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2022-05-19
This biography was created out of a self-directed project from the HST580 class. This biography will be linked to the submissions of the person mentioned in the document and title.
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2022-05-19
This biography was created out of a self-directed project from the HST580 class. This biography will be linked to the submissions of the person mentioned in the document and title.
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2022-05-19
This biography was created out of a self-directed project from the HST580 class. This biography will be linked to the submissions of the person mentioned in the document and title.
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2022-05-19
This meme is related to what I observed at the early stage of the pandemic-- everyone rushed into grocery stores, hoarding toilet paper. This phenomenon really shows how human action is likely to be controlled by the fear and uncertainty about the future and can question about the true human nature.
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2020-05-26
C19OH
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2020-12-10
This is a review of the movie "Songbird". I watched it when it came out, closer to the start of the Covid pandemic and my partner reminded me of it recently. This review does a much better job at summarizing the issues of the film. It was so bad, not even from a movie and writing standpoint, but it just felt incredibly way to soon to create and release something that feels almost mocking of the pandemic. Big thumbs down.
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2022-05-15
I asked the interviewee how the pandemic affected her experience at UB
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2022-05-16
I am from South Africa. I wrote this analysis of a news article about Covid-19 regulations on the taxi industry in South Africa because during the pandemic I have heard many middle class people complain that working class people are irresponsible for traveling in crowded taxi's to work. My analysis pushes against this narrative, and illustrates how restricting the taxi industry is unjust, oppressive and unhelpful. Moreover, I suggest some alternative ways government can be helping.
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2022-05-16
In class, we analyzed the meme related to COVID-19 and hope this will contribute to something.
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2022-05-16
At the beginning of 2021, I spent one of the most memorable fun time in my life with my friends at the Coming of Age ceremony. Two days later, I had one more memorable days in my life, but in a negative mode: I got Covid-19, and it transferred to all my family members. During that time, I felt fear of being perceived as Covid-19-infected by others since a lot of prejudice led by Covid-19 was happening in the world and even in my neighborhood. In this essay, I would like to use my experience to analyze the human selfish and altruistic reactions to the Covid-19 pandemic.
When I got infected with Covid-19, I had a high fever of 103 degrees, had difficulty breathing, and could not eat properly for several days. My father was hospitalized for about a week because he kept coughing and had difficulty breathing. The whole family was infected with Covid-19and had to be treated at home and quarantined at home, so we could not go out to buy daily necessities and food. The food that was in the refrigerator was running out with each passing day. At that time, I was afraid to confess to anyone outside my family that I had Covid-19 even though I was cured. The reason for this was that I saw on the news that there was a hate movement against Japanese and Asians living in European countries and the United States around the spring of 2020 when the Covid-19 pandemic began. Later on, as the Covid-19 damage grew, President Trump called the coronavirus the “Chinese virus,” and there were many Asians, including Chinese, who were labeled and discriminated against in the daily news. Even around my home, there were people who looked harshly at people labeled as "corona-infected," "pathogens," or "dangerous people," even if they had been infected with Covid-19 and had already recovered completely. I was afraid that if my neighbors and friends found out that I had Covid-19 and labeled me dishonorably.
I thought that the distrust and inter-personal level of hatred that people possess for people who have actually been infected with Covid-19 comes from the “state of nature” that Thomas Hobbes advocated in his writing. Hobbes explains that the state of nature is when humans “seek peace and follow it… by all means [humans] can to defend [themselves]”. The state of war, in which men fight what men perceive as a target (in this case, the threat of the Covid-19) in order to protect themselves, seems to have given rise to this discrimination. And that discriminatory view grew socially and led to the Asian Hate of the time. In addition to the fear held by individuals, I guess the manipulation of social impressions at the time also led to Asian hate. The world was under a medical crunch in all countries following the explosive spread of the Covid-19, and there was a shortage of hospital beds and respiratory equipment. This could be attributed to policies and measures in the medical field that could not respond well to the sudden pandemic or the failure to provide the public with the correct information. However, medical policies and government thinking of the time shifted the blame. They tried to deflect public anger and attention with a different vector, trying to place the responsibility for the entire pandemic on the "Chinese virus" and the Asians. Public opinion, not medical evidence, established the cause of the pandemic, which was similar to what happened in San Francisco, California, hundreds of years ago during a plague epidemic, according to Joan B. Trauner's article. Chinatown in San Francisco was created to isolate immigrants from China during the plague epidemic, and the health office regarded them as the cause of the disaster. The government and the health officer did not want to be responsible for the existence of a plague epidemic. Trauner, in his writing the Chinese as Medical Scapegoats in San Francisco, describes the perspective of the medical officer in San Francisco at the time: "the pronouncements of the board and the health officer were often characterized by political or social expedience, rather than by scientific insight”. The government and the health department utilized the presence of Chinese immigrants for social expediency. The fear, the anger born of fear, and the desire to protect oneself have not changed from the time Hobbes wrote The Leviathan, through Trauner, to the present day in the 21st century. Especially in extraordinary situations like a pandemic, it will lead to new discrimination and more people being treated unfairly.
But I have found one hope during this pandemic. During the time my family was homebound, when we had nowhere to go shopping and were finally running out of food, friends of my parents cooked and brought us meals for a few days, bought fruits and household items and delivered them to us. There were even heartful letters written by them. They did not avoid us as "dangerous people" but treated us with compassion. When humanity makes a positive turnaround from looking for the cause of this situation and shifting blame, to working together to overcome the situation that is happening now, we could overcome our fears, become altruistic, and strive to protect humanity as a whole.
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2022-05-16
During the COVID-19 pandemic, healthcare workers and patients in Japan suffered from the stigma. According to the article, “In Japan, coronavirus discrimination proves almost as hard to eradicate as the disease,” healthcare workers and their families are discriminated against as if they are “germs” that people need to avoid contact with. The patients of the virus are also stigmatized, and such a phenomenon of blaming victims has been seen many times throughout Japanese history.
As this article represents, health care workers in Japan were stigmatized and discriminate against because of the potential risks of COVID-19 infections. According to Goffman, the greek definition of stigma “[refers] to bodily signs designed to expose something unusual and bad about the moral status of the signifier” (131). Nowadays, its definition has expanded to negative images of physical and social attributes and their interpretation in a social context. The stigma of healthcare workers in Japan is peculiar to this pandemic, and this could be because the situation overturned the expectations people had about healthcare workers. Healthcare workers are supposed to help people with diseases, but because of the pandemic, they are seen as the ones with higher risks of carrying the virus as they have more interaction with those who have been infected. As a result, people become afraid of interacting with healthcare workers, which made this job stigmatized.
The article shows that Japanese people reject to interact with healthcare workers and their families during the pandemic. One of the common consequences of being stigmatized is that stigmatized people become separated from other people as they are treated differently. According to Goffman, “[the] responses of the normal and of the stigmatized that have been considered so far are ones which can occur over protracted periods of time and in isolation from current contacts between normals and stigmatized" (135). As Goffman illustrates, health care workers were stigmatized and separated from society at the beginning of the pandemic. Some people even believe that “the person with a stigma is not quite human” as Goffman states, which lead to an extreme reaction by people around health care workers. For instance, healthcare workers have been receiving death threats because other people see them as if they are the potential source of the disease rather than the same humans who are fighting the pandemic together. Such a reaction is similar to how children bully other children based on differences in attributes. One of the typical ways of bullying is to call someone “germs” and avoid interactions, which is the same as the situation in this article. This pandemic revealed our natural tendency of staying away from others who have negative attributes, which indicates that a pandemic is not an equalizer but a source of discrimination.
Another factor that could have contributed to the situation in Japan is social pressure existing in the country. The article mentions that there is strong social pressure in Japan to follow coronavirus directives and to cooperate for stopping the spreading of the virus; if people do not comply, they are strongly criticized or blamed by other Japanese people. In addition, surveys have shown that compared to Americans or Britons, more Japanese people agree with the idea that “If someone is infected with the coronavirus, I think it is their fault” (Denyer and Kashiwagi). According to Fei, there are behavioral norms that are maintained by tradition, called “ritual norms” (97). This kind of norm is regarded as moral behavior by people of the community so that they follow the norms regardless of laws or punishments (99). Although Fei discusses Chinese rural society, such norms have been established in Japan as well because Japanese society developed as an agricultural society where people in a community need to cooperate with each other. There used to be a tradition called murahachibu, which means excluding those who break the rules from 80 percent of social activities in the village with the exception of funerals and fires. Even though this practice is rarely seen in modern society, people still have a strong pressure to behave for the sake of society in order to maintain harmony. For example, Japanese people still feel obligated to wear masks after vaccines have been promoted even though there is no rule or punishment for not wearing masks. This feeling may occur because they believe it is moral or correct to refrain from doing something that possibly spreads the virus.
Healthcare workers were not the only people who suffered from stigma, but COVID-19 patients were also blamed for their behavior that possibly contributed to their infection. In the article, a Japanese psychology professor mentions “a low tolerance for uncertainty” in Japanese people, indicating that they blame the patients to reduce their own fears derived from the uncertainty of the pandemic. This implies that COVID-19 patients become scapegoats for the pandemic itself. In the reading, Trauner writes that “the general acceptance of the germ theory in the 1880’s did little to dispel the popular belief that epidemic outbreaks were directly attributable to conditions within Chinatown” (73). This indicates that when people are uncertain about something scary, they try to identify what or who causes that disease or threat. Although people know that coronavirus is the cause of this pandemic, most people are afraid of germs and viruses because they are invisible. The article also demonstrates some cases of blaming victims in Japanese history, including leprosy patients, survivors of the 1945 atomic bombings, and evacuees of the 2011 Fukushima disaster. Such diseases and disasters involve complicated factors, so it is difficult to blame the causes directly. Therefore, individuals tend to blame patients or carriers of the virus during the pandemic instead of blaming the virus itself because they are visible and easy to avoid.
References
Erving Goffman (1976) “Stigma” :Chapter 10 “Selections from Stigma”
Fei Xiaotong (1947) “From the Soil: the Foundations of Chinese Society”
Joan B. Trauner, (1978) “The Chinese as Medical Scapegoats in San Francisco, 1870-1905
Simon Denyer and Akiko Kashiwagi (2020) “In Japan, coronavirus discrimination proves almost as hard to eradicate as the disease”
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2020-05-16
I made two memes. The first meme is intended to answer the question, “Are pandemics the “great equalizers” in terms of social inequalities—do they level the playing field?” with the example of COVID-19. And the meme says the answer is “no,” and that the socially vulnerable are more exposed to the dangers of COVID. The second meme is intended to answer the question, “Have you observed any patterns of human behavior with the Covid-19 pandemic?” Former President Trump called COVID the “China Virus” and fueled people’s hatred of Asians. This meme tries to remind the audience of his negative remarks but in a humorous way without offending Asian populations. It also illustrates how words can magnify feelings of racism, fear, and uncertainty, which can result in scapegoating. This meme gives the audience an opportunity to learn more about the unfair treatment of Asians during the pandemic and why it happened.
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2000-05-16
I made two memes. The first meme is intended to answer the question, “Are pandemics the “great equalizers” in terms of social inequalities—do they level the playing field?” with the example of COVID-19. And the meme says the answer is “no,” and that the socially vulnerable are more exposed to the dangers of COVID. The second meme is intended to answer the question, “Have you observed any patterns of human behavior with the Covid-19 pandemic?” Former President Trump called COVID the “China Virus” and fueled people’s hatred of Asians. This meme tries to remind the audience of his negative remarks but in a humorous way without offending Asian populations. It also illustrates how words can magnify feelings of racism, fear, and uncertainty, which can result in scapegoating. This meme gives the audience an opportunity to learn more about the unfair treatment of Asians during the pandemic and why it happened.
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2022-05-15
This double-sided A4 leaflet provides an extended summary overview of the supposedly 12-step plan behind the COVID. This leaflet was taken from the dissidentsignposts.org, and they hope to inform people about the “real” reason behind the COVID pandemic. This leaflet says that the billionaires want to impose new ways for global corporations but for their plan to work, they need to acquire everyone to be tagged with a unique digital identity number and surrender their privacy. As this leaflet points out, the “New Normal” that billionaires want to accomplish is to be depopulated, cleaned-up, high-tech, dehumanized, totalitarian dictatorship, genetically modified, digitally tagged, nano-chipped, etc. this leaflet tries to persuade the audience by pointing out that the COVID pandemic is just a big scheme in hopes of taking control of the total population. The 12 step that is mentioned explains the different reasons why the government is pushing for people to take COVID and the vaccines seriously. I have heard of this idea before from my friends. They were talking about it, but to me, I believe that COVID is real. I have seen my family members getting infected by the virus. I will never believe things like this and I will never let anybody put a chip or something within me. Although our world is getting more and more highly advanced, I believe that this so-called “Great Reset” will not take place.
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2022-03-09
This is a video regarding the safety of the Covid-19 Phizer vaccine reports that were recently released as of the making of both the video and this submission.
It details the adverse events, the safe deliveries of the vaccine amongst an assortment of disorders, and the unhappiness of both the video creator and the viewers in the comments at the lack of transparency regarding the information surrounding the vaccine.
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2020-04-01
High school sports for many students such as myself were drastically affected because of the Covid-19 Pandemic. As an avid golfer and college golf prospect from Michigan, the pandemic hurt me and my fellow athletes in many different ways. In my Junior year of high school, my golf season was canceled entirely because of the pandemic after being one of the state's higher-ranked teams. This took away the most important season for college golf recruiting as the most important year for junior golfers is your senior year of high school. The pandemic also temporarily closed courses and facilities, meaning that I could not practice my skills to become a better athlete. The pandemic affected all different kinds of athletes, not just golfers like myself. In the end, I was able to battle against the pandemic and persevere as I am now a College Golfer at Elmhurst University in the suburbs of Chicago.
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2022-05-11
American alternative medicine proponent, Joseph Michael Mercola, stated that the World Health Organization (WHO) has started drafting a global pandemic treaty in preparation of a global takeover. in biosecurity. This treaty would grant WHO absolute power over digital identities, vaccine passports, mandatory vaccinations, travel restrictions, standardized medical care, and more. Although the World Health Organization does not currently have absolute authorization over international public health, Mercola argues that the agency is working with the United Nations to pass this treaty on June 16th and 17th so that they may seize absolute control over these entities in order to strip civilians of their basic rights and freedoms based on claims and statistics that seem to exaggerate the climate of the pandemic and its transmissions. As a reader, I am somewhat amused and concern with this information, not because I believe it to be true but because I know that it is heavily misguided. For starters, Mercola tries to persuade readers that the WHO "is not qualified to make global health decisions," but stressed how the agency is tied to international public health and has advocated the public health risk of COVID-19 throughout the whole entire pandemic. Secondly, "The Corbett Report" mentions that the treaty is not expected to be carried out until 2024 which is less urgent of a matter than what Mercola stated in his article (that he mentioned would transpire in mid-June of this year.) Finally, I do not feel that Mercola takes nations and state legislations into account of this treaty and proposal. Although the US federal government mandated the shutdown, it is still up to state legislators to decide the curfews and times the shutdown would commence. Therefore, I think this article, "The WHO Pandemic Treaty Closes in on Absolute Control over Global Biosecurity," offered more conspiracy than tangible evidence, being that this proposal has been drafted or commenced.
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2020-03-10
The Covid-19 pandemic affected me in numerous kinds of ways all trending to be negative. Most specifically the pandemic put a damper on my academic experience. When the pandemic spread to Michigan in March of 2020 and was highly infectious, learning in schools became extremely difficult for my classmates and me. Learning became online synchronous and the whole way of learning changed for everyone. For me, it was extremely difficult to adapt to completely online learning and instruction after being in classrooms for fifteen years of my life. After some time I was able to adapt and continue to be successful but for some of my classmates, the freedoms of online learning took a toll on their academic success. Luckily I stayed focused and put the task at hand to be the best student that I could possibly be. The rest of my high school experience was overwhelming and difficult as well due to the pandemic as the pandemic really never reduced during my time in high school. Regardless of the obstacles that I was faced with, I was able to persevere and place in the top thirty of my graduating class.
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2021-03-01
The attached image was used as evidence in an article for pandemic skeptics to make a "realistic risk assessment" of their danger during the COVID-19 pandemic in an article originally published in March 2021. The image utilizes only the mortality rate of England and Wales over the last century to visually "show" that COVID-19 is just a "blip" on the map. They are seemingly hinting through an image that this pandemic is fake news compared to world wars or influenza, using data to propagandize skepticism. What is misleading about this data is that they are using numbers of today against nearly one hundred years ago and are not contextualizing the numbers at all. At first glance one can see the overall mortality rate is going down. Of course, this is due to improved science, sanitization, water, and medicine over this time period. We must not also forget that this rate has gone down because the number of people in England and Wales, as in all life on our Earth, has increased. Like all math problems, the larger the denominator the small the rate. For example, if 100 people died out of a population of 1,000, the mortality rate is 10% (100/1000x100). But, if 100 people died in a population of 10,000, the mortality rate is only 1 percent (100/10000x100). Trying to compare numbers in a situation where the world population is much different and globalized, is not an equal comparison. I believe this is misleading persuasive propaganda that skeptics used to make COVID look like not a big deal. However, the risk factors have much more to do with your age, location, health history, interaction with other people, and how your surrounding areas respond to a pandemic, none of which is contextualized in this vague graph.
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2022
826 National is a non-profit organization focused on helping students with their writing skills.
In this post, they highlight statistics related to teacher burnout and stress during the second year of the pandemic. One of the most alarming statistics is that 90% of teachers that participated say that teacher burnout is a serious issue. The pandemic has exacerbated the stress put on educators and they have received little support in return.
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2022
This post shows an example of teachers supporting each other through the end of the 2022 school year. In many different places, people are acting as if life is "normal" again. Schools are not requiring masks or sanitation procedures, school is in session like normal, in-person assemblies, activities, and sports are occurring. However, teachers can definitely tell that everything is not normal, and our job continues to be increasingly more difficult.
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2022
Now that we are ending the 2022 school year, many people have "returned to normal". Most students no longer wear masks in schools. However, we are still working through the pandemic. Teachers are still at risk for contracting COVID and are navigating the severe behavioral problems of students. With summer approaching, everyone is looking forward to a break from an extremely stressful year.
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2022-01-10
Even before the pandemic, many teachers have felt that they are underappreciated. During the pandemic, the number of responsibilities on teachers increased. They have been forced to teach during a health crisis, putting themselves at risk. When teachers are sick, the remaining teachers are forced to pick up the work without any empathy if they are not able to fulfill all obligations. The expectations have increased as teachers are also battling increasing behavior issues.
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2021-09-08
According to the article, there was a 16% national turnover rate for teachers before the pandemic. A survey given in January 2021 shows that almost 25% of teachers stated that they wanted to leave teaching. Pre-pandemic surveys and surveys given during the pandemic also show that less teachers believe that they will stay in education until retirement.
The pandemic has required that teachers maintain the same responsibilities, while also piling on constant communication with parents (even without a response), social-emotional lessons, plans for asynchronous and synchronous learning, teaching students virtually and in-person at the same time, keeping up with changing health and safety regulations, and having to deal with increasing behavior issues.
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2022-05-07
An ASU graduate student reflects on her career, school, and life throughout the COVID-19 pandemic and its aftermath.
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2022-05-10
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.
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2022-05-15
This is an interesting article I have found detailing 20 "facts" about the Covid-19 pandemic. This article largely attempts to refute the "overreaction" of the world when it came to the covid-19 pandemic. While criticism of conduct and policy is valuable and necessary for an open and clear discussion, attitudes of pandemic skeptics largely negate the vulnerable populations of the world and feed on the ignorance of the global population. This is one such article.
1. This article claims the lethality of covid is generally less than 1% of the population. While I seriously question that number, it still does not negate the extreme death seen by the world. The United States of America has roughly 331 million people living within their boarders. 1% of 331 million is still 3.31 million deaths. Is this a number in which it is appropriate to have an "it is what it is" attitude? Particularly when the people most impacted by the pandemic are those with health issues and the elderly? This attitude, which is shared by many skeptics borders on ageism and ableism.
2. This article claims that those most adversely impacted by covid are those over the age of 80 (78 in the US). But I ask again: is this a valid reason to not take the pandemic seriously? Are we supposed to let the elderly population simply waste away under the boot of covid?
3. This article claims that the covid-19 vaccine is ultimately ineffective in protecting against infection or transmission. The plain truth is that nothing is 100% effective. Seatbelts are not 100% effective in preventing deaths in the event of car accidents, so should we stop wearing them? Additionally, once the vaccines began rolling out, we have seen a decline in covid cases. Indeed, that is not to say vaccinated people don't get covid, I myself being one of them, but it has certainly made covid much more manageable, particularly on the already strapped healthcare industry.
4. This article claims that the vaccine can cause fatal reactions. As can the flu vaccine, or the polio vaccine, or any vaccine. It varies from person to person.
5. This article lays blame for increased mortality on the feet of covid lockdown procedure. I would simply say that correlation does not equal causation and I am certain the increased mortality rate can more accurately be attributed to the millions who have died from covid-19 across the globe.
6. This article mentions that in most cases, individuals were asymptomatic or only had mild to moderate symptoms and that obesity played a major part in whether or not symptoms were severe. While I doubt the validity of this, even so it does not negate the precautions the world took. Should asymptomatic people not take precautions and isolate? Should they be free to wander and infect those who could be vulnerable and perpetuate death? I feel this attitude, again, negates the vulnerable population.
7. This article claims that early treatment of the disease prevented hospitalizations. I feel this point negates the rapidity of covid's effect on people. Indeed, it also assumes that everyone has equal access to early-stage treatment.
8. This article claims that 10% of symptomatic people may experience long-term health related issues following covid. This appears to be about the only accurate point of this article, the only thing i question is the percentage of the population.
9. This article claims that the ability of transmission is very limited. This is very inaccurate, particularly when one looks at the extensive number of the population who received a positive test.
10. This article claims that masks had zero impact on limiting transmission. There are countless studies disproving this point. Often times this attitude is held by individuals who care only about their own comfort rather than the people around them.
11. This article claims that lockdown's were ineffective and only perpetuated economic issues across the globe. I think New Zealand is a prime example of why this is a moot point. New Zealand locked down early in the pandemic and did not have a single case of covid for nearly a year. It was only when their borders reopened that new Zealand began to experience covid.
12. This article claims that the impact of the virus on children is miniscule and that school lockdowns did nothing to help stop the spread. It is idiotic to think that children cannot contract covid. Indeed it is further selfish to not factor in teachers and staff and their health.
13. The article claims that PCR tests often returned false positives which artificially increased the number of cases. This is deeply inaccurate as there are numerous studies highlighting the effectiveness of PCR tests.
14. This article claims that contact tracing is ineffective and cites a WHO 2019 paper on influenza tracing. Contract tracing is valuable in informing the population that they have been exposed so that they may get tested and limit their contact with others to limit the spread, it is most certainly effective. As for the 2019 WHO paper on the ineffectiveness of contact tracing for the influenza: different disease, different way of managing it.
15. The article claims that vaccine passports are ineffective as the vaccine is ineffective and are used for tracking the population. Again, the vaccine has proven to be effective. And if the government wanted to track the population, it can be far more easily be done via phones and computers than via vaccinations.
16. This article claims that mutations of covid occur frequently and that new variants decline in lethality. While I agree that the virus mutates, I seriously doubt the decline in lethality. Indeed, I think because the virus can mutate so effectively, it is another justification in taking the pandemic seriously.
17. This article cites Sweden as a case where a full lockdown did not occur, a small number of deaths, and deaths being largely attributed to the elderly population. I think the primary effectiveness of Sweden this article cites is due to the Swedish taking the pandemic seriously, wearing masks, rapid vaccinations, social distancing, and not perpetuating misinformation.
18. This article claims that seasonal influenza largely disappeared during the pandemic and that covid has displaced it as the seasonal virus. Seasonal viruses aren't displaced. Indeed, the reason for the decline in flu cases is due to the population wearing masks and social distancing. Seasonal flu returned to pre-pandemic numbers in fall and winter 2021 when many of the covid protocols had been removed.
19. This article claims the media blew the pandemic out of proportion, spread fear, and distorted information. I disagree. It is the job of the media to make the population aware of global issues such as this. Indeed, the only distortion of facts that I found during the pandemic were from pandemic skeptics who were too selfish and uncomfortable to consider their fellow humans.
20. This article claims that the virus was lab-created. Whether or not the virus was lab-created is irrelevant. The point is: it exists, it is here, and it is vital that it be taken seriously.
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2022-05-10
This is a news story from Health Day. Adults with autism have been shown to have higher rates of vaccination according to a new study. Those with autism are more at-risk for severe illness if they contract the disease, say researchers.
To get the data, researchers sent online surveys to 431 autistic adults in Pennsylvania. They showed that about 78% of survey respondents said they had received or intended to get a COVID-19 vaccine, and more than 55% said that they had received at least one dose.
In comparison, 42% of the overall adult population in Pennsylvania had received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine as of the median response date for the survey (April 2, 2021), according to the study. The findings were published in the journal Vaccine.
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2022-05-09
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.
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2022-05-13
This is a news story from KUTV by Hayley Crombleholme. After a two year break, LoveLoud will return, and will feature acts like Neon Tress and Imagine Dragons. This event is to help raise funds for LGBTQ charities. COVID has been hard on non-profit organizations. While this festival is meant to raise money for LGBTQ youth, some are excited to be back for in-person events.
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2022-04-20
This is a news story from American Shipper by Greg Miller. Due to COVID, our trade has changed. Data from Alphaliner shows how much the trade relationship between Asia and the United States has morphed. Carrier competition is up, with more players and less share from the three global alliances.
In a breakdown of the data, Cosco was the trans-Pacific leader in mid-2020 as the United States was coming out of the first lockdowns. Maersk was at fourth place, carrying 30% less capacity than Cosco. In mid-2020, 2M, Ocean Alliance, and THE Alliance controlled 89% of trans-Pacific capacity. In 2021, that lowered to 82%. These alliances in 2022 now are at 67.7% of shares.
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2022-04-19
This is a news story from USA Today by Bill Keveney. Pride parades will be returning to full-scale since 2019. With the events that happened during COVID, some changes have been made in how it is celebrated. For 2022, more people of color and trans people have been added to leadership positions. Participation is also going to be more accessible for disabled and low-income as well, by making some events online for easier access. Police brutality will also be addressed due to the Black Lives Matter protests of 2020. Seattle Pride has banned police from Pride. Along with this, there is also the theme of speaking out against the anti-LGBTQ legislation that is happening across the United States.
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2022-05-13
This is a news story from WIBC by Chris Davis. According to the article, the Indy Pride Festival will be back after a two year hiatus due to COVID. The event will be held Indianapolis.
Since the hiatus, some changes have been made. Cops at Pride will be in softer uniforms to make them more approachable. This will include shorts instead of the standard pants. There will also be police on bicycle patrol during the event. Shelly Snider, an executive director of the parade, says that the goal is to help queer people feel safe from major incident, but understands the rough relationship queer people in the past have had with the police force in general.
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2022-05-10
This is a news story from WUGA by Sofi Grates. According to this article, it says that Pride Month will be back in full swing in Athens after it being canceled due to COVID. It will be hosted by Athens Pride and Queer Collective. The parade that is sent for June 12 will include vendors, music, and a cookout
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2022-05-09
Brett Reinert is from Springdale, Arkansas. He works at a toner company as a deliverer. He delivers copier toner for a small business in Northwest, Arkansas. Brett talks about his home state of Arkansas and how the state government reacts differently to the pandemic. Brett and his family take the pandemic very seriously and made sure that his two grandmothers are not exposed to it. Brett also talked about his observation of the changes around him as many restaurants in the state started to require a proof of vaccination to eat in. And the changes with the requirement of masks felt weird to him. Although there were changes, he has seen what the pandemic brought to his life and the people around him, he hopes that people will take the pandemic seriously if we experience another one in the future
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2021-12-26
Last Christmas, one of my cousins contracted Covid. This threw a wrench in our entire plans for the weekend. We stayed with my grandmother instead, but we were debating whether or not to even show up to my cousin's house or if the trip was all a bust. My dad convinced me to go but to stay distant. It turns out my cousin had come up with this elaborate line system that allowed her to slide us our presents from the house down to the street on a hook. It was the craziest gift-giving moment I have had and I hope not to experience that again if I don't have to.
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2020-06-03
My 21st birthday was just a few months into lockdown. Like millions of other people, something I was looking forward to was affected (not ruined) by the pandemic. There were so many instances of things changing due to the circumstances that we had to stay positive about how we viewed the adjustments. Thankfully I was still able to see my friends although we were keeping our distance. In the photo, you can see all of my friends and I standing far apart from each other in my yard. This was just one pandemic event of many to come.
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2022-05-13
In this phase of my life, I have more loose ends than tied down ones. I often have to arrive at places early or multitask my use of a space or transit system. During a moving process, this is exaggerated. I have so much schoolwork and shifts at my job that often I just roam the city between events. I was notified that I had been around someone with Covid, so I grabbed a test at Walgreens. When I got back onto the street, I realized that most people would be shocked or disgusted at seeing someone test themselves for the plague in a public space. I felt like I could not go to my student center as they might tell me I could not take a Covid test there, and I could not go home as I was already downtown and had class in a few hours. I decided to go to a place where many people are dealing with their own issues publicly; the downtown public library. I knew I could take this test there and not be bothered. I entered, took a few escalators, and found a secluded desk where I was able to take the test. It felt as if I were doing something wrong, or illegal. I do not think that should be the way it is, but we tend to shun the sick and demand people to leave if they are not using a space the "correct" way. I tested negative.
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2021-04-15
The pandemic has completely changed education. Students' views and attitudes towards school has changed, as well as been impacted by trauma and lack of normal school routine. School districts and teachers have been scrambling to accommodate to the new change while also trying to maintain a feeling of being "normal" during a pandemic.
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2022-04-22
Before the pandemic, teachers already experienced a job where they are overworked, often underpaid, and underappreciated. This article details rising frustrations by teachers during the pandemic and the subsequent leaving of many people from education.
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2021-11-14
This item is a screenshot from a Twitter account known as the Diary of a COVID Classroom Teacher.
This account's response to a picture about children with big emotions shows the frustrations that many teachers are facing during the pandemic. Many students have struggled due to the lack of routine and disruptions in their lives caused by COVID-19. Throughout the nations, behavior issues are being seen. Teachers are struggling more than ever while they try to help these students who are acting out while also staying on top of their other responsibilities.
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2022-01-08
The item is a screenshot from a Twitter post of someone known as "Diary of a COVID Classroom Teacher". For their post, they had edited a motivational photo to question how to handle a toxic person if they are in your classroom.
This post expresses frustrations that are shared by many teachers during the pandemic. With many schools being entirely in-person for the first time in two years, teachers are experiencing a huge amount of behavior issues, most likely caused by lack of routine and social/emotional growth during this time.
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2022-05-12
These instructions are posted on the mirror in the kids' bathroom at Mall Aventura in Arequipa, Peru.
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2022-05-13
It's about the Pandemic disrupting my plans for graduating from college with a Bachelor's Degree in Music Performance. Being a clarinet player, I took a year off since the pandemic prevented us, musicians, from collaborating live with each other in person.
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2022-05-12
This is a sign listing COVID precautions on the door of the LEGO store at Mall Aventura. The instructions ask people to make a line to come inside, social distance, not touch products, and that a maximum of two people per family enter the store. I like the image at the bottom of the LEGO characters wearing masks.
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2022-05-13
The instructions given to HST 580 interns:
Assignment:
Browse one of the pandemic skeptic websites below. Select one image/idea/video to submit to the archive. Write a reaction paragraph to this item. What is its message? How does it try to persuade the audience? And what is your reaction to this item?
DissidentSignPosts.org
evidencenotfear.com
worlddoctorsalliance.org
principia-scientific.org
mercola.org
swprs.org
pandata.org
globalresearch.ca
off-guardian.com
technocracy.news
What to submit
Submit your story to the COVID-19 archive and submit the title of the story (or even better- the link to the story in the archive) in Canvas.
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2022-05-13
While walking my daughter home from school I noticed this disposable mask next a motorcycle in Arequipa. It was about one block away from Av. Kennedy.
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2022-05-11
This is an Instagram post by covid_antivax. This post is in criticism of social media removing posts deemed "misinformation" about COVID and the vaccine. The tags from this user, like #depopulation, suggest that the goal of COVID and the vaccines is to reduce the population size.
The censoring of information regarding the virus and the vaccine has been troublesome for myself. I do not think it is the right of social media to dictate what can and cannot be said, barring anything illegal, like death threats. I think it is a dangerous trajectory when these multinational companies start deciding what governing bodies and people should think. It brings into question people's actual rights to speech. People should have the right to voice their opinion on subjects like this. If people are prevented from speaking out as much on social media, they will get driven to more niche websites and forums to discuss things, which in turn help create more echo chambers. The great thing about free speech is the ability to bounce ideas off with other people and be given the opportunity to decide for myself what is right with more information available. Taking this away will make it harder to really test ideas and make them more refined. This is more my criticism of social media in general, but the talk on the virus and the vaccines has noticeably made it worse for any side to reconcile.
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2022-05-12
This is an Instagram post by shanti.mikel. This post is on a conspiracy that the baby formula shortage is being used by Bill Gates to promote artificial breast milk technology. Connected to this theory is Pfizer advising people to not breast feed. I would be curious to know what the vaccine's impact would be on breast feeding in the future, as mRNA vaccines like the one Pfizer has produced are going to be used to treat other diseases. The claim that breast feeding is not recommended with COVID vaccines originated in Britain's medicines regulator, not Pfizer, according to Reuters. In order to give more context to this post, I have posted the story by Reuters as well, for those interested in reading.
For me personally, I still don't think all the side-effects from the vaccines will be known for a while, as I have had a hard time getting information on the vaccines that has not come across as highly partisan for one group or the other. The evidence I rely on is mostly anecdotal from people that have received the vaccines, in addition to the reasoning of people that did not get them. For the people in my immediate circle, I have not seen any ill health effects from the vaccines so far, but I am also unsure how effective the vaccines are in the long run if some of those same people still get COVID anyway. It is hard to tell if the vaccine is making the COVID cases more mild, or if the virus has just mutated enough to where it is less deadly. It could be a mixture of both. All of it is hard for me to really be sure about either side because I feel like I am only getting partial truth from both.
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2022-05-12
This is a news story from NBC News by Nicole Acevedo. Latinos have been shown to have lower mortality rates compared to non-Hispanic whites, where they live an average of three extra years. This changed with the virus. In a study published by the Lerner Center for Public Health Promotion, COVID-19 has been shown to kill Latinos 65 or older at 2.1 times the rate of whites in 2020. This number decreased slightly in 2021, which was at 1.6 times the rate of whites. So far this year, it has been at 1.2 times the rate of death. In total, COVID has killed 124,000 Latinos since the start of the pandemic in the United States, which accounts for 17% of deaths. The reason the Latino death rate is high is debated, but some say it is because Latinos in the United States are less likely to have access to quality healthcare or have jobs that would expose them to the virus more often.
