totaled in American Samoa. The people were worried that the disease might cause some fatalities, the government was quick to impose a lockdown restriction called "CODE RED," which barred social gatherings, schools, traveling, and work on February 22. Although the public panicked with the news of coronavirus cases on the island, the government worked to assure the safety of the people by making sure people were aware of the number of cases and the situation with live news updates and weekly data by the Department of Health. I was also worried when I first heard of the surging number of COVID cases at home. Although I moved to the states for school, I made sure I am kept up to date with what is happening back at home. With the fatalities I saw here in the states with Covid, I was also worried for my parents. But it was comforting to see the live updates by the government on social media which kept me closer to home.
• 
  2020-03-20

  Improvised workout during quarantine

  When the quarantine lockdown mandate was first instated, and all gyms were closed, I quickly became nervous figuring out how I would be able to work out every day efficiently. As a child, I was always overweight until one summer when I obtained a gym membership and trainer to help me lose 45 pounds. However, when all gyms closed, I feared that not going consistently would lead me to gain weight again as I sat stagnant at home. Fortunately, I was able to make the most out of my situation at home and create an at-home workout routine to stay healthy. Daily, I would wake up and run 2 miles outside, followed by 100 pushups, 50 situps, and 5 one-minute planks. Although this workout was not as strenuous as if I was able to go to the gym, it was still very effective in keeping me in shape and helped me stay active. Most importantly, these at-home workouts kept me occupied during quarantine and helped relieve my stress of not seeing or hanging out with my friends and other family members.
• 2020-03-13

  What the pandemic!

  March 13, 2020. I am sitting in the middle of senior civics class taking the biggest test of the year. My teacher gasps turning off the lights, and turns on the projector to reveal an email notice to all staff from the principal. This email is alerting us of a district wide shutdown on schools for two weeks. Everyone is confused, but being 17, thinks nothing of it and finishes our tests. Upon living school that day full of excitement, my mom calls my sister and I telling us to bring everything home from our lockers as the nation is shutting down. She tells us to come straight home, no stops under any circumstances. We ride home in eerie silence. Two years later, I still have a vivid memory of the moments leading up to lockdown in my bedroom for months. This pandemic has not only affected literally every aspect of mine and many others lives, but everyone has a very individualized story.
• 2020-03-19

  Panic During a Pandemic

  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.
• 
  2020-03

  Image from Inside a Closed Museum During Lockdown, Musée du Louvre

  This is an image included in the article, "Museums, Curators, and Artists Find Innovative Solutions for Showing Art in a Pandemic". Taken from a bird's eye view from within the Musée du Louvre, the image shows an empty museum gallery save for a solitary employee. The image is captioned "An employee walks next to Martin Desjardins’s Quatre Captifs in the Musee du Louvre, Paris, closed to the public indefinitely amid concerns on the COVID-19 outbreak, 2020. "
• 
  2021-10-09

  HIST30060 Small business ownership during lockdown

  My parents own a small restaurant, and as such, were largely impacted by Melbourne’s various lockdowns. The restaurant is located on the outskirts of the Yarra Valley, in a peri-urban region known for tourism. As such, the location of the restaurant is isolated from major townships and shopping complexes. We were open for takeaway at the start of the pandemic, however when the 5km rule was introduced (in metropolitan Melbourne residents were only allowed to travel a maximum of 5km from home) it meant that only our very near neighbours were permitted to pick up takeaway; remaining open was thus unviable. As we transition into a post-COVID world, my Mum – the manager – in consultation with other local restaurant owners has reflected on common anxieties about the spread of COVID-19 and the process of verifying/mandating that each customer is double vaccinated (as per state government legislation). Will we receive resistance from anti-vaxxers? Will these rules impact how many customers we receive? There are many unknowns. Pictured is the interior of the restaurant – which has been packed up for nearly a year now – and our check-in QR code which customers must scan before entering.
• 
  2020-03-19

  Museums, Curators, and Artists Find Innovative Solutions for Showing Art in a Pandemic

  This Artsy article written in the beginning of the pandemic discusses the innovative ways that museums and art professionals used technology to maintain relevance and viewership during lockdown.
• 
  2021-06-06

  HIST30060 Makeshift gym

  Exercise became a large part of my life in the pre-pandemic world. It assisted me in maintaining good mental and physical health whilst I navigated university life, work life and social life. I signed up to a gym and regularly attended group fitness sessions. Having found this therapeutic outlet, my anxiety flared up when gyms were closed at the start of the pandemic. I think that many people, like me, would have struggled with the inability to undertake their fitness regimens – for social, physical or mental health purposes – during the pandemic. My Dad was also one of these people – he went out and bought a home gym for us to use (which we crammed into our spare room). In 2021, I thought the pandemic was over, however was still very appreciative of the set of dumbbells I received for my birthday. Sure enough, we were back into a lockdown soon after. Thank goodness for those dumbbells – they’ve kept me sane, more than I’d like to admit!
• 
  2021-09-10

  HIST30060 Group-chat shenanigans

  Lockdown shifted the nature of community dynamics in our local area. We live in a peri-urban region on the outskirts of the Yarra Ranges; as such, neighbouring properties are separated by large swathes of Australian bush. This can be isolating at times; it’s very different to suburban living. Our street (which spans about 7kms) and adjacent streets have a WhatsApp group chat named ‘Fireguard’, which allows residents to share information about fire safety, planned burn-offs and emergency warnings. However, during lockdown the chat was increasingly used for the purposes of socialisation. Suddenly, distant neighbours began sharing jokes and engaging in conversations about lockdown living, through the chat. The chat became a site of social interaction that the members of our area probably didn’t realise they needed, until they did. We eventually decided to create a separate chat for general/social purposes only, the title ‘WHICHBIN’ constituting a friendly inside joke about one particular chat member who never fails to ask, “which bin?” she needs to put out for collection each week.
• 
  2020-12-18

  HIST30060 The importance of pets during the pandemic

  State-sanctioned restrictions changed the way in which individuals/groups were able to process emotional experiences, such as grief. Our family dog –Bonnie – was a saving grace during lockdown. She was my “quarantine buddy” and made each day a little brighter. My family went through a tough time around Christmas; Bonnie was becoming progressively sicker, and we had to make the decision to put her down. When we arrived at the vet clinic, we discovered that our family who had attended – Dad, Mum, my brother, myself and my grandparents – could not all wish her farewell together; only two of us were allowed in the waiting room with Bonnie at once, due to COVIDSafe density limits. My parents went in together, and then my grandparents, and then my brother and myself. I’m glad that my brother and I got to share the experience of saying goodbye together; Bonnie was a fundamental part of our childhoods, thus we shared a similar type of grief. However, the ability to farewell this member of our family as a family unit was impacted by COVID-19. Pictured is a “Snapchat” of Bonnie that I sent to my friends, and a picture of her at the clinic.
• 
  2020-04-13

  HIST30060 - Easter Hunt: Bears Hiding in Windows

  These two photographs were taken in April 2020 during Easter. My neighbourhood decided to come together and do something special for the kids - many families participated and placed teddy bears on their windows facing the footpath. This created a 'Bear Hunt' trail for children and their families to participate in. I decided to take a walk around my neighbourhood to experience this for myself and it has become one of my most memorable moments during the COVID-19 lockdown. Many children and their families were walking around socially distanced, and strangers I had never seen before would wave at me across the streets and exchange greetings. The sense of community was really strong and it felt like everyone was together, in solidarity, even amidst the toughest of times.
• 
  2020-07-15

  HIST30060: KEEP YOUR distance!

  HIST30060: This photo of the back of my work uniform shows how workplaces were affected by the restrictions of the pandemic. Hardware stores were able to stay open to trade customers and for "click and collect" purchases during Melbourne's lockdowns, which meant a change to our normal work routines. Staff were charged with the responsibility of making sure customers wore masks, checked in with the QR codes and practiced social distancing throughout the store. These necessary rules were challenging to enforce sometimes and customers could often be disgruntled and unhappy with these changes. This message on the back of the uniform was in keeping with the atmosphere of working during this period and symbolises our adjustment to "covid normal" practices.
• 
  2020-08-10

  HIST30060: 5G Conspiracy

  (HIST30060) This photo is of a drawing by one of my housemates of part of a postcard that we received during the first lockdown in 2020. Conspiracy theories surrounding the virus and 5G had just begun to spread during Melbourne's first lockdown, yet my housemates and I felt quite removed from this phenomenon as our social circle mainly consisted of other young, progressive students who were very against these sorts of theories. Receiving this postcard in the mail however, was quite a shock, knowing that people close to us in our area of Melbourne shared these beliefs. Whilst we initially found the image of a man with a hole cut out of his mask humorous, hence the drawing, we were also astounded at the intensity of the covid-scam propaganda. This also marked my first taste of the bitter divide that was to come between pro and anti vaxxers in 2021.
• 
  2020-04-02

  HIST30060: Birthday Zoom!

  HIST30060: This screenshot of my auntie's birthday celebration on zoom would be a familiar scene to many. This is one of the many ways my family had to adjust to "covid normal". Birthdays always involve a big gathering and a way for everyone to catch up; losing this was really disheartening . However, this photo also represents the resilience of my family in still being able to find a way to be together, even if zoom felt like a poor substitute. Zoom was and still is a crucial part of many people's lives in the pandemic, yet can create a barrier for those who find the interface challenging to use. Elderly members of my family often found zoom quite tiring and hard to use, creating a further barrier to connecting in lockdown.
• 
  2021-09-29

  HIST30060: Lockdown Musings

  This poem was written in May of 2020 during Melbourne's first official lockdown. This poem was written for a University assignment and was published in an anthology in September 2021. I wasn't deliberately trying to write about the pandemic in this piece, however the long days at home spent with housemates, playing board games and watching reality tv, crept into the piece. This medication on the beauty of domestic mundanity reflects how people had to adjust their perspectives on constantly being home. Unless there was a way to find joy and beauty in the everyday it would have been impossible to get through the tough, lengthy restrictions.
• 
  2020-08-22

  HIST30060: Lockdown Knitting

  (HIST30060) Like the people that learnt to bake sourdough, completed dozens of puzzles or took up running; I decided that learning to knit would serve to occupy the time between work and study that didn't involve Netflix. This represents how I benefitted in part from Melbourne's lengthy lockdowns, as opposed to people who may have struggled with added responsibilities like guiding children through schooling on zoom or working in healthcare on the frontlines of the pandemic. Knitting also acted as something I could mark my time with; this picture was taken on my birthday when I decided to make my first jumper. Instead of remembering this time as purely disheartening, with the news of a re instating of lockdown in late August 2020, I also remember it as an exciting period where I really honed in on my new craft.
• 
  2020-04-12

  Joy on the Pavement

  During Melbourne’s first lockdown in 2020, movements to bring joy to the few remaining active public spaces were organised over social media and among local communities. One trend was pavement art that encouraged the walker to “laugh”, “pick up some rubbish” and “strike a pose” on their permitted hour of exercise. These minor artworks expressed an optimism in community strength at the early stages of the pandemic; they expressed, too, a resilience in Melbourne’s identity as a city of art and culture. By the second lockdown in August 2020 the chalk had been washed away and there was little to replace it. Creating community from inside our own homes, it turned out, was much harder to sustain than anyone had imagined. Submitted for University of Melbourne HIST30060, Semester 2 2021.
• 
  2020-11-01

  Concrete Engineering at Home

  In 2020, the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Melbourne posted a tiny bag of cement to each second-year engineering student to create a miniature concrete column for their final assessment. In ordinary times, these students would have visited one of the city’s megaprojects to watch a concrete pour, but with construction barely operating and site visits banned, this was how the theory of the concrete mix was put into practice. There was a “slump test” to gauge the pliability of the mix and then the finished product could be assessed for its strength. My slump was good; my column, I suspect, would have failed at its base due to an overabundance of aggregate. For me, it was the highlight of a year of online study, and perhaps even more rewarding than it might have been in ordinary times. Now, I have a treasured (and very heavy) paperweight by which to remember my experience. Submitted for University of Melbourne HIST30060, Semester 2 2021.