Items

• 
  2022-03-01

  HIST30060: A Birthday and a Case

  For my 21st birthday, I tried to be sensible. We didn't go clubbing, even though they were back open and we hadn't really had a chance to go for three years, and we didn't even go to a bar. 5 of us went to a private karaoke room. We should have been safe. Unfortunately, however, the next day one of my friends texted us that he had tested positive, and pretty soon we were all locked in our apartments. On the 7th day, I tested negative, so, fortunately, was able to go out again. It was a difficult week: I didn't know that many people in Melbourne, and the few I did were equally as infected and were in their own quarantines. I knew no one who could drop off groceries and medication, and online ordering was difficult due to my location. I was incredibly lucky that it was no longer 14 days, but I can certainly say that the 7 were not enjoyable. Fortunately, I was also generally not that unwell (just a fever and a bad cough) and lived in a studio apartment so I had no risk of infecting anyone else. Nevertheless, it was lonely and miserable and I was running out of food. Happy Birthday to me.
• 
  2022-02-01

  Indeterminate

  Stress is associated with the past two years. This incident was one of my most stressful contact with Covid-19 testing. You'd win the bet if you guessed there is a happy ending.
• 
  2020-04-24

  Utilizing the Pandemic

  I have a feeling that my journey through the Plague Years has been rather different than most other people. Even with the Pandemic raging, I would genuinely consider the past two years some of the best of my life. Though there were certain adjustments that had to be made surrounding the uncertainty of the disease early on, my life was largely unaffected. I was living at home and taking online classes at a community college so those continued after only a slight break. I worked part-time at a pet food store and because pet food was considered “essential” for people, I was allowed to continue working uninterrupted. My dad started working from home and my siblings high school went to a part-time schedule. During the day we started a plethora of new tv shows and almost every night we were able to have dinner as a family and play board games. The best part, after some debate, larger universities began moving to online classes and closing campuses. This meant that my friends who were away at school would be coming home. Once we knew the signs, symptoms, and the relatively small danger presented to younger people we were able to hang out and have socially distanced fun. As an introvert, friends, family, school, and work were all I really needed to be happy, and the loss of large-scale social functions was of no importance to me. In fact, I was able to utilize the lack of interaction during the Pandemic as a cover for experimentation. On April 24, 2020, after hearing my dad ask me to get a haircut for the third time, I decided to take matters into my own hands and gave myself a buzzcut. There were four thoughts ringing in my mind as the razor vibrated in my hand. 1. I need a haircut 2. No place was open that was close 3. I have had the same hairstyle since high school. 4. And most importantly, not many people would have to see it. I was pleasantly surprised at how easy it was and how it looked. Since that time, I have been much more adventurous with my hair styling and even with what I wear. The Pandemic helped me realize that life is too short to not try something new just for the sake of it. And though I did get clowned by my friends on occasion, that didn’t stop me from doing it again 11 months later… The pictures included are the sink full of my hair and hanging out with friends rocking the buzzcut. Overall, I know how lucky I was to remain relatively unscathed throughout the Pandemic. My paychecks never stopped, my classes resumed shortly, and my relationships with friends and family blossomed. The only real loss experienced was my hair, and for that, I am more than grateful.
• 
  2020-03

  Growth Through a Pandemic

  The Covid-19 pandemic has brought an array of challenges for not only me, but people across the globe. People have lost loved ones, lost touch with some of their closest friends, got covid themselves, and so much more. Although Covid-19 has taken a long-lasting toll on my life, it has also brought me great change in an extremely positive way. When the pandemic first started my family and I were forced into a “lockdown”, only leaving our house for the essentials like food. I was unable to see my friends as online schooling became more and more prominent. This took such a toll on me both mentally and physically. I was longing for a social connection that I could no longer get and was unable to do one of the things I love to do most, workout. Although at the time I thought it was the worst thing possible, the lockdown caused my family and I to get extremely close. We would have family dinners, play games, and watch movies. The pandemic helped me to realize how much I rely on my family, and that through thick and thin they will always be there for me. As the pandemic progressed, I got accepted into Duquesne University, and started college soon after. This was a huge adjustment for me as I am from Buffalo, three and a half hours away. I had to meet new people and get adjusted to home away from home amid a global pandemic. I had to overcome fear of the unknown and fear of the pandemic to grow as an individual, and I did just that. Through the last three semesters I have met so many amazing people and found the things that make me happy while at Duquesne. I learned to not let fear override you, and that to grow physically and mentally you must overcome fear. Across the entire pandemic I have also learned that sometimes you need to focus on yourself and put yourself first. Throughout the pandemic I got into the habit of going to the gym consistently and began to eat more cleanly. I found joy in the little things, like going to work and building relationships with my fellow employees. In the end, the pandemic taught me to always look on the brightside no matter what and to make the most of everything that is thrown at you, good or bad. Looking back at it, the Covid-19 pandemic helped me grow and become the person I am today.
• 
  2021-08-23

  Jones County, Georgia

  A friend of mine shared her experience with how her child’s school is handling the pandemic and exposure when kids test positive for Covid. She also shared the short conversation with her child’s teacher after receiving an email from the school.
• 
  2020-10-26

  Ontario dog first in Canada to test positive for COVID-19, but researcher says there are likely more

  An Ontario dog living with four human COVID-19 patients is the first dog in Canada to test positive for the virus. But researchers say the discovery doesn't mean pet owners need to worry. The animal is from the Niagara Region and lived in a home where four out of six people had the virus, according to Dr. Scott Weese, chief of infection control at the University of Guelph's Ontario Veterinary College. "At last check, both dogs were fine, everyone in household sounds like they're doing well," he said. Weese described COVID-19 as a "human virus." There is some risk of animal-to-human transmission when it comes to mink, and experiments have shown infected cats can pass the virus to other cats, but that has not been shown in dogs, he said. "If your dogs has COVID or is infected with this virus, it got it from you or someone else in the household."
• 
  2021-05-24

  10 things to do while in quarantine

  This book is a guide to something that I try to apply in my daily life and that is to take the positive out of every situation. Although this global pandemic has affected us all directly, I truly believe that we can do valuable things with the time and resources we have.
• 
  2021-05-24

  10 things to do while quarantine

  This book is a guide to something that I try to apply in my daily life and that is to take the positive out of every situation. Although this global pandemic has affected all us directly, I truly believe that we can do valuable things with the time and resources we have.
• 
  2021-05-02

  Charlotte Botenhagen Oral History, 2021/05/02

  This was an interview from Jennifer Botenhagen who is a preschool teacher living in a tiny mountain town. This interview details her experience adapting to teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic.
• 
  2021-03-25

  Graham County (AZ) now with less than 150 active documented COVID-19 cases

  By Jon Johnson jonjohnsonnews@gmail.com SAFFORD – Graham County has had very few new confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the past month, lowering its numbers to just 147 active cases as of Thursday. According to the Graham County Department of Health and Human Services, Graham County has had a total of 5,355 confirmed cases for the course of the pandemic, with 5,132 listed as being recovered, 147 active, and 76 deaths in more than a year. No new cases were recorded Thursday, and, according to the Arizona Department of Health Services COVID-19 school dashboard, Graham County had just a 1 percent positivity rate as of the week of March 14. That is good for a tie with Apache County for the second-lowest percent positivity rate out of Arizona’s 15 counties. Only Greenlee County, which registered a zero percent positivity rate from Feb. 27 – March 14, had lower. With the lower cases statewide and vaccine rollout, Governor Doug Ducey issued an Executive Order on Thursday, rolling back several COVID-19 mitigation measures involving businesses and gatherings. This comes as other states roll back their COVID-19 mitigation measures as well. The rollout of the various COVID-19 vaccines has picked up steam in the last month, with the state opening up the vaccine to anyone 16 years old or older for the Pfizer vaccine. Anyone 18 years old or older can be administered the Moderna and Johnson & Johnson vaccines. The San Carlos Apache Healthcare Corporation is holding a free, drive-through vaccine clinic on Saturday, March 27 at the San Carlos High School. No appointment is necessary. The clinic will be administering both the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines. Graham County and Greenlee County are also providing vaccination sites for those 18 and older, and provide the Moderna and Johnson & Johnson vaccines. Greenlee County According to the Greenlee County Health Department, the county currently has just nine active cases of COVID-19. For the course of the pandemic, Greenlee County has had 568 confirmed positive cases (by far the lowest out of any of Arizona’s 15 counties), with 549 recovered cases, nine active, and 10 deaths.
• 
  2020-12-05

  Covid-19 Notifications

  For six months during the pandemic, I worked at Target. During that time, this is how we were notified of positive Covid cases within our store. Due to privacy reasons, this was often all the details we would receive, leaving us wondering if we should be getting tested or taking extra precautions. This was particularly stressful during the holidays, as there would be at least one text regarding a positive case per week. On the week in the screenshot, there were three positive cases in one week. It often left many of us more stressed than we already were with the influx of holiday shoppers, but we had to continue with our work as is nothing was wrong in order to keep the store functioning to the best of its ability. By the end of the year, we were all surprised when we went more than a couple days without a text.
• 
  2021-03-24

  COVID-19 Claims Life of Trailblazing Bourne Police Lieutenant, Cancer Survivor

  The COVID-19 pandemic continues to affect law enforcement personnel far more than all other job hazards. The SARS-CoV-2 virus killed more American police officers and law enforcement personnel in 2020 than any other cause of death, and that trend appears to continue in 2021. Unlike most other essential workers, law enforcement professionals cannot reliably keep social distance or avoid personal contact with the public and their colleagues. Additionally, they are unable to seek reasonable accommodations that would allow them to do so, and their failure to fulfill their duties and sworn obligations is often grounds for dismissal and decertification.
• 
  2021-02-15

  One of my COVID-19 Case Investigations Experiences

  I work as a COVID-19 medical investigator for the Arizona county in which I live. I recently called on a monolingual Spanish speaker who turned out to be a retirement-age mother of adult children and infant grandchildren. The first time we spoke, she very politely agreed to complete our medical interview by phone, and I began working through the initial demographics section. As she answered my questions, she began asking questions of her own regarding her potential experience and that of her family, all of whom were ill by that time or presumed to be positive due to extended close contact. The pace and tone of her speech evolved as her volume increased, and her intense emotional distress required no common language to comprehend. The primary source of her concern was her adult daughter who lived at another location with her two children. Our case feared her daughter had to have immediate help to even dial a phone, much less to care for herself and her children. The case wanted to break isolation at her home to travel to her daughter' home to aid her child and grandchildren, but, with the interpreter's help, we worked through her fears, established an action plan that allowed the case and her husband to stay home, and connected her daughter with medcal professionals to evaluate her circumstances and need for urgent intervention. The case and I agreed those needs superseded the interview as she was both aware and isolated, and we agreed to speak the following day. On callback, her emotions had completely turned around in that day, her daughter had been evaluated over the phone, acquired the information and guidance she needed, and the case believed her child and grandchildren were now safe and well. Throughout the roughly 90-minute translated interview, she repeatedly expressed her gratitude for our having called and helped her family and information and guidance. Despite the number of times our patients/cases have expressed anger, outrage, suspicion, or worse at our medical investigation and contact tracing efforts, this series of calls made them worthwhile.
• 
  02/21/2021

  Carolyn Rayroux Oral History, 2021/02/21

  At 0930 hours on 02-21-2021, I asked my stepmother for her perspective a positive outcome of the COVID-19 pandemic.
• 
  02/21/2021

  Michele Lebsack Oral History, 2021/20/21

  On 02-21-2021, I sat down with my mother-in-law to ask about the positive experiences she had since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.
• 
  2021-02-02

  The Unexpected Digital Benefits of Distance Learning

  When I first saw our Distance Learning schedule, I was actually relieved. When we were still thinking of re-opening back in August, the Hybrid schedule they proposed was atrocious. I would be able to synchronously (live instruction) teach a student for only 2 hours a week, the other three hours would be asynchronous. The powers that be told us “you have to just deal with the fact that you won’t be able to teach everything you usually do.” Of course, these are the same powers that be who expect the kids to pass their AP tests, and tell us that state testing (which is still happening regardless of the opening status) is “high stakes.” Contradictions, much? So, the Distance Learning schedule, which allows me to see a student three times a week, for 3 hours and 20 minutes of live instruction, was a vast improvement. Still, block scheduling? The very idea of block scheduling sent chills down my spine. Even in college, I opted for M, W, F classes because I do not sit still long enough for the 1.5-hour classes that were on T/Th. And how would I digitize an entire course? I was lucky to have already “flipped” my classroom about five years ago, when I recorded all my lectures and assigned them to watch on YouTube, freeing up class time for discussions and document analysis. But how would I do gallery walks, document analysis, Socratic Seminars, etc. digitally? Could I? Now with a semester of Distance Learning under my belt, there have been some huge advantages to being forced into this completely digitized world. First, digitized documents are amazing. So much of my course is document analysis. With digital documents, the copies aren’t blurry, the kids can zoom in if the font is small, and thanks to Google, they love to highlight and annotate the heck out of them. And Jamboards have been a godsend for collaborative analysis. I am debating whether I will ever go back to paper document analysis. Online tests have also been a game changer. I always steered away from online tests, due to fears over test security. Test days were big affairs in my class. The kids would put all their items, including phones, on the counter. I would go by each table and make them turn out their pockets to ensure no phones. I liked to joke that test days were more serious in my class than going through TSA. Because the students sat in tables of four, there were four forms of the multiple choice test and 20 versions (4 versions per period, for five periods) of the short answer portion of the test. The end of test day left me with 180 Scantrons, 180 short answer questions to grade, all with different forms, plus their notebooks, which they turned in on test day. I had to let that kind of control go this year and jump headfirst into online testing. And I am so glad this happened. It was the push I needed. The world of online testing has improved remarkably since the ten years ago that teachers at my school began to move toward it. It is SO EASY to grade and to make different forms with the click of a button. The multiple choice grades automatically and the short answer, I click the points and it pushes to the gradebook. A task that took me four hours now takes me 30 minutes. I know while the kids are at home, there is nothing to stop them from having notes on the side or on another device, but honestly, with tests that are based on historical reasoning skills, I don’t really care if they are looking up the name of an act, event, or person. I am more interested in if they can effectively use that information to support their argument. When we’re back in person, I can ensure they don’t have their phones and that Go Guardian is on to keep them from opening other windows. Without Distance Learning, I would have never made this change. Writing has also dramatically improved due to technology. I always made my students write essays by hand because the AP exam makes them write them by hand. However, with the AP exam going digital, I can now, too. It is incredible to see how the quality of writing has improved through typing. It is terrible to think that students in previous years may have been less successful on the AP exam simply because they did not formulate ideas as well with pen and pencil as they would on a computer. Block scheduling, too, has been surprisingly smooth. It is so refreshing to have time to analyze documents and follow it up with writing and peer editing - all in one period! Of course, I will be fine to return to our 55 minutes classes someday. I still don’t sit still well. Will I keep the course entirely digital when we are (hopefully) back to a normal year? Probably not everything. I miss the kids having a notebook that we build throughout the year, and will probably return to our traditional notebook for in class activities. BUT I am happy to never run a Scantron again!
• 2020-03-29T22:23:20

  When My Fever Broke

  I fell seriously ill on March 23, 2020. I vividly remember my body being hit with extreme chills and my skin was hot to the touch. I remember being so cold that I needed two blankets to keep warm while experiencing a high fever. Even though I I felt deathly sick, I denied the thought of even having Covid for some reason. However, in the middle of the night I woke up coughing and I knew I had it. I immediately quarantined and contacted anyone that I had contact with to let them know that I might be infected with Covid-19. At the time, there wasn’t an easy way securing a test for Covid-19. A friend referred me to a private clinic to get tested. I was finally able to get tested on March 25, 2020 and the next day the doctor called me to tell me I tested positive with Covid-19. Fortunately for me, my worst day was the first night. I suffered a mild fever for about 7 days straight. This is the only photo I took during my whole quarantine. It’s a photo showing when my fever finally broke. When the thermometer showed a temperature 98.2 degrees, a wave of relief fell over me. It was so surreal at the time and I wanted to provide a snapshot of a moment in time of my Covid experience.
• 
  2020-03-16T12:00:00

  Finding Myself During Covid

  My story discusses how throughout Covid , I found a way to make it positive. A global pandemic turned millions of lives upside down. But, I won't allow this disease to kill off my dreams with tennis.
• 2020-10-11

  In the Pandemic Journey

  I am an international student from Colombia. I was in the middle of my fourth semester as a sophomore in college when I heard that the pandemic hitting the world just entered the U.S. I was excited at the time because my girlfriend and I bought tickets to go to New York City during spring break. I thought we were going until I heard that New York City was a hot spot for COVID-19. We did not want to risk anything, especially if we were going to encounter a virus that was completely unknown to us, so we cancelled the trip, but the airline still gave us the tickets to fly anytime between then and the end of 2022. After that, spring break came, and it was announced that the university was closed after spring break and we would have to go completely online. I live with my girlfriend since I first came to the U.S., so I stayed with her at her home that is two hours from the university we are enrolled in. We finished the rest of the semester there at her home. We then stayed for another month there and while we were in complete isolation we took advantage of that to go running together to be healthy, we did not let ourselves get bored, we were always doing something, we would do zoom video calls with our friends, watch movies, play video games, etc. After that we came back to Stevens Point to work on campus for the summer (with the required restrictions) so we could make some money to pay for our tuition. Though this is considered by many one of the worst years they’ve lived in, I had the most fun summer since I first came to the U.S – me, my girlfriend, and our friends had a blast; we hung out almost every day, we went to isolated beaches and went on boat rides, we had bonfires, we partied amongst ourselves, we went hiking, we went biking, we played soccer, etc. When the summer was over, we went back to classes and I got also got interested in learning new languages, so I downloaded the app called Duolingo to learn Portuguese and practice some other languages. Since Spanish and Portuguese are so similar, I am quickly picking up the language. I started my junior year in college, and I could not be happier with the classes I picked. My girlfriend and I thought that since we have classes online and more time at home, it would be the perfect time to get a dog, so we adopted a Doxiepoo, the combination of a Dachshund and a miniature poodle. She is 4 months and we have had a lot of time to train her and we couldn’t be happier with her. Everyone has their ways of coping, and with this ongoing journey through a global pandemic, I have learned that my way of coping is not only adjusting to the situation but also taking advantage of the variety of opportunities that arrive and make the best out of it. This pandemic has taught me in a way that just because we are adjusting, we should not stop living in the moment and while I understand that for some people this pandemic might be harder, it is up to us to either make it a living hell or make it one of the most memorable experiences of our life.
• 
  2020-07-22

  Making the Best of Covid-19

  A group of friends bought kiddie pools to enjoy the summer after their community pool did not open due to coronavirus. I think this article shows how even though the pandemic has had negative affects, people can still enjoy the summer while staying safe.
• 
  2020-08-10

  The life of a HCW testing positive for coronavirus

  I wrote this article for my internship and I've always wanted to see it published given that it gives us a perspective of a health care worker that became a patient for coronavirus. In the months that the Philippines has been on lockdown and cases continue to rise up, it's very telling that those who are vulnerable to the virus still aren't secured and compensated for the work they have done so far.
• 
  2020-07-22

  Making the Best of Covid-19

  A group of friends buy kiddie pools to enjoy summer with after their community pool did not open die to coronavirus. I think this picture and article show how people made the best of the pandemic. It shows how even though the pandemic affected everyone in a negative way, there are still ways to make the best out of the situation.
• 
  2020-05-14

  Chalk Day

  This photo is important to me because we are in quarantine and it feels like a lot of negativity and it's kind of a way to show that "the sun will always come out tomorrow" that something good will come out of this. (inspired by Tangled)