Items

• 
  2020

  New England Student in COVID

  It seems as though every winter all of the kids in schools get a cold. Classrooms have a chorus of sniffles and coughs until springtime and we all suffer sickness together. At least, that’s how it started. My college sent an email to all students, staff, and faculty, saying the school would be monitoring the COVID-19 situation in other countries on February 10th, 2020 and there was no threat to worry about. Everyone left for spring break on March 8th, 2020, expecting to be back in a week. Instead, we got an “extra week” of the break to make sure anyone who traveled could quarantine, just in case. That week turned into a handful more and started online classes ASAP. Students were given the opportunity to go back to the college in a 3-hour window to retrieve any materials necessary for a few weeks online until the surge dies down. Fortunately, I am studying computer science, so a majority of my professors had minimal difficulty making the change, but others were not as fortunate. Quickly, the handful of weeks became the remainder of the semester. All courses would be graded on the basis of pass/fail if the students elected for each individual course they were enrolled in, due to the nature of this huge and unprecedented turnaround. All exams were online, many professors canceled their midterms to alleviate stress from the students and fears of cheating. We would receive semi-weekly updates from the college, mostly fluff pieces about missing the student body with information that was important sprinkled in. Eventually, we were permitted to sign up for a window of time to go and move our belongings out of the dorms, once the state allowed outside travelers in. In the midst of all of the chaos, I transferred colleges and started the next academic year attending one that was much larger and had more resources at its disposal to deal with COVID-19. This school had planned to welcome students back to campus in fall 2020 with a few expectations in place. They had devised a “COVID-19 Compliance” system to keep the population safe and maintain records of who was following protocol. Students would have a “green badge” assigned to them in the morning if: they had completed a daily symptom check-in that was negative, they were up-to-date on their twice-weekly COVID tests and had not been marked as a close contact to someone who had tested positive. Had one of these not been completed, you would have a yellow badge to mark non-compliance, a red badge for isolation, or an orange badge if you were symptomatic. Students must show a green badge to enter ANY campus building. Some classes were online, others hybrid in-person/online at the discretion of the professors. Masks were to be worn at all times, students must get vaccinated once they were eligible, dining areas were to-go only, the campus was littered with signs to promote 6 feet of social distancing, and a student-run campaign called “F*ck It Won’t Cut It” was started to bring attention to the urgency of staying compliant to stay on campus. We would receive weekly updates about the status of the campus’s overall positivity rate. It felt like a shell of a college experience, as students could not visit other students’ residences, no clubs could have in-person meetings, attendance at sporting events was prohibited, and students reporting other students for non-compliance created an atmosphere of disdain. We are now in the second full academic year of the pandemic and there are a few deviations from what I described for fall 2020. Now, COVID tests are once weekly rather than twice, students can now visit other residences and attend sporting events, all of the dining spaces have opened up to sit-in dining, masks are still required at all times, all classes are in person, and the “F*ck It Won’t Cut It” campaign has been retired. It seems as though we are creeping towards the idea of a “typical” college experience, but it feels like this will have an everlasting impact on the next few incoming classes of students and change college as people know it.
• 
  2021-04-28

  Allison Oskar Oral History, 2021/04/28

  This oral history focused on how smaller communities tackled the COVID-19 pandemic. The interview discusses how hospitals tackled the pandemic, and it goes into depth about what it was like to work for a hospital during this time. Also discussed were the ways in which the pandemic affected mental health and how it proved to be beneficial in some ways. There was a large focus on the ways in which COVID-19 affected the 'work life' balance of the interviewee.
• 
  2021-01-25

  Vaccine Localism Defines Who Belongs

  This article says the NH state government has changed its policy to define NH residents for vaccine purposes as NOT including second home owners, non-resident landlords, and other non-full-time residents. This matches policy in Vermont and Maine, both of which have cited vaccine scarcity as a reason to prioritize their own full-time residents (and presumably voters). Who "belongs" has been a hot question in New Hampshire since long before the Coronavirus emerged, but Covid-19 has emphasized existing fault lines. Lots of people with second homes moved more full-time to New Hampshire starting in March 2020, escaping areas with higher infection rates but being perceived as virus vectors by locals, particularly in areas that usually only see tourists in the summer. Vaccine scarcity has created an us against them mentality. NH is prioritizing those most at risk of death - which means those in nursing homes and congregate care facilities (did anyone know that word prior to coronavirus?) and first responders, but in the state with the 4th largest elderly population, that leaves a lot of people over 65 and living at home as second in line. The Governor had already put ski patrol in the list of first responders (so ski areas could open), so letting second home owners get vaccinated seemed to again prioritize those with more money over those more at risk. Little of any of this affects me directly - I'm already in a lower vaccine category due to being younger and healthier than the state average. But in a state where 21 years residence still marks you as an outsider since your family is not from NH, the increased "localism" feels potentially dangerous. While prioritizing full-time residents make sense to me, what will be the next line drawn and will I be okay with that one? How do existing biases in NH affect our vision of "who belongs"?
• 
  2020-11-19

  Warning Signs

  Since this semester is all online, I have been living at home in NH instead of at school in Boston. Since this is the case, I am able to continue working where I was at over the summer in VT. At the beginning of the pandemic when you would cross into VT you would see one of those big orange construction signs stating that if you come to visit VT you should quarantine for fourteen days at home. Alongside the sign would be someone in a DOT truck watching the traffic. Sometime between yesterday, November 17th, 2020, and today, November 18th, 2020, the state of Vermont added these permanent signs at all the crossings in and out of the state. It really brings together how much of a lasting impact this virus has had on the world and that this is something that is not going anywhere anytime soon.
• 
  2020-11-30

  Home for The Holidays

  I live in Florida and my friend goes to school in Vermont, but for the holiday's she decided to come home. We knew this would be risky situation with her flying and having stops between, so I was able to get an extra rapid test for her since my family was already getting tested. We haven't seen each other since August, so we had been eager to be back at home together again, even though things are so different. Everyone has gone through a difficult time this year; one of the things I feel hit home is that my final stages of "childhood" and cherishing everything before I move was not at all what I wanted it to be. Now that my best friend and I are safely home together for winter break, I know we will both be doing our best to soak up all of our hometown before everything changes for good.
• 
  2020-11-16

  Pandemic speeds up influx of remote workers to small cities

  This story, which also appears on NPR, talks about how smaller cities like Burlington, Vermont are experiencing an increase of new "remote workers". They're escaping the big cities for multiple factors, many exacerbated due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
• 
  09/19/2020

  Jacob Giering Oral History, 2020/09/19

  I interviewed Jacob about his experience from December 2019-present (September 2020)
• 2020-08-15

  Campaigning in The Time of COVID - Nick Cook, Suffolk University

  (note: nothing written here represents the views of the candidates or parties represented here - this is solely the personal memoir of one Nick Cook) Volunteering for a political campaign even during the best of times is a weird experience. Your day to day mission is to knock on the doors of—or call on—complete strangers (or at best someone you have a vague memory of seeing at a rally some time ago) and ask them if they can take a moment out of their complicated and hectic lives to hear from the gospel of whichever chosen candidate you're preaching, in the hope that, in about a week or two they'll still remember enough of your spiel to fill in that person's bubble. The coronavirus has not made that any easier. I do feel, however, that it has created a weird sense of camaraderie in those of us who are still trying to push the gears of democracy in this plague year, or whatever name you media types have christened it. I personally am not the type of person who supports campaigns that can afford to have their faces splashed across TV screens and names plastered on billboards. Doorknocking and trying to love thy neighbor is—to me—still the best way to do the business of democracy. I entered politics because I wanted to have some sense of control of my life and community. To make the lives of the people around me just a little easier and a little less anxiety free. So that maybe one day no kid is going to have to come home to an empty refrigerator and no one will ever have to experience the pain of living paycheck by paycheck again. Seeing that lightbulb on people's faces when I talk to them about a candidate or that little smile on their face as I wave goodbye and thank them for their time is why I do this. It's knowing that maybe I made a little change for the day. So coronavirus taking that away from me was hard. I'd like to say that my doubts about campaigning digitally were actually wrong and one day I had a really fulfilling phone call with a voter where we both connected with each other in these lonely times or I had an incredibly amazing Zoom session that changed everything. But I didn't. It's just been a very taxing time that I'm pushing through because I can't stand sitting alone at the house with my thoughts anymore. In the week or so leading up to the election, I got the chance to do at least a little in-person campaigning. Waving and holding signs on street corners, putting literature in doorways, that kind of thing. As well as the chance to stand socially-distanced outside of polling places on primary election day. The people I met on the campaign trail here were just as tired and ready for things to change as I was. One State House candidate compared this campaign season to running for office in a cave and that about summed it up for me. Seeing Tanya Vyhovsky, a social worker and therapist, win her primary election to represent my neighboring town of Essex was also the first real-time I felt joy. Someone who comes from that background and experience and isn't just another lawyer or landlord and has a truly transformative vision for society winning is always great to see. Similarly my home state of Vermont also likely elected Taylor Small, our first transgender lawmaker, and someone who shares that vision. Seeing these victories and meeting everyone who pushed for them along the way has renewed me with a new sense of life in the political realm. Campaigning in the age of COVID has also begun to truly impart on me the lesson that democracy doesn't just come from the ballot box but needs to be expanded into our workplaces, community gatherings, and social lives. However, this is a story for another time. (Join your local union and mutual aid society!)
• 
  2020-08-16

  Shop Local to Support Local

  As COVID-19 spread across the country, many small businesses have been battling to stay afloat. My family restaurant was one of the ones affected by all the changes in regulation that were put in place due to COVID-19. Some of the regulations were tough and challenging for businesses especially those who mainly relied on dine in. Luckily for us, our community is very supportive, and they continued to purchase take-out from us. I’m very fortunate that we were able to stay open, but many businesses had to shut down permanently which is devastating especially in a small town of entrepreneurs.
• 
  2020-06-06

  I See You

  A silent vigil held in Vergennes, Vermont to protest police brutality after the killing of George Floyd and others. Participants were asked to wear masks and remain six feet apart.
• 2020-03-20

  By the time you read this, it will already be obsolete

  They say in Vermont, if you don’t like the weather, just wait five minutes for it to change. I haven’t found it true of clouds or rain, but the news is on an hourly refresh: constantly changing, though never for the better. The world’s gone to dog time. Days have telescoped to weeks. Last week feels like a different era entirely, when kids went to school, businesses stayed open, you could grab lunch in town or take the cat to the vet. After days of pouring over graphs, I could redraw contagion curves from memory, but it all seems strangely theoretical. The number of reported cases in Vermont is still less than a block in Wuhan or Milan. And it’s never that busy here, so the towns look pretty much normal. Nationally and worldwide, the deaths are still lower than the flu, lower than heart disease, lower than car accidents, and yet the trajectories explode like a flushed grouse. While these fears, statistics, and calculations swoop through my brain, the real birds have returned: lines of geese, honking encouragement as they struggle against the wind; gangs of grackles, blackbirds and starlings descending on our feeders and glistening in the cloudy half-light. We should really bring our feeders in, as the warmth has awakened the bears. Last year the ground was frozen nearly until May. This year the snow vanished a few days before the pandemic arrived, winter evaporating as quickly as our former lives. My husband and kids, home all the time now, help me rake away last year’s leaves, uncovering bright shoots of daffodils, and yellow and purple crocuses already blooming. Soon the frogs will shout their odes to fertility from every pond, sending out an aural map of still water. Each time I go outside, my spirits lift, just a little, as non-human life goes on the way it always has, and the world tilts slowly toward warmth.
• 
  2020-05-08

  Homemade sign in Isle La Motte, Vermont

  As the pandemic continues on there is an effort to give people hope. Homemade signs popped up around the United States and in Vermont where I live.
• 
  2020-05-04

  Socially distanced dinosaur

  A life size T-Rex outside a metalwork studio in Rutland, Vermont is observing safe Covid-19 practices.
• 
  2020-04-14

  "Exorcism of a Virus," 2020, colored pencil on wood panel, 9.25'' x 12.25’'

  This is an artwork drawn by the outsider artist Margaret Mousseau during the Covid period (March/April 2020). The title "Exorcism of a Virus" is not the only piece to reference current events. A former healthcare worker, now 64, she works from her apartment in Vermont.