Items

• 2022-09-09

  HIST30068 China’s Zero Covid Policy Story 3

  Early September this year, my uncle Kun Ye went on a business trip to Xinjiang. Unfortunately, as he arrived, positive cases were starting to pop up in the region. He quarantined in the hotel for 20 days, waiting patiently, hoping the situation to improve so he can get his work done. When it got closer to October, a friend in the local government gave him a call, advising him to return to Hubei asap, otherwise it will only get harder and harder for him to go home. He took that advise and flied back to Jingmen, Hubei, it turned out to be a smart decision. By the start of October, no more flights were either going to or from Xinjiang. The whole region went into quarantine, and people was told by the local government to prepare for up to 7-10 days’ worth of food and other necessities, for the upcoming lockdown. After Uncle Kun’s arrival to Jingmen, he was told that since he just came from Xinjiang, a place with growing covid cases, he must first go to the square cabins and quarantine for a week. “Life was so bad there”, he told me: “the meals hardly had any meat.” Well, he was a meat lover. That was not the worst for him. During his isolation, cases appeared in Jingmen as well, (since they just accepted a flight from Xinjiang). A case was found in “Kailin Park”, the community which he lived, and the whole Kailin Park was locked up by blue iron walls, people can neither get in or out. With no home to return to, Uncle Kun went to our house; and since I was studying overseas in Australia, he slept in my empty room for a week. Frustrated, he told me over the phone, that “so much time was wasted last month, and nothing was done.”
• 
  2021-09-06

  Erika Claspille Oral History, 2021/09/06

  This is my recollection of discovering my uncle's death due to COVID-19 during genealogical research.
• 
  2020

  The Importance of Family During Covid-19

  Throughout the pandemic, my parents tried to navigate the line between being flexible yet cautious. They did their best to keep my siblings and I safe while also trying to understand and accommodate our needs as young adults to connect with our peers. It was important that they balanced the health and well-being of not only our immediate family but our extended family as well. For as long as I can remember, my family has spent every holiday, birthday, and any other major or minor event with my grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. My family, as well as my dad’s side of the family, are all local to Pittsburgh, so I have been lucky enough to grow up with them. My dad is one of five and all together there is fourteen of us grandchildren. In January of 2020, right before covid had started, our grandmother passed away from pancreatic cancer. This was a very hard time for my family as we were all incredibly close to her. However, as I look back, I am almost grateful that she is at peace and did not have to experience the crazy covid world in which we are currently living in. My uncle also had pancreatic cancer and had been living with it since his diagnosis in 2012. Our family did everything we could to get him the best treatment and keep him as healthy as possible. Covid made it extremely difficult to be with my family and it was something that I was not used to as I spend much of my time with them. However, our uncle was always our number one thought through it all as he was very at risk due to his underlying health conditions. Months and months went by without seeing my family and we had to continue to cancel get togethers due to my family members health concerns. Not seeing my family frequently was a struggle as I felt disconnected from them and events happening in their lives. My uncle began to fall very ill in September of 2020 and I felt that I was unaware of the extent of his illness. The disconnect and miscommunication from quarantine and covid made it very difficult to get through his time of sickness. Unfortunately, my uncle had passed away shortly after falling ill. It was difficult to think of all of the time we as a family could’ve spent together over the course of the pandemic and all of the memories we could have been making with our uncle before he passed. The pandemic had negatively affected many aspects of life in general but losing a loved one in addition is indescribable. As horrible as the pandemic has been, it has taught me many important lessons in life. I have always loved and appreciated my family but the events that occurred during the pandemic had only brought me closer to them and made us stronger in the end.
• 
  2020-03

  March 2020: A Life-changing Month

  The year 2020 was looking to be much like other years that I spent in college. I was going to be going to classes, meeting up with friends, and working out most days. As March approached, my excitement grew. Spring break was coming, and I had a scheduled trip to Cancun, Mexico. There was talk of a virus spreading through China, but it was very unknown to us. Prior to our trip, we joked about contracting the virus. Little did we know, that would be the week living in the world the way we knew it. My trip to Mexico was everything I wanted it to be and more, but I was ready to come home and finish the semester. We came back from Mexico, and I returned to Duquesne. Within one week of my return, everything changed. Universities around the country started to close for, what we thought at the time, two weeks. Duquesne followed suit. School did not return that semester and the entire country began to shut down. There was a lot of fear and unknown. One minute I was having the trip of a lifetime, and the next minute I was at home with my family only leaving to get groceries. We began using masks everywhere we went, using hand sanitizer many times a day, and staying as far away from others as possible. Although life felt like it completely stopping, the pandemic allowed my family and I to experience something that we might never get to experience again: over a month of quality time together. I was now doing school via zoom and my father, brother, and uncle were home from work. During this time, my family spent a lot of time together. My father and I would find interesting ways to work out every day since our gym had been shut down (see artifact image for a picture of my watch after completing a weighted vest walk. We began these weighted vest walks during the pandemic.). We would watch Netflix series as a family, do puzzles, and even play board games together. I will never forget these memories, even though they were accompanied by fear of the Coronavirus.
• 
  2021-01-25

  statistics

  There have been 97.7 total Covid 19 cases in the world. One of those cases was my uncle. Near thanksgiving he wasn't feeling well so he instinctively got a Covid test. About 2 days later he got a call that said he had the virus. This effected our family greatly. We were all worried sick and were praying that he healed. The funny part was, he said it only felt like a regular cold. He did eventually get better and we were thankful to God.
• 2021-01-22

  Covid-19 Symptoms

  So far, I have only know two people that have had Covid-19. One of them was my uncle who lives in New Jersey, and the other was a friend of mine who is my age. My family from NJ came to visit us two weeks ago(which included my uncle), and my uncle told us that a few months he had covid-19. He said that he had no symptoms at all, the only way he even knew he had it was because he had to get tested to go back to work. The test came back positive, but he still had not even one symptom. I also have a friend who had covid-19 over winter break. He said that he had no symptoms except for he lost his taste and smell for three days. Those are the only people that I've know who have had covid-19.
• 2020-10-11

  Symptoms of Covid

  Someone that has covid may experience a lot of symptoms or not as many. Most symptoms are cough, fever, headache, sore throat, and muscle or body ache. If you are old or have diabetes, overweight, or heart problems than you need to take the virus more seriously. My uncle had covid about 3 months ago. He's probably around 50 years old. He was out for three days. He wasn't worried at all. He had a fever for a day and sore throat and a little cough. He got it over with.
• 2021-01-08

  CoviD symptoms

  It was a couple weeks after the New Year. My coach had a fever and felt achey. He said maybe it was the flu, but he got tested for COVID. He realized that he tested positive. He had a mild cough, but couldn't sleep at night. Also, he had to quarantine for 2 weeks so I couldn't train or play basketball with him. My uncle also got COVID but his case was worse. He couldn't breathe at all and had to go to the hospital. He was there for around 5 days, and actually caught pneumonia from it. Eventually he recovered, but it was a crazy week. All in all, these are some of the symptoms that I have noticed in people.
• 2021-01-21

  COVID

  The mild symptoms you might have from COVID is a fever or chills, cough, maybe fatigue too. They would also get muscle aches, sore throat or a runny nose. Some severe symptoms you might get are difficulty breathing, high fever, persistent pain in the chest, or an inability to stay awake or wake up. The mild symptoms you just need to stay home for but the severe cases you would have to go to urgent care for. An experience I've had with one of my relatives getting covid wasnt really serious. it was my uncle and he was dealing with it fine with no severe symptoms and he only had it for a couple days. After that, he just took the precautions until the doctor said he was ready to go out again. Now he can't have covid for about 4 more months.
• 2020-12-25

  Christmas 2020

  My 2020 Christian was just a little different from last year. One main thing that change would be me getting to go to my grandparents and uncles house. For Christmas Day I would usually open my presents at home which my Mom, Dad, and sister got me then go to my Uncles but I wasn't able to because of Covid. Instead My family had called them and had to wish them a merry Christmas. We also weren't able to have friends over or go to friends houses. But everything else was the same.
• 2020-11-26

  Less family

  Usually for thanksgiving my aunt, uncle, cousins, and grandma come to our house. My grandma has lived by my house since I was born until about 4 years ago, when she moved back to Israel. She is an essential part of our thanksgiving, she helps out with the cooking a lot and is an important family member. This year, she was not able to come because COVID could not let her get a flight to our city. It was very sad because we would miss her and we had to do a lot more cooking, which was stressful. However, I know it is for good because we are keeping eachother safe.
• 2020-12-10

  My Thanksgiving Corona virus Story

  This year's Thanksgiving was different than most years. My family and I usually spend Thanksgiving in Lake Arrowhead and luckily we were still able to go its year. We also still got to spend thanksgiving with my cousins, aunt, uncle and nana like we usually which was fun. One of the things we love to in Lake Arrowhead is shop in the village but this year some of the stores in the village were going out of business because of the coronavirus. In the other shops that were still open we had to wear masks and there were lines outside of some of them. Another thing that was different was that a lot of our favorite restaurants were closed for seating and instead we had to pick up the food. Our family still had a traditional Thanksgiving dinner and we ate turkey and all the normal foods we would usually eat. However, when we went to the local grocery store they were sold out of all of food and the grocery was packed even more than it usually is because people were getting worried about not having another food while were in lockdown.
• 
  2020-06-15

  Silent Funeral

  My story begins in May when this pandemic began. I was still in school at ASU at the time and I was living in Tempe. When school and other events started getting cancelled, that's when I knew that COVID-19 was serious and that things were going to change all over the world. However, I didn't think it would have a long-standing impact on my life. Unfortunately, I realized this would not be the case after my closest uncle passed away in June. He had medical problems and was hospitalized for some weeks, but his illness was not caused by COVID-19. After learning that he passed away I was sad, but not in total shock. What did shock me however, is that I learned that no one would be able to attend his funeral in Nebraska. This of course is due to the pandemic and people not being allowed to be around each other. Most of my family is much older, to be fair, and it could have put them at risk. I've never been very religious, but I think your burial is a very important part of your life. I expect most people hope that it would be some type of celebration of your life. I'm not sure what my uncle wanted, but no one was allowed to attend his burial. This has impacted me where I feel like I didn't get a chance to fully say goodbye. I know that if it was me, I would have wanted my family and friends to be there. The image I put for this, is a picture of me and two of my closest friends standing outside of the church where we went to take the time to honor his memory.