Items

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  2021-05-29

  COVID-19 and Mental Health

  I took this picture on May 29, 2020, at 10:35 am. Why I choose this picture? This picture reflected my feeling in 2020. After months without going outside, I was heading to Staten Island to visit my aunt. I remember that I had anxiety even to open the door of my apartment. Whenever I went outside, it was close to my apartment, and my skin started to itch for no reason. My family used to watch the news the whole day. I was tired of listening to the report. Besides, during COVID-19, I was having an awful time. A few months ago, one of my friends died, and It was depressing for me. Before she died, I let my ego break the relationship between us. I refused to call her or text her because I was tired of looking after her. I remember my father told me to call her because I did not know what was happening with her. I ignored him. Riding to Staten Island that morning made me remember the hard time that I was going through. The day that I went to Staten Island, it was cloudy and dark. I thought that the ferry would sink into the water. When I got to Staten Island, it started to rain, and I did not bring an umbrella. I was mad, but it was my fault for not checking the weather. I compare that dark and desperate day with the mourning of my friend and the pandemic. For months, I felt guilty and thought that I did not deserve anything good in my life. The worst of all of this is that I did not have anybody to talk to. I was in quarantine for months, and it affected my mental health. I had no desire to continue college and my business. I used to cry a lot, and all I wanted was to talk to someone about how the pandemic and the death of my friend affected me. I had desired to go to the Dominican Republic, but I could not go. I think that this source can help historians because they can get to know about different perspectives of people during the COVID-19 pandemic. They would notice the anxiety that not only I went through, but everybody around the world had been through. My neighborhood was affected significantly. Some of my neighbors got COVID and died from it. I know that many people saw themselves as the picture. They thought that everything around them was going to end. They thought that they would be stuck in the pandemic forever.
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  2020-06-04

  The Doctors and the Community

  I'm submitting a picture of doctors, including my uncle and members of the community gathered outside of the SUNY Downstate Medical Center University Hospital, to celebrate the discharge of a patient who beat Covid-19.
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  2021-04-14

  Reconsidering Taking the Vaccine

  I live in Bronx, New York. When the pandemic struck, it affected everyone tremendously whether you contracted the virus or not. New York is a densely populated place and it immediately required a shut down of all day to day activities due to the soaring virus. It was so impactful that my school had to be closed and I could not go out with my friends on the weekends anymore due to the fact that all business places were closed. Many people in New York contracted the virus which at one point had the highest Coronavirus cases. It made my family and I very depressed to be stuck at home all day and worrying if anyone of us would be the next person to be personally affected by the virus. During the pandemic, which is still current, the introduction of the vaccine made me feel very relieved. Even though it is not a cure for the virus but it would help to fight the virus if you do contract it, and it also lessens the likeliness that it is contracted. This was such good news to my ears. When I found out that there were different types of the vaccines I was very skeptical about it because I wondered to myself about the different component that each might have. Following this, there was word that the Johnson and Johnson vaccine was causing bloodclots. This made me extremely scared to take any of the vaccines overall even though I want to be secured from the virus but I worry that the vaccine would not agree well with my body. This was a mental battle within my family if we want to take the vaccine or not.