titles for pandemic essays

317 COVID-19 & Pandemic Essay Topics for Students

Although in May 2023, COVID-19 was declared to no longer be a public health emergency, it is still a global threat. We suggest a list of pandemic essay topics you can explore. In this collection of COVID-19 essay examples for students, we cover various dimensions of the pandemic, from origins to management and effects.

🦠 TOP 7 COVID-19 Essay Topics for Students

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• Digital Technologies During the COVID-19 Pandemic
• Reflection on the COVID-19 Pandemic
• Singapore Airlines’ Strategic Plan During the COVID-19 Pandemic
• Leadership Approaches During the COVID-19 Pandemic
• Social Effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic
• Zoom Video Communications During Covid-19 Pandemics
• The Covid-19 Pandemic Impact on the Family Dynamic
• Cancel Culture Before and After the COVID-19 Pandemic The case study will analyze various academic studies with a social science focus and will assist in defining how the cancel culture has been shaped by the pandemic.
• Online Learning During the Pandemic When it comes to the notion of education, the process of online learning has become salvation to the problem of education access and efficiency.
• The Black Plague vs. the COVID-19 Pandemic The documentary History of the Black Death recounts a global pandemic during the Middle Ages that can somewhat be equated with the COVID-19 pandemic.
• Social Institutions: Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic The purpose of this paper is to identify how the COVID-19 pandemic has revealed the problems of various social institutions, such as the economy and education.
• Post-Pandemic Work Environment The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the way people approach work because the majority of companies had to transition to remote work.
• Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Air Canada The current project is going to discuss the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on Air Canada and provide a PESTEL analysis of the organization.
• Tourism Industry During the Pandemic This paper assesses the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the supply and demand of tourism activities and consumer behavior.
• Transactional Model of Stress and Coping and the Effect of the Pandemic on Nurses’ Well-being Naturally, health care is one of the sectors, which was affected the most by the pandemic. Nurses play a pivotal role in this system, being the cornerstone of health care service delivery.
• Walmart Digitalization in the Post-Pandemic Era At this moment, Walmart has to deal with technological advancement, customers’ interest in digitalization as a post-pandemic outcome, and unpredictable competitors’ moves.
• Effects of the Pandemic on Organizational Culture Adaptability The COVID-19 outbreak and its consequences led to the necessity to adjust to new working conditions and make corporate culture more flexible.
• The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on the Standard Chartered Bank This paper will explore the impact that the COVID-19 pandemic had on the Standard Chartered bank, the development of technology, and its influence on human resource management.
• Social Changes After the Coronavirus Pandemic The global coronavirus pandemic is rapidly changing the economic, behavioural, and social aspects of people’s lives.
• Job Losses as a Result of the Pandemic Macroeconomics examines the performance of the economy in general, as such, the issue of job losses demonstrates how the economy of countries was affected by Covid-19.
• Pre-pandemic and Pandemic Consumer Behavior The pandemic of COVID-19 has had a noticeable influence on consumer behavior around the globe that will most probably be long-term.
• Tourism Sustainability After COVID-19 Pandemic This essay will discuss how the COVID-19 pandemic has influenced the sustainability sector of the tourism industry.
• Mental Health and COVID-19 Pandemic The Covid-19 pandemic is one of the biggest global challenges in the last 50 years. The virus has affected world economies, health, societal cohesion, and daily life.
• COVID-19 Pandemic’s Impact on Hospitals The novel coronavirus has impacted hospitals and healthcare facilities, leading to increased strain on limited available resources and increased outpatient visitations.
• Pandemics in History Black Death, smallpox, Spanish flu were one of the most lethal and impactful pandemics. This paper describes the origin of these three outbreaks and analyses social consequences.
• The Malaysian Workforce After the COVID-19 Pandemic This essay discusses the employee health and well-being issue prevalent among the Malaysian workforce after the COVID-19 pandemic in detail.
• The COVID-19 Pandemic’s Impact on the Airline Industry The main objective of the paper was to provide evidence-based coverage of the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on airline operations around the world.
• COVID-19 Pandemic in Media: Agenda Setting Theory For the analysis, the currently gaining attention theory about the laboratory origin of the virus was chosen, as well as its coverage in authoritative publications.
• COVID-19 Pandemic: Businesses Negotiation Strategies The use of negotiation strategies can help businesses to reduce losses and service interruptions during the COVID-19 pandemic, thus offering a significant competitive advantage.
• Effects of the Pandemic on Early Childhood Education and Children The pandemic has placed early childhood education at serious risk. The closing of learning institutions that provide young children with education is a threat to their potential growth.
• Christianity and the COVID-19 Pandemic According to several news sources, the coronavirus outbreak revealed some of the flaws of Christianity, in this paper, this news item is going to be analyzed in detail.
• Managerial Accounting in the COVID-19 Pandemic Any company or an organization with a dream of succeeding in the world of business should consider managerial accounting as a critical element of propelling its objectives.
• Ethical Controversies During COVID-19 Pandemic Regulations The paper discusses the ethical controversies involving USAA and Shake Shack from moral and economic points of view.
• Childhood Obesity During the COVID-19 Pandemic While the COVID-19 pandemic elicited one of the worst prevalences of childhood obesity, determining its extent was a problem due to the lockdown.
• Organizational Culture After the COVID-19 Pandemic The paper provides a collection of summaries or excerpts from various research papers on the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on corporate culture.
• The Rental Housing Market Challenges During the COVID Pandemic The policy of freezing the rental price and setting the bar for a monthly fee, as in a German city, can significantly improve the situation in Istanbul.
• The COVID-19 Pandemic’s Social Impact The authors of the article examine the impact of COVID-19 on the psychological and social conditions of the population.
• Multinational Companies in a Post-Pandemic World As MNCs are major employers, it is important to determine their prospects to operate in the post-pandemic world of 2022.
• Government Responses and Expectations During the Influenza Pandemic of 1918-1919
• The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History
• Preparing Your Finances for a Bird Flu Pandemic
• Teachers’ Emotion and Identity Work During a Pandemic
• Disease Risk and Fertility: Evidence From the HIV/Aids Pandemic
• Disruptive Innovation Can Prevent the Next Pandemic
• Potential Bird Flu Pandemic
• Mental Health and Coping in the Shadow of the COVID-19 Pandemic: The Israeli Case
• Bank Integration and Systemic Risk: Panacea or Pandemic
• HIV/Aids Pandemic and Women
• Child Abuse: The Pandemic
• Could Avian Flu A(H5N1) Become a Pandemic
• Novel Criteria for When and How to Exit a COVID-19 Pandemic Lockdown
• Nepal Flu Pandemic: Causes and Solutions
• Vaccine Prioritization for Effective Pandemic Response
• COVID-19 and the Brazilian Reality: The Role of Favelas in Combating the Pandemic
• Choosing Between Adaptation and Prevention With an Increasing Probability of a Pandemic
• Relationship Between World War I and the Influenza Pandemic
• Hazard Prevention, Death and Dignity During COVID-19 Pandemic in Italy
• The Possible Macroeconomic Impact on the UK of an Influenza Pandemic
• Dehumanization During the COVID-19 Pandemic
• Emotional, Behavioral, and Psychological Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic
• Modeling Influenza Pandemic and Planning Food Distribution
• Pandemic, Quarantine, and Psychological Time
• Stigma and Discrimination During COVID-19 Pandemic
• Solid Organ Transplantation During the COVID-19 Pandemic
• Psychological and Behavioral Responses to the COVID-19 Pandemic in Greece
• Spasticity Treatment During COVID-19 Pandemic
• Mortality From the Influenza Pandemic of 1918-19 in Indonesia
• Preparing Your Business for a Bird Flu Pandemic
• COVID-19 and Playing Sports During a Pandemic The review focuses on three significant sports areas under the conditions of a pandemic: health, commercialism, and structural aspects.
• Extraversion & Social Connectedness for Life Satisfaction During the Pandemic This laboratory report critically examines the effects of strict isolation and social distancing on perceptions of self-satisfaction.
• Impact of the Coronavirus Pandemic on the Global Economy The paper is aimed to overview the Coronavirus pandemic’s characteristics and analyze the outcomes of the disease outbreak within major economic spheres.
• Existence of God in Times of Covid-19 Pandemic This paper examines whether God exists or not and goes further to describe His true nature using the ongoing coronavirus disease of the COVID-19 pandemic.
• Streaming Service for the Elderly During the COVID-19 Pandemic The purpose of this paper is to explore the effect of streaming on the elderly in the course of the strict Covid-19 lockdown.
• Consumer Behavior During the COVID-19 Pandemic The pandemic has affected consumers’ purchasing behaviour. People have been spending less money on items such as clothes, jewelry, shoes, electronic gadgets, and games.
• Leadership and Management During COVID-19 Pandemic The current leadership framework that lifts a substantial amount of responsibility from the staff might help them feel relieved, yet will reduce the efficacy of their performance.
• The COVID-19 Pandemic Impact on Social Values The author proposes a research topic on that humanity should create new social values in the context of a pandemic, and not try to preserve obsolete ones in unusual life.
• Social Barriers During the COVID-19 Pandemic This paper will focus on the discussion of the socio-economic barriers and changes to improve the structure of health care.
• Pandemic Effects on Churches and Families Both churches and families appreciate those moments when they can be together, as it is often taken for granted pre-Covid 19.
• Impact of the Coronavirus Pandemic on Human Relations In the article, the author analyzes how the coronavirus pandemic has impacted his relationships with family and friends.
• Combating Ebola and Marburg Outbreaks Compared to the COVID-19 Pandemic Treatments for the Zaire Ebola virus and vaccines for COVID-19 have been developed. In combating these epidemics, governments must acquire the required resources.
• The Covid-19 Pandemic Impact on Business The pandemic significantly negatively influenced society and the global economy. The pandemic had a massive influence on economics, enterprises, and labor supply.
• The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Oceania It is necessary to analyze exactly how the pandemic affected the remote states of the Pacific Ocean and the fisheries in particular.
• “And the Band Played On” During the AIDS Pandemic The movie “And the Band Played On” touches on different prevalent issues during the AIDS pandemic that affected the world in the 1980s.
• The Influence of the COVID-19 Pandemic on the Housing Market in Singapore Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, which has caused various economies around the globe to fumble and struggle, the housing market in Singapore tends to remain healthy.
• Domestic Violence During COVID-19 Pandemic The paper reviews the articles: “Home is not always a haven: The domestic violence crisis amid the COVID-19 pandemic”, “Interpersonal violence during COVID-19 quarantine.”
• The Covid-19 Pandemic’s Influence on Socialization The recent COVID-19 pandemic has represented the topic of secondary socialization, unearthed the true extent of financial and social inequality across the world.
• Relation Between the COVID-19 Pandemic and Depression The paper is to share an insight into the detrimental effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the mental health of thousands of people and provide advice on how to reduce its impact.
• Tourism and Sustainable Development During the COVID-19 Pandemic It is expected that tourism-related businesses will be fighting insolvency in the next few years because of the adverse effect COVID-19 has had on the sector.
• The Covid-19 Pandemic of 2019-2021 The work exhibits the major aspects concerning COVID-19: its history and discovery, structure, symptoms and the effects on mental health, social impact, and prevention.
• Food and Beverage Plan: The COVID-19 Pandemic Influence The COVID-19 pandemic has affected many social spheres. The food and beverage industry is still in the conditions of many restraints and limitations.
• Children and the COVID-19 Pandemic The paper provides information about those influences of the coronavirus pandemic and school districts’ closures that most people are unaware of.
• The Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic The year 2019 will forever be engraved in many people’s hearts as the time when a virus known as the COVID-19 invaded almost all the sectors, thereby disrupting daily activities.
• The Sports Industry During the Covid-19 Pandemic This article provides a literature review on the financial pressures and constraints faced by the sports industry as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic.
• The COVID-19 Pandemic: Human Response The most adequate and effective human response to COVID-19 is launching public information campaigns that contribute to most individuals’ understanding of the situation.
• Government-Funded Assistance Before and After Pandemic Social welfare and national insurance programs are the primary forms of public support aid in the United States. Incentives from social programs are associated with low salaries.
• The Effectiveness of the US in Response COVID-19 Pandemic The paper discusses the effectiveness of the US in response COVID-19 pandemic, the lessons learned from COVID-19, and whether the CDC played its role.
• Police Brutality During COVID-19 Pandemic In the United States, there has been a perceived and observed police injustice towards minority communities, especially Blacks.
• Risk Communication in Pandemic Prevention Effective structuring of risk communication in a way that the citizens get all relevant information about a disease outbreak can prevent a pandemic in the future.
• Economic Systems During the Pandemic Government-mandated national lockdowns restrict COVID-19 propagation and negatively affect the economy. Employees were unable to work during the shutdown.
• How Has the COVID-19 Pandemic Changed the Human Resource Landscape The paper states that the COVID-19 pandemic has changed the human resources landscape, such as staffing, working patterns, and workplaces globally.
• Healthcare Costs Affected by the COVID-19 Pandemic In all over the world, the COVID-19 pandemic led to a dramatic growth of national healthcare spending as the prevention and treatment required the implementation of new measures.
• COVID-19 Pandemic and New Parenthood This paper aims to explain the impact of COVID-19 on the breastfeeding process, the psychological well-being of new mothers, and the type of support necessary.
• The COVID-19 Pandemic: Public Health Policy The COVID-19 pandemic has caused numerous health challenges and made it vital for healthcare professionals and policymakers to introduce new effective measures.
• The COVID-19 Pandemic: Patient Care Problem The essay discusses the COVID-19 pandemic patient care problem and its effect on the hospital’s budget and the role of a nurse leader in mitigating the effects.
• Decision-Making in Nursing: Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic This paper deals with the impact the COVID-19 pandemic has had on the ability of nurses to make sound decisions as to the wellbeing of patients in clinical settings.
• The COVID-19 Pandemic: Role of Leisure The COVID-19 pandemic has presented numerous health challenges, and leisure activities have played a significant role in combatting it.
• COVID-19: Considerations for Children and Families During the Pandemic
• Risk and Protective Factors in the COVID-19 Pandemic
• Psychosocial Support for Healthcare Workers During the COVID-19 Pandemic
• Community Strategy For Pandemic Influenza
• Combating the Pandemic COVID-19: Clinical Trials, Therapies, and Perspectives
• Disease and Fertility: Evidence From the 1918 Influenza Pandemic in Sweden
• Pharmaceutical Patents and the HIV/Aids Pandemic
• Gender-based Violence During COVID-19 Pandemic
• Physical Fitness and Exercise During the COVID-19 Pandemic
• Pandemic Perspective: Commonalities Between COVID-19 and Cardio-oncology
• The Successes and Failures of the Initial COVID-19 Pandemic Response in Romania
• Food Safety During and After the Era of COVID-19 Pandemic
• Spanish Flu 1918 Pandemic
• Fighting Strategies Against the Novel Coronavirus Pandemic: Impact on Global Economy
• Diabetes the 132 Billion Dollar Pandemic
• Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) Pandemic: The Role of Printing Media in Asian Countries
• Spanish Flu Global Pandemic
• Federal Reserve System Vigilant for Flu Pandemic
• Ethics and Preparedness Planning for an Influenza Pandemic
• Cancer Patient Management Challenges During the COVID-19 Pandemic
• Gaussian Doubling Times and Reproduction Factors of the COVID-19 Pandemic Disease
• Revisiting the Global Overfat Pandemic
• The COVID-19 Pandemic and Intelligence Communication in the United States
• Pregnancy During the Global COVID-19 Pandemic
• What Caused the Aids Pandemic?
• Radiation-induced Lymphopenia Beyond the COVID-19 Pandemic
• Exercise Frequency and Subjective Well-Being During COVID-19 Pandemic
• Challenges for Drug Repurposing in the COVID-19 Pandemic Era
• Flexible Teaching and Learning Modalities in Undergraduate Science Amid the COVID-19 Pandemic
• The Great Influenza Pandemic Was the Worse Pandemic That Occurs During the First World War
• Managing Incremental Healthcare Costs in a Post Pandemic World India’s burgeoning medical tourism industry offers affordable, high-quality healthcare services and wellness options, attracting global visitors.
• Changes in Demand and Supply During the Coronavirus Pandemic The paper explains that government measures to regulate prices, namely the creation of price ceilings, created shortages of essential and personal care products.
• Parenting in a Pandemic: Tips to Keep the Calm at Home The article ​“Parenting in a Pandemic: Tips to Keep the Calm at Home” provides a set of recommendations for parents regarding managing children’s behaviors during the pandemic.
• Leadership Response to COVID-19 Pandemic Outbreak The paper presents a healthcare leadership response plan to the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak. It identifies the issue’s urgency and the importance of effective leadership.
• MD Properties’ Project Evaluation During the COVID-19 Pandemic The purpose of the report was to evaluate the project implemented by MD Properties in 2021 to adapt to help operations during the COVID-19 pandemic.
• Effects Women Have Faced During the COVID-19 Pandemic Globally The essay discusses the challenges women face in maintaining their economic security, juggling caregiving responsibilities, and coping with job losses and business closures.
• Social Changes Due to the COVID-19 Pandemic The COVID-2019 pandemic has affected all areas of society, and from the experience gained, people should draw the appropriate conclusions in order to avoid this in the future.
• Discussion: Supply Chain Management and Pandemic Although the author was aware of the devastating impact of COVID-19 on the global supply chain, Ellyatt (2021) provides a more in-depth insight into this problem.
• Coronavirus Pandemic in Context of Existentialism Once humans can consider coronavirus from an existential viewpoint, they may take it easier, accepting the situation and not being overly nervous.
• Nutrition: Obesity Pandemic and Genetic Code The environment in which we access the food we consume has changed. Unhealthy foods are cheaper, and there is no motivation to eat healthily.
• Hotel Brands in the Post-Pandemic Era Strong hotel brands are fitter for the recovery after the COVID-19 pandemic and have more opportunities to attract new consumers and keep loyal ones.
• Domestic Violence in Melbourne: Impact of Unemployment Due to Pandemic Restrictions The purpose of this paper is to analyze to what extent does unemployment due to pandemic restrictions impact domestic violence against women in Melbourne.
• The Role of Digitalization in Supporting SMEs During the COVID-19 Pandemic This article analyzes the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on SMEs and retailers, focusing on the organizational culture of retail businesses and their responses to the crisis.
• Policy Brief: Access to Education After the Pandemic The After-Hours Academy is a business that aims to provide learners from underserved communities with resources to improve their online education.
• The US Government Pandemic Initiatives In order to address the negative effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, governments worldwide, including in the United States, designed special initiatives to help companies.
• The 1918 Pandemic Representation The 1918 pandemic caused by the flu influenza led to the death of more than 50 million people and was believed to be one of the tremendous diseases in history.
• The COVID-19 Pandemic Impacts on the US This paper discusses some of the social, economic, and psychological impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on the United States of America.
• Struggles Families Encounter During Pandemic Since late 2019, the coronavirus pandemic has expanded far and quickly, wreaking havoc on countless families worldwide.
• The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Intimate Partner Violence in the US The safety measures implemented by the U.S. government in order to prevent the spread of coronavirus resulted in increased intimate partner violence in the country.
• The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Sibling Violence The problem of domestic abuse has been extensively studied by researchers worldwide, and one of the main forms of the phenomenon is sibling violence.
• Stress in Pregnant Women Due to COVID-19 Pandemic Pregnancy is a particularly crucial time for the mental health of a woman. The high levels of stress have been linked to exposure to the pandemic.
• Issues of Working With People During the Pandemic Communication is essential when de-escalating a crisis. It is critical that they feel understood, so they need to pay close attention to them.
• “Pandemics Are Not War” by Wilkinson: Article Review In her article “Pandemics are not war,” Wilkinson writes about the use of war as a metaphor for pandemics. She argues that it is unfair to view pandemics as a force of terror.
• How the COVID-19 Pandemic Is Changing the Economy World Health Organization characterized the illness as a pandemic on 11th March 2020, resulting in 3 million cases and the demise of 207,973 people.
• Air Canada: History, Profit, Pandemic, and Future Air Canada delivers not only people but also cargo all over the world, but, unfortunately, it took a full two years for the company to adapt to the pandemic.
• Utilitarianism and PR During the Pandemic The principle of utilitarianism in the PR sphere contradicts the modern ethical paradigm because it cannot fully provide the ability to make decisions.
• Vaccination Issue Concerning the COVID-19 Pandemic This paper discusses the current vaccination issue concerning the COVID-19 pandemic. Large numbers of patients worldwide refuse vaccines.
• The COVID-19 Pandemic and the Black Plaque This paper discusses the social, economic, and political factors contributing to COVID-19 in the domestic and international spheres and connects COVID-19 and the Black Plague.
• Modeling the Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic Coronavirus has taken a substantial toll on people worldwide. Being only a year after the eruption of the virus from Wuhan, its effects have been felt globally.
• Addressing Economic Inequality: The Pandemic Challenge Economic inequality continues to be relevant to modern society, with the full range of human rights being available only to the wealthy minority.
• Pandemic Coverage: Omicron Issues The news media provided trustworthy information surrounding pandemic-related developments that had transpired but proved inefficient in making prognoses.
• Economic Inequality and Pandemic Challenge The most vulnerable populations were affected by the coronavirus pandemic because they often could not access economic and public health resources to meet their needs.
• Influenza (H2N1) vs. COVID-19 Pandemic COVID-19 and H2N1 pandemic has impacted the lives of many people. Both pandemics have some similarities and differences, and each has a particular significance.
• The Issue of the Opioid Pandemic in the USA The efforts at addressing the issue of an opioid pandemic have been quite numerous, yet the results that they have yielded cannot be described as stellar.
• COVID-19 Pandemic: Social Media Response by the American Government Using social media to address the public on COVID-19, President Biden and his vice have developed a seven-point plan to help combat the pandemic.
• Pandemic Challenge and Economic Inequality The coronavirus pandemic has presented two significant challenges for American society: public health and economic crises.
• The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on the International Trading The coronavirus pandemic has created new tough barriers to globalization and trade: the shutdown of production and the borders of leading countries and economic groups.
• Production and Growth During the Pandemic: A Case of U.S. Manufacturing By recognizing the factors that shape the production process, U.S. manufacturers have managed to continue delivering solid performance despite the effects of the coronavirus.
• Could Avian Flu AH5N1 Become a Pandemic?
• Does the Coronavirus (COVID-19) Pandemic Call for a New Model of Older People Care?
• How Can the COVID-19 Pandemic Lead To Positive Changes in Urology Residency?
• How Should HIV/Aids Pandemic Be Addressed?
• What Is the Potential for Avian Influenza to Cause Another Worldwide Pandemic?
• What Is the Impact of Pandemic COVID-19 on Education in India?
• What Are the Regulatory Challenges for Drug Repurposing During the COVID-19 Pandemic?
• What Were the Successes and Failures of the Initial COVID-19 Pandemic Response in Romania?
• Why Obesity Is the New Global Pandemic of 21st Century?
• What Is the Possible Macroeconomic Impact on the UK of an Influenza Pandemic?
• How Financial Markets Lived Under the Global Pandemic of COVID-19?
• What Are the Measures of Ecology and Economics for Pandemic Prevention?
• Are Women Publishing Less During the Pandemic?
• What Is the Impact of COVID-19’s Pandemic on the Economy of Indonesia?
• Which Interventions Work Best in a Pandemic?
• Why Community Participation Is Crucial in a Pandemic?
• How to Prepare Business for a Post-pandemic World?
• What Are the Strategies for Mitigating an Influenza Pandemic?
• What Are the Origins of HIV and the Aids Pandemic?
• How to Predict and Prevent the Next Pandemic Zoonosis?
• How Did COVID‐19 Pandemic Show Cricial Cybersecurity Issues?
• What Are the Best Practices for Implementing Remote Learning During a Pandemic?
• What Were the Ecological Consequences of a Pandemic?
• How to Manage the Effectiveness of E-Commerce Platforms in a Pandemic?
• What Are the Internal and External Effects of Social Distancing in a Pandemic?
• Virtual Visit to Louvre During Covid-19 Pandemic Louvre is a famous museum, with millions of visitors each year. The museum has a virtual tour, which is a treat in the period of COVID-related restrictions.
• Planning in a Post-Pandemic World With the need for new, stricter health regulations in the workplace for a safer internal environment in the office come limitations on the number of persons of staff present.
• Pandemic in Seurat’s “A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of la Grande Jatte” The current paper includes reflecting on the pandemic through the lens of Seurat’s “A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte”.
• Police Killing Black People in a Pandemic Police violence as a network of brutal measures is sponsored by the government that gives the police officers permission to treat black people with disdain.
• Racial Discrimination in the Industry of Face Masks During the COVID-19 Pandemic This research, done in an industry that produces face masks, provides a clear image of racism during the coronavirus pandemic period.
• American Pandemics From Columbus to Coronavirus The decisions made by previous generations of Americans during epidemics led to the development of structural racism and class segregation.
• Pandemic-Related Changes in Consumer Behavior The COVID-19 pandemic has affected consumer behavior around the globe so considerably that new trends have emerged that are mostly based on seeking stability.
• United States Economy’s Outlook After Pandemic The United States has shown signs of a rebound after the Covid-19 pandemic through the rising GDP and the low unemployment rates witnessed in the country.
• Pandemic’s Impact on Mental Health & Substance and Alcohol Abuse While substance use disorder can impose mental health challenges on those who consume drugs, COVID-19 affects the psychology of all humankind.
• The US Stock Market Affected by the COVID-19 Pandemic Despite the terrible effects that the coronavirus has had on the stock market in the United States, it is clear that the country has gained a great deal from the adverse effects.
• The H3N2 Virus Pandemics of 1968 The H3N2 virus contained two genes derived from the six genes from the A(H2N2) virus, associated with the 1957 H2N2 pandemic.
• The COVID-19 Pandemic and Labor Market Dynamics The labor market dynamics of the COVID-19 recession in the United States are studied using a search-and-matching model incorporating temporary unemployment.
• Recovery the Post Pandemic World The paper briefly explains what sort of recovery the post-pandemic world will likely experience and how Ireland is positioned to cope or change tact.
• Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic on the African American Communities This paper analyzes how the COVID-19 pandemic affected the economic aspect of the African American communities. A female and two males were interviewed.
• The COVID-19 Pandemic and Its Effects Worldwide Covid-19 has remained a threat in many countries in the last two years. Numerous restrictions and precautions have been implemented in various nations.
• COVID-19 Pandemic and Valuable Cargo The COVID-19 pandemic has played a significant role in changing logistics, with the supply chain playing a more critical role than ever before.
• Telehealth in the Pandemic: Benefits & Limitations Despite the benefits of telehealth during the pandemic period, the older population still has reservations about the suitability and efficacy of such technologies in the long run.
• Review of “For Millions, the Pandemic Is Far From Over” Article The article by Doheny, presented by the reputable healthcare source Medscape, examines the challenges of immunocompromised Americans.
• The COVID-19 Pandemic Impact on Society COVID-19 has disrupted daily life and slowed the global economy. In addition, thousands of people have been affected by this pandemic, and are either sick or dying.
• Older Adults Surviving the COVID-19 Pandemic: The Mental Health Benefits of Physical Activity The aim of this paper is to identify the effect of physical activity on mental health among older adults during the COVID-19 pandemic.
• Virtual Teams’ Adaptation to the Conditions of the COVID-19 Pandemic Virtual teams’ adaptation to the conditions of the COVID-19 pandemic happened through forced utilization of technology to establish effective communication.
• The Dabbawalas and the COVID-19 Pandemic The global COVID-19 pandemic cannot go unnoticed for the dabbawalas, which is a system of lunchbox delivery and return services for India’s employees.
• Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Human Well-Being The COVID-19 pandemic taught people to appreciate their social ties and health more and helped them reconsider the impact of social isolation on human well-being.
• Global Pandemic of COVID-19 From an Epidemiological Perspective The epidemiological perspective of the COVID-19 pandemic requires studying the statistical data for identifying patterns that could be addressed or eliminated.
• Supply Chain Management Challenges Amid the COVID-19 Pandemic The increasing number of suppliers and business continuity risks must be considered to find relevant solutions to the Kuwaiti supply chain management problem.
• The COVID-19 Pandemic’s Impact on Australia This work will focus on discussing some of the considerations necessary for the Australian business to start its operation in a new market environment during COVID-19.
• Long-Term Changes in Information Technology During the Pandemic of COVID-19 The outbreak of the COVID-19 in China is not only destructing the global economy but it can also have a positive effect on the development of the IT industry.
• Covid-19 Pandemic-Related Macroeconomic Issues COVID-19 fueled many macroeconomic issues. The first is high inflation which increased the living costs and pressure on low-income earners.
• Texas Judiciary During the COVID-19 Pandemic The current paper indicates that the main issues faced by the Texas justice system and state judges are caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
• The COVID-19 Pandemic Has Brought Us Too Close Together The resources presented in the articles depict a new reality where violence and riots occur due to a depressed populace who can’t stand any injustice.
• Consumer Behavior: Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic Consumers come out of COVID-19 with very different habits, and the main challenge for businesses, both small and large, is to find an approach in the new environment.
• Observing Harmony in Our Life During Covid-19 Pandemic During the pandemic, there have been many reasons to reflect upon the essence of the never-ending sequence of challenges that form the sequence of our lives.
• How the Corona Virus-19 Pandemic Affected Society This paper discusses the Corona Virus-19 effect on society’s stratification and social classes, politics, families and marriages, and problems in education that students faced.
• Healthcare Policy Influences: COVID-19 Pandemic The research indicates that the impactful aspect of the economy of a nation became the most prominent during the COVID-19 pandemic.
• Built Environment and Pandemics Healthy built environments have services and resources that contribute to the physical, mental, and social wellbeing of the people who occupy it.
• Hate Crimes Against Asian Americans During the Pandemic An outbreak of hate crimes targeting Asian Americans after the outbreak of the pandemic has led to thousands of violent episodes against members of the group.
• The Sphere of Leadership: Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic This research paper is aimed at evaluating the influence of the COVID-19 pandemic on the sphere of leadership.
• Hand Sanitizers in COVID-19 Pandemic: Pros and Cons The paper states that hand sanitizers are indeed associated with controversial aspects and have both positive and negative properties.
• The Story of Sam, OCD, and the COVID Pandemic
• Parents and Children’s E-Safety Education During the Pandemic
• Arguments Against Masks During Pandemic and Personal Freedom
• White and Black People in USA During COVID-19 Pandemic
• Psychological Effects COVID-19 Pandemic Leading to Hospital Nursing Shortage
• Poor Staff Management During the Pandemic
• Economic Predictions on Recovery After COVID-19 Pandemic Shock
• Healthcare for Underserved Communities During Covid-19 Pandemic
• Preparing a Child for School During COVID Pandemic
• Restaurant Business During The Pandemic
• US Actions Concerning COVID-19 Pandemic
• The Effect of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Businesses
• The COVID-19 Pandemic: Economic Impacts
• Can Coronavirus Pandemic Lead to World War III?
• Poor Management & Care Quality During the COVID-19 Pandemic
• The COVID-19 Pandemic in US and World History
• Comparison of How Communities React to Plagues and COVID-19 Pandemic
• Social Solidarity During the Pandemic
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StudyCorgi. (2022, March 1). 317 COVID-19 & Pandemic Essay Topics for Students. https://studycorgi.com/ideas/pandemic-essay-topics/

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StudyCorgi . 2022. "317 COVID-19 & Pandemic Essay Topics for Students." March 1, 2022. https://studycorgi.com/ideas/pandemic-essay-topics/.

These essay examples and topics on Pandemic were carefully selected by the StudyCorgi editorial team. They meet our highest standards in terms of grammar, punctuation, style, and fact accuracy. Please ensure you properly reference the materials if you’re using them to write your assignment.

This essay topic collection was updated on January 22, 2024 .

Read these 12 moving essays about life during coronavirus

Artists, novelists, critics, and essayists are writing the first draft of history.

by Alissa Wilkinson

The world is grappling with an invisible, deadly enemy, trying to understand how to live with the threat posed by a virus . For some writers, the only way forward is to put pen to paper, trying to conceptualize and document what it feels like to continue living as countries are under lockdown and regular life seems to have ground to a halt.

So as the coronavirus pandemic has stretched around the world, it’s sparked a crop of diary entries and essays that describe how life has changed. Novelists, critics, artists, and journalists have put words to the feelings many are experiencing. The result is a first draft of how we’ll someday remember this time, filled with uncertainty and pain and fear as well as small moments of hope and humanity.

• The Vox guide to navigating the coronavirus crisis

At the New York Review of Books, Ali Bhutto writes that in Karachi, Pakistan, the government-imposed curfew due to the virus is “eerily reminiscent of past military clampdowns”:

Beneath the quiet calm lies a sense that society has been unhinged and that the usual rules no longer apply. Small groups of pedestrians look on from the shadows, like an audience watching a spectacle slowly unfolding. People pause on street corners and in the shade of trees, under the watchful gaze of the paramilitary forces and the police.

His essay concludes with the sobering note that “in the minds of many, Covid-19 is just another life-threatening hazard in a city that stumbles from one crisis to another.”

Writing from Chattanooga, novelist Jamie Quatro documents the mixed ways her neighbors have been responding to the threat, and the frustration of conflicting direction, or no direction at all, from local, state, and federal leaders:

Whiplash, trying to keep up with who’s ordering what. We’re already experiencing enough chaos without this back-and-forth. Why didn’t the federal government issue a nationwide shelter-in-place at the get-go, the way other countries did? What happens when one state’s shelter-in-place ends, while others continue? Do states still under quarantine close their borders? We  are  still one nation, not fifty individual countries. Right?

• A syllabus for the end of the world

Award-winning photojournalist Alessio Mamo, quarantined with his partner Marta in Sicily after she tested positive for the virus, accompanies his photographs in the Guardian of their confinement with a reflection on being confined :

The doctors asked me to take a second test, but again I tested negative. Perhaps I’m immune? The days dragged on in my apartment, in black and white, like my photos. Sometimes we tried to smile, imagining that I was asymptomatic, because I was the virus. Our smiles seemed to bring good news. My mother left hospital, but I won’t be able to see her for weeks. Marta started breathing well again, and so did I. I would have liked to photograph my country in the midst of this emergency, the battles that the doctors wage on the frontline, the hospitals pushed to their limits, Italy on its knees fighting an invisible enemy. That enemy, a day in March, knocked on my door instead.

In the New York Times Magazine, deputy editor Jessica Lustig writes with devastating clarity about her family’s life in Brooklyn while her husband battled the virus, weeks before most people began taking the threat seriously:

At the door of the clinic, we stand looking out at two older women chatting outside the doorway, oblivious. Do I wave them away? Call out that they should get far away, go home, wash their hands, stay inside? Instead we just stand there, awkwardly, until they move on. Only then do we step outside to begin the long three-block walk home. I point out the early magnolia, the forsythia. T says he is cold. The untrimmed hairs on his neck, under his beard, are white. The few people walking past us on the sidewalk don’t know that we are visitors from the future. A vision, a premonition, a walking visitation. This will be them: Either T, in the mask, or — if they’re lucky — me, tending to him.

Essayist Leslie Jamison writes in the New York Review of Books about being shut away alone in her New York City apartment with her 2-year-old daughter since she became sick:

The virus.  Its sinewy, intimate name. What does it feel like in my body today? Shivering under blankets. A hot itch behind the eyes. Three sweatshirts in the middle of the day. My daughter trying to pull another blanket over my body with her tiny arms. An ache in the muscles that somehow makes it hard to lie still. This loss of taste has become a kind of sensory quarantine. It’s as if the quarantine keeps inching closer and closer to my insides. First I lost the touch of other bodies; then I lost the air; now I’ve lost the taste of bananas. Nothing about any of these losses is particularly unique. I’ve made a schedule so I won’t go insane with the toddler. Five days ago, I wrote  Walk/Adventure!  on it, next to a cut-out illustration of a tiger—as if we’d see tigers on our walks. It was good to keep possibility alive.

At Literary Hub, novelist Heidi Pitlor writes about the elastic nature of time during her family’s quarantine in Massachusetts:

During a shutdown, the things that mark our days—commuting to work, sending our kids to school, having a drink with friends—vanish and time takes on a flat, seamless quality. Without some self-imposed structure, it’s easy to feel a little untethered. A friend recently posted on Facebook: “For those who have lost track, today is Blursday the fortyteenth of Maprilay.” ... Giving shape to time is especially important now, when the future is so shapeless. We do not know whether the virus will continue to rage for weeks or months or, lord help us, on and off for years. We do not know when we will feel safe again. And so many of us, minus those who are gifted at compartmentalization or denial, remain largely captive to fear. We may stay this way if we do not create at least the illusion of movement in our lives, our long days spent with ourselves or partners or families.

• What day is it today?

Novelist Lauren Groff writes at the New York Review of Books about trying to escape the prison of her fears while sequestered at home in Gainesville, Florida:

Some people have imaginations sparked only by what they can see; I blame this blinkered empiricism for the parks overwhelmed with people, the bars, until a few nights ago, thickly thronged. My imagination is the opposite. I fear everything invisible to me. From the enclosure of my house, I am afraid of the suffering that isn’t present before me, the people running out of money and food or drowning in the fluid in their lungs, the deaths of health-care workers now growing ill while performing their duties. I fear the federal government, which the right wing has so—intentionally—weakened that not only is it insufficient to help its people, it is actively standing in help’s way. I fear we won’t sufficiently punish the right. I fear leaving the house and spreading the disease. I fear what this time of fear is doing to my children, their imaginations, and their souls.

At ArtForum , Berlin-based critic and writer Kristian Vistrup Madsen reflects on martinis, melancholia, and Finnish artist Jaakko Pallasvuo’s 2018 graphic novel  Retreat , in which three young people exile themselves in the woods:

In melancholia, the shape of what is ending, and its temporality, is sprawling and incomprehensible. The ambivalence makes it hard to bear. The world of  Retreat  is rendered in lush pink and purple watercolors, which dissolve into wild and messy abstractions. In apocalypse, the divisions established in genesis bleed back out. My own Corona-retreat is similarly soft, color-field like, each day a blurred succession of quarantinis, YouTube–yoga, and televized press conferences. As restrictions mount, so does abstraction. For now, I’m still rooting for love to save the world.

At the Paris Review , Matt Levin writes about reading Virginia Woolf’s novel The Waves during quarantine:

A retreat, a quarantine, a sickness—they simultaneously distort and clarify, curtail and expand. It is an ideal state in which to read literature with a reputation for difficulty and inaccessibility, those hermetic books shorn of the handholds of conventional plot or characterization or description. A novel like Virginia Woolf’s  The Waves  is perfect for the state of interiority induced by quarantine—a story of three men and three women, meeting after the death of a mutual friend, told entirely in the overlapping internal monologues of the six, interspersed only with sections of pure, achingly beautiful descriptions of the natural world, a day’s procession and recession of light and waves. The novel is, in my mind’s eye, a perfectly spherical object. It is translucent and shimmering and infinitely fragile, prone to shatter at the slightest disturbance. It is not a book that can be read in snatches on the subway—it demands total absorption. Though it revels in a stark emotional nakedness, the book remains aloof, remote in its own deep self-absorption.

• Vox is starting a book club. Come read with us!

In an essay for the Financial Times, novelist Arundhati Roy writes with anger about Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s anemic response to the threat, but also offers a glimmer of hope for the future:

Historically, pandemics have forced humans to break with the past and imagine their world anew. This one is no different. It is a portal, a gateway between one world and the next. We can choose to walk through it, dragging the carcasses of our prejudice and hatred, our avarice, our data banks and dead ideas, our dead rivers and smoky skies behind us. Or we can walk through lightly, with little luggage, ready to imagine another world. And ready to fight for it. 

From Boston, Nora Caplan-Bricker writes in The Point about the strange contraction of space under quarantine, in which a friend in Beirut is as close as the one around the corner in the same city:

It’s a nice illusion—nice to feel like we’re in it together, even if my real world has shrunk to one person, my husband, who sits with his laptop in the other room. It’s nice in the same way as reading those essays that reframe social distancing as solidarity. “We must begin to see the negative space as clearly as the positive, to know what we  don’t do  is also brilliant and full of love,” the poet Anne Boyer wrote on March 10th, the day that Massachusetts declared a state of emergency. If you squint, you could almost make sense of this quarantine as an effort to flatten, along with the curve, the distinctions we make between our bonds with others. Right now, I care for my neighbor in the same way I demonstrate love for my mother: in all instances, I stay away. And in moments this month, I have loved strangers with an intensity that is new to me. On March 14th, the Saturday night after the end of life as we knew it, I went out with my dog and found the street silent: no lines for restaurants, no children on bicycles, no couples strolling with little cups of ice cream. It had taken the combined will of thousands of people to deliver such a sudden and complete emptiness. I felt so grateful, and so bereft.

And on his own website, musician and artist David Byrne writes about rediscovering the value of working for collective good , saying that “what is happening now is an opportunity to learn how to change our behavior”:

In emergencies, citizens can suddenly cooperate and collaborate. Change can happen. We’re going to need to work together as the effects of climate change ramp up. In order for capitalism to survive in any form, we will have to be a little more socialist. Here is an opportunity for us to see things differently — to see that we really are all connected — and adjust our behavior accordingly.  Are we willing to do this? Is this moment an opportunity to see how truly interdependent we all are? To live in a world that is different and better than the one we live in now? We might be too far down the road to test every asymptomatic person, but a change in our mindsets, in how we view our neighbors, could lay the groundwork for the collective action we’ll need to deal with other global crises. The time to see how connected we all are is now.

The portrait these writers paint of a world under quarantine is multifaceted. Our worlds have contracted to the confines of our homes, and yet in some ways we’re more connected than ever to one another. We feel fear and boredom, anger and gratitude, frustration and strange peace. Uncertainty drives us to find metaphors and images that will let us wrap our minds around what is happening.

Yet there’s no single “what” that is happening. Everyone is contending with the pandemic and its effects from different places and in different ways. Reading others’ experiences — even the most frightening ones — can help alleviate the loneliness and dread, a little, and remind us that what we’re going through is both unique and shared by all.

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Writing about COVID-19 in a college admission essay

by: Venkates Swaminathan | Updated: September 14, 2020

Print article

For students applying to college using the CommonApp, there are several different places where students and counselors can address the pandemic’s impact. The different sections have differing goals. You must understand how to use each section for its appropriate use.

The CommonApp COVID-19 question

First, the CommonApp this year has an additional question specifically about COVID-19 :

Community disruptions such as COVID-19 and natural disasters can have deep and long-lasting impacts. If you need it, this space is yours to describe those impacts. Colleges care about the effects on your health and well-being, safety, family circumstances, future plans, and education, including access to reliable technology and quiet study spaces. Please use this space to describe how these events have impacted you.

This question seeks to understand the adversity that students may have had to face due to the pandemic, the move to online education, or the shelter-in-place rules. You don’t have to answer this question if the impact on you wasn’t particularly severe. Some examples of things students should discuss include:

• The student or a family member had COVID-19 or suffered other illnesses due to confinement during the pandemic.
• The candidate had to deal with personal or family issues, such as abusive living situations or other safety concerns
• The student suffered from a lack of internet access and other online learning challenges.
• Students who dealt with problems registering for or taking standardized tests and AP exams.

Jeff Schiffman of the Tulane University admissions office has a blog about this section. He recommends students ask themselves several questions as they go about answering this section:

• Are my experiences different from others’?
• Are there noticeable changes on my transcript?
• Am I aware of my privilege?
• Am I specific? Am I explaining rather than complaining?
• Is this information being included elsewhere on my application?

If you do answer this section, be brief and to-the-point.

Counselor recommendations and school profiles

Second, counselors will, in their counselor forms and school profiles on the CommonApp, address how the school handled the pandemic and how it might have affected students, specifically as it relates to:

• Grading scales and policies
• Graduation requirements
• Instructional methods
• Schedules and course offerings
• Testing requirements
• Your academic calendar
• Other extenuating circumstances

Students don’t have to mention these matters in their application unless something unusual happened.

Writing about COVID-19 in your main essay

Write about your experiences during the pandemic in your main college essay if your experience is personal, relevant, and the most important thing to discuss in your college admission essay. That you had to stay home and study online isn’t sufficient, as millions of other students faced the same situation. But sometimes, it can be appropriate and helpful to write about something related to the pandemic in your essay. For example:

• One student developed a website for a local comic book store. The store might not have survived without the ability for people to order comic books online. The student had a long-standing relationship with the store, and it was an institution that created a community for students who otherwise felt left out.
• One student started a YouTube channel to help other students with academic subjects he was very familiar with and began tutoring others.
• Some students used their extra time that was the result of the stay-at-home orders to take online courses pursuing topics they are genuinely interested in or developing new interests, like a foreign language or music.

Experiences like this can be good topics for the CommonApp essay as long as they reflect something genuinely important about the student. For many students whose lives have been shaped by this pandemic, it can be a critical part of their college application.

Want more? Read 6 ways to improve a college essay , What the &%$! should I write about in my college essay , and Just how important is a college admissions essay? .

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How to Write About the Impact of the Coronavirus in a College Essay

The global impact of COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, means colleges and prospective students alike are in for an admissions cycle like no other. Both face unprecedented challenges and questions as they grapple with their respective futures amid the ongoing fallout of the pandemic.

Colleges must examine applicants without the aid of standardized test scores for many -- a factor that prompted many schools to go test-optional for now . Even grades, a significant component of a college application, may be hard to interpret with some high schools adopting pass-fail classes last spring due to the pandemic. Major college admissions factors are suddenly skewed.

"I can't help but think other (admissions) factors are going to matter more," says Ethan Sawyer, founder of the College Essay Guy, a website that offers free and paid essay-writing resources.

College essays and letters of recommendation , Sawyer says, are likely to carry more weight than ever in this admissions cycle. And many essays will likely focus on how the pandemic shaped students' lives throughout an often tumultuous 2020.

[ Read: How to Write a College Essay. ]

But before writing a college essay focused on the coronavirus, students should explore whether it's the best topic for them.

Writing About COVID-19 for a College Application

Much of daily life has been colored by the coronavirus. Virtual learning is the norm at many colleges and high schools, many extracurriculars have vanished and social lives have stalled for students complying with measures to stop the spread of COVID-19.

"For some young people, the pandemic took away what they envisioned as their senior year," says Robert Alexander, dean of admissions, financial aid and enrollment management at the University of Rochester in New York. "Maybe that's a spot on a varsity athletic team or the lead role in the fall play. And it's OK for them to mourn what should have been and what they feel like they lost, but more important is how are they making the most of the opportunities they do have?"

That question, Alexander says, is what colleges want answered if students choose to address COVID-19 in their college essay.

But the question of whether a student should write about the coronavirus is tricky. The answer depends largely on the student.

"In general, I don't think students should write about COVID-19 in their main personal statement for their application," Robin Miller, master college admissions counselor at IvyWise, a college counseling company, wrote in an email.

"Certainly, there may be exceptions to this based on a student's individual experience, but since the personal essay is the main place in the application where the student can really allow their voice to be heard and share insight into who they are as an individual, there are likely many other topics they can choose to write about that are more distinctive and unique than COVID-19," Miller says.

[ Read: What Colleges Look for: 6 Ways to Stand Out. ]

Opinions among admissions experts vary on whether to write about the likely popular topic of the pandemic.

"If your essay communicates something positive, unique, and compelling about you in an interesting and eloquent way, go for it," Carolyn Pippen, principal college admissions counselor at IvyWise, wrote in an email. She adds that students shouldn't be dissuaded from writing about a topic merely because it's common, noting that "topics are bound to repeat, no matter how hard we try to avoid it."

Above all, she urges honesty.

"If your experience within the context of the pandemic has been truly unique, then write about that experience, and the standing out will take care of itself," Pippen says. "If your experience has been generally the same as most other students in your context, then trying to find a unique angle can easily cross the line into exploiting a tragedy, or at least appearing as though you have."

But focusing entirely on the pandemic can limit a student to a single story and narrow who they are in an application, Sawyer says. "There are so many wonderful possibilities for what you can say about yourself outside of your experience within the pandemic."

He notes that passions, strengths, career interests and personal identity are among the multitude of essay topic options available to applicants and encourages them to probe their values to help determine the topic that matters most to them -- and write about it.

That doesn't mean the pandemic experience has to be ignored if applicants feel the need to write about it.

Writing About Coronavirus in Main and Supplemental Essays

Students can choose to write a full-length college essay on the coronavirus or summarize their experience in a shorter form.

To help students explain how the pandemic affected them, The Common App has added an optional section to address this topic. Applicants have 250 words to describe their pandemic experience and the personal and academic impact of COVID-19.

[ Read: The Common App: Everything You Need to Know. ]

"That's not a trick question, and there's no right or wrong answer," Alexander says. Colleges want to know, he adds, how students navigated the pandemic, how they prioritized their time, what responsibilities they took on and what they learned along the way.

If students can distill all of the above information into 250 words, there's likely no need to write about it in a full-length college essay, experts say. And applicants whose lives were not heavily altered by the pandemic may even choose to skip the optional COVID-19 question.

"This space is best used to discuss hardship and/or significant challenges that the student and/or the student's family experienced as a result of COVID-19 and how they have responded to those difficulties," Miller notes. Using the section to acknowledge a lack of impact, she adds, "could be perceived as trite and lacking insight, despite the good intentions of the applicant."

To guard against this lack of awareness, Sawyer encourages students to tap someone they trust to review their writing , whether it's the 250-word Common App response or the full-length essay.

Experts tend to agree that the short-form approach to this as an essay topic works better, but there are exceptions. And if a student does have a coronavirus story that he or she feels must be told, Alexander encourages the writer to be authentic in the essay.

"My advice for an essay about COVID-19 is the same as my advice about an essay for any topic -- and that is, don't write what you think we want to read or hear," Alexander says. "Write what really changed you and that story that now is yours and yours alone to tell."

Sawyer urges students to ask themselves, "What's the sentence that only I can write?" He also encourages students to remember that the pandemic is only a chapter of their lives and not the whole book.

Miller, who cautions against writing a full-length essay on the coronavirus, says that if students choose to do so they should have a conversation with their high school counselor about whether that's the right move. And if students choose to proceed with COVID-19 as a topic, she says they need to be clear, detailed and insightful about what they learned and how they adapted along the way.

"Approaching the essay in this manner will provide important balance while demonstrating personal growth and vulnerability," Miller says.

Pippen encourages students to remember that they are in an unprecedented time for college admissions.

"It is important to keep in mind with all of these (admission) factors that no colleges have ever had to consider them this way in the selection process, if at all," Pippen says. "They have had very little time to calibrate their evaluations of different application components within their offices, let alone across institutions. This means that colleges will all be handling the admissions process a little bit differently, and their approaches may even evolve over the course of the admissions cycle."

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A Pandemic College Essay That Probably Won’t Get You Into Brown

By Michael Ian Black

Community disruptions such as COVID -19 and natural disasters can have deep and long-lasting impacts. If you need it, this space is yours to describe those impacts. — The 2020-21 college-admissions Common Application.

COVID -19 is a very destructive respiratory disease that has caused much pain and suffering for millions of people around the world. Although my heart grieves for all the lives lost, each of us has suffered in our own unique ways. For me, that suffering took the form of not getting an opportunity to play the lead in our spring drama, which was, so tragically, cancelled.

For years, I have been working toward this goal. As a freshman, I auditioned for the role of Laura in the Tennessee Williams famous American drama “The Glass Menagerie.” While I did not win the role, I find it very ironic that now, only three years later, we have all become aware that life is as precious as those fateful glass figurines due to COVID -19.

As a sophomore, my efforts to secure the role of the wrongly accused Desdemona in William Shakespeare’s important play “Othello” were, once again, thwarted. Our drama coach, Ms. Wilkie, told me during the audition process that sophomores would be considered for leading roles, but the parts of Othello, Iago, and Desdemona all went to upperclassmen, even though none of them had taken private acting classes, as I have, with Leonard Michaels (Broadway credits include “Company,” “Starlight Express,” “Pump Boys and Dinettes”), at the Willows Dramatic Academy for Young Performers.

This experience taught me that authority figures do not always have “the answers,” a lesson reinforced when Dr. Anthony Fauci, who is a very respected medical adviser to many Presidents of the United States of America, said at first that masks should not be worn but then said that they should.

When discussing masks these days, it is impossible not to conjure in one’s mind images of the famous “Comedy and Tragedy” masks, which were worn in ancient Greece during the classical period, from approximately 500 to 300 B.C.

Junior year was a turning point for my high-school theatrical career. I auditioned to portray Abigail Williams in “The Crucible,” a play that on the surface purports to be about the Salem witch trials but is in fact a parable about McCarthyism, which was a terrible episode of American history that itself had a long-lasting impact on American history. Although I did not receive the part of Abigail Williams, I did play the pivotal role of Deputy Governor Danforth, who has several lines. Our school newspaper declared my presentation “dramatic” (review attached).

This year, my senior year, Ms. Wilkie said that we would be doing the Pulitzer Prize-winning drama “Our Town.” Never could I have foreseen that “our town” would be affected by the respiratory disease only a few short months later.

Needless to say, I watched in horror in January and February of last year as news reports emerged from China about a new respiratory ailment that threatened to sicken people and shut down vast portions of the economy. In March, we received word that our very high school would be closing its mahogany doors. The curtain on my high-school theatrical career, tragically, fell forever, before I even had the chance to audition for the central role of the Stage Manager, which I planned to reinterpret as a strong, independent woman in the wake of #MeToo.

Perhaps Fate is the real Stage Manager.

The Stanislavski method of acting teaches us to incorporate our actual experiences into our Craft. Should I have the great honor of studying at the Department of Theatre Arts and Performance Studies at Brown University, I vow to incorporate the suffering of this past year into my Art as a tribute to all those, including myself, who have experienced such tremendous loss.

It is believed that the immortal bard, William Shakespeare, said, “Instead of weeping when a tragedy occurs in a songbird’s life, it sings away its grief.” My time at Brown will be my chance to “sing away grief,” except that, unlike the tragedies of Shakespeare and other playwrights, my tragedy is real and therefore more tragic.

Please find attached a video of me in a scene from Herb Gardner’s “A Thousand Clowns” (performed with J. Leonard Mitchell, member, Actors’ Equity). ♦

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5 most widely read First Opinion essays of 2021

By Patrick Skerrett Dec. 24, 2021

I n the second turbulent year defined by a global pandemic, 2021 provided an abundance of topics for authors seeking to right wrongs, offer direction, make the world a better place, and sometimes just to tell a story. STAT published nearly 600 First Opinion essays this year, written by more than 750 authors from the biopharmaceutical industry, health care, academia, government, and private life in the United States and beyond.

It’s no surprise that many of the essays focused on Covid-19 and responses to the pandemic. But First Opinion authors also tackled other issues, like lessons learned — and forgotten — from the horrific epidemics of the U.S. Civil War; the ongoing overdose crisis; the hazard of stifling biopharma mergers; the Food and Drug Administration’s controversial approval of Aduhelm for early-stage Alzheimer’s disease; living through deep despair during and after pregnancy; the “diagnosis” of excited delirium; burnout among health care workers; and much, much more.

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Here are the five most widely read First Opinions of 2021. If you didn’t get to them when they first appeared, they are still worth reading:

1. It’s easy to judge the unvaccinated. As a doctor, I see a better alternative   Emergency physician Jay Baruch starts his essay, published as vaccination rates in the U.S. lagged behind expectations, like this: “I don’t ask ‘Why?’ when a patient with Covid-19 tells me they are unvaccinated for the same reason I don’t ask why someone whose alcohol level is four times the legal limit decided to drive, or why the badly burned grandmother with emphysema lit a cigarette with oxygen prongs below her nose.”

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2. Catching Covid-19 after being vaccinated isn’t a myth. It happened to me   Two months after he was fully vaccinated, psychiatrist Stephen M. Tourjee noticed mild, Covid-19-like symptoms — stuffy nose, chest congestion, and an upset stomach. He chalked them up to seasonal allergies, but they weren’t.

3. How a ‘fatally, tragically flawed’ paradigm has derailed the science of obesity   The central dogma of obesity science — people get fat because they take in more calories than they expend and stay lean when they don’t — needs to be overhauled, wrote Gary Taubes, who is part of a growing movement arguing that obesity is a “hormonal or constitutional disorder, a dysregulation of fat storage and metabolism, a disorder of fuel-partitioning.”

4. Shattering the infertility myth: What we know about Covid-19 vaccines and pregnancy   During trying times, “myths and falsehoods sprout like mushrooms after rainfall,” wrote reproductive endocrinologist and infertility specialist Eve C. Feinberg, dispelling the myth that vaccines against Covid-19 cause infertility in women.

Related: Listen: Looking back on the first year of ‘First Opinion Podcast’

5. With the first dose, I need to be at peace with the vaccine. And let my body do the work   When pediatrician and hospitalist Sharon Ostfeld-Johns got her first Covid-19 vaccine, she wanted to “help” it by taking vitamins and doing other things that might boost her immune system. Then she realized there was a better way: “Be at peace with the vaccine. Wait for the next dose. And let my body do the work.”

We launched the weekly “ First Opinion Podcast ” in February 2021. Of the 43 episodes we have published so far, all produced by the amazing Theresa Gaffney, this one garnered the most downloads and listens: Two physicians on breakthrough Covid-19 cases . In it, Stephen Tourjee (see #2 above) talks about getting Covid-19 after being fully vaccinated against it.

A new year brings new opportunities, along with new crises and challenges. My aim is for 2022’s First Opinion essays to reflect all of those, and more. Please keep reading, and when the muse strikes, send submissions to [email protected] .

Judith Miller, a First Opinion Podcast listener, wrote me this year that “the very nature of our times is, and will continue to be, one of permanent white water rather than some strange aberration from which we should expect to emerge.” That’s a good description of the flow of time. Be well in the year ahead, and may you have good luck navigating the white water.

About the Author Reprints

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Acting First Opinion Editor

Patrick Skerrett is filling in as editor of First Opinion , STAT's platform for perspective and opinion on the life sciences writ large, and host of the First Opinion Podcast .

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I Thought We’d Learned Nothing From the Pandemic. I Wasn’t Seeing the Full Picture

M y first home had a back door that opened to a concrete patio with a giant crack down the middle. When my sister and I played, I made sure to stay on the same side of the divide as her, just in case. The 1988 film The Land Before Time was one of the first movies I ever saw, and the image of the earth splintering into pieces planted its roots in my brain. I believed that, even in my own backyard, I could easily become the tiny Triceratops separated from her family, on the other side of the chasm, as everything crumbled into chaos.

Some 30 years later, I marvel at the eerie, unexpected ways that cartoonish nightmare came to life – not just for me and my family, but for all of us. The landscape was already covered in fissures well before COVID-19 made its way across the planet, but the pandemic applied pressure, and the cracks broke wide open, separating us from each other physically and ideologically. Under the weight of the crisis, we scattered and landed on such different patches of earth we could barely see each other’s faces, even when we squinted. We disagreed viciously with each other, about how to respond, but also about what was true.

Recently, someone asked me if we’ve learned anything from the pandemic, and my first thought was a flat no. Nothing. There was a time when I thought it would be the very thing to draw us together and catapult us – as a capital “S” Society – into a kinder future. It’s surreal to remember those early days when people rallied together, sewing masks for health care workers during critical shortages and gathering on balconies in cities from Dallas to New York City to clap and sing songs like “Yellow Submarine.” It felt like a giant lightning bolt shot across the sky, and for one breath, we all saw something that had been hidden in the dark – the inherent vulnerability in being human or maybe our inescapable connectedness .

More from TIME

Read More: The Family Time the Pandemic Stole

But it turns out, it was just a flash. The goodwill vanished as quickly as it appeared. A couple of years later, people feel lied to, abandoned, and all on their own. I’ve felt my own curiosity shrinking, my willingness to reach out waning , my ability to keep my hands open dwindling. I look out across the landscape and see selfishness and rage, burnt earth and so many dead bodies. Game over. We lost. And if we’ve already lost, why try?

Still, the question kept nagging me. I wondered, am I seeing the full picture? What happens when we focus not on the collective society but at one face, one story at a time? I’m not asking for a bow to minimize the suffering – a pretty flourish to put on top and make the whole thing “worth it.” Yuck. That’s not what we need. But I wondered about deep, quiet growth. The kind we feel in our bodies, relationships, homes, places of work, neighborhoods.

Like a walkie-talkie message sent to my allies on the ground, I posted a call on my Instagram. What do you see? What do you hear? What feels possible? Is there life out here? Sprouting up among the rubble? I heard human voices calling back – reports of life, personal and specific. I heard one story at a time – stories of grief and distrust, fury and disappointment. Also gratitude. Discovery. Determination.

Among the most prevalent were the stories of self-revelation. Almost as if machines were given the chance to live as humans, people described blossoming into fuller selves. They listened to their bodies’ cues, recognized their desires and comforts, tuned into their gut instincts, and honored the intuition they hadn’t realized belonged to them. Alex, a writer and fellow disabled parent, found the freedom to explore a fuller version of herself in the privacy the pandemic provided. “The way I dress, the way I love, and the way I carry myself have both shrunk and expanded,” she shared. “I don’t love myself very well with an audience.” Without the daily ritual of trying to pass as “normal” in public, Tamar, a queer mom in the Netherlands, realized she’s autistic. “I think the pandemic helped me to recognize the mask,” she wrote. “Not that unmasking is easy now. But at least I know it’s there.” In a time of widespread suffering that none of us could solve on our own, many tended to our internal wounds and misalignments, large and small, and found clarity.

Read More: A Tool for Staying Grounded in This Era of Constant Uncertainty

I wonder if this flourishing of self-awareness is at least partially responsible for the life alterations people pursued. The pandemic broke open our personal notions of work and pushed us to reevaluate things like time and money. Lucy, a disabled writer in the U.K., made the hard decision to leave her job as a journalist covering Westminster to write freelance about her beloved disability community. “This work feels important in a way nothing else has ever felt,” she wrote. “I don’t think I’d have realized this was what I should be doing without the pandemic.” And she wasn’t alone – many people changed jobs , moved, learned new skills and hobbies, became politically engaged.

Perhaps more than any other shifts, people described a significant reassessment of their relationships. They set boundaries, said no, had challenging conversations. They also reconnected, fell in love, and learned to trust. Jeanne, a quilter in Indiana, got to know relatives she wouldn’t have connected with if lockdowns hadn’t prompted weekly family Zooms. “We are all over the map as regards to our belief systems,” she emphasized, “but it is possible to love people you don’t see eye to eye with on every issue.” Anna, an anti-violence advocate in Maine, learned she could trust her new marriage: “Life was not a honeymoon. But we still chose to turn to each other with kindness and curiosity.” So many bonds forged and broken, strengthened and strained.

Instead of relying on default relationships or institutional structures, widespread recalibrations allowed for going off script and fortifying smaller communities. Mara from Idyllwild, Calif., described the tangible plan for care enacted in her town. “We started a mutual-aid group at the beginning of the pandemic,” she wrote, “and it grew so quickly before we knew it we were feeding 400 of the 4000 residents.” She didn’t pretend the conditions were ideal. In fact, she expressed immense frustration with our collective response to the pandemic. Even so, the local group rallied and continues to offer assistance to their community with help from donations and volunteers (many of whom were originally on the receiving end of support). “I’ve learned that people thrive when they feel their connection to others,” she wrote. Clare, a teacher from the U.K., voiced similar conviction as she described a giant scarf she’s woven out of ribbons, each representing a single person. The scarf is “a collection of stories, moments and wisdom we are sharing with each other,” she wrote. It now stretches well over 1,000 feet.

A few hours into reading the comments, I lay back on my bed, phone held against my chest. The room was quiet, but my internal world was lighting up with firefly flickers. What felt different? Surely part of it was receiving personal accounts of deep-rooted growth. And also, there was something to the mere act of asking and listening. Maybe it connected me to humans before battle cries. Maybe it was the chance to be in conversation with others who were also trying to understand – what is happening to us? Underneath it all, an undeniable thread remained; I saw people peering into the mess and narrating their findings onto the shared frequency. Every comment was like a flare into the sky. I’m here! And if the sky is full of flares, we aren’t alone.

I recognized my own pandemic discoveries – some minor, others massive. Like washing off thick eyeliner and mascara every night is more effort than it’s worth; I can transform the mundane into the magical with a bedsheet, a movie projector, and twinkle lights; my paralyzed body can mother an infant in ways I’d never seen modeled for me. I remembered disappointing, bewildering conversations within my own family of origin and our imperfect attempts to remain close while also seeing things so differently. I realized that every time I get the weekly invite to my virtual “Find the Mumsies” call, with a tiny group of moms living hundreds of miles apart, I’m being welcomed into a pocket of unexpected community. Even though we’ve never been in one room all together, I’ve felt an uncommon kind of solace in their now-familiar faces.

Hope is a slippery thing. I desperately want to hold onto it, but everywhere I look there are real, weighty reasons to despair. The pandemic marks a stretch on the timeline that tangles with a teetering democracy, a deteriorating planet , the loss of human rights that once felt unshakable . When the world is falling apart Land Before Time style, it can feel trite, sniffing out the beauty – useless, firing off flares to anyone looking for signs of life. But, while I’m under no delusions that if we just keep trudging forward we’ll find our own oasis of waterfalls and grassy meadows glistening in the sunshine beneath a heavenly chorus, I wonder if trivializing small acts of beauty, connection, and hope actually cuts us off from resources essential to our survival. The group of abandoned dinosaurs were keeping each other alive and making each other laugh well before they made it to their fantasy ending.

Read More: How Ice Cream Became My Own Personal Act of Resistance

After the monarch butterfly went on the endangered-species list, my friend and fellow writer Hannah Soyer sent me wildflower seeds to plant in my yard. A simple act of big hope – that I will actually plant them, that they will grow, that a monarch butterfly will receive nourishment from whatever blossoms are able to push their way through the dirt. There are so many ways that could fail. But maybe the outcome wasn’t exactly the point. Maybe hope is the dogged insistence – the stubborn defiance – to continue cultivating moments of beauty regardless. There is value in the planting apart from the harvest.

I can’t point out a single collective lesson from the pandemic. It’s hard to see any great “we.” Still, I see the faces in my moms’ group, making pancakes for their kids and popping on between strings of meetings while we try to figure out how to raise these small people in this chaotic world. I think of my friends on Instagram tending to the selves they discovered when no one was watching and the scarf of ribbons stretching the length of more than three football fields. I remember my family of three, holding hands on the way up the ramp to the library. These bits of growth and rings of support might not be loud or right on the surface, but that’s not the same thing as nothing. If we only cared about the bottom-line defeats or sweeping successes of the big picture, we’d never plant flowers at all.

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• 15 LGBTQ+ Books to Read for Pride
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Book Reviews

Are we ready for covid-19 as a central theme in literature.

Gabino Iglesias

Nearly two years after the start of COVID-19 social-distancing protocols and lockdowns, the pandemic is still a thing we think about — and live with — daily. Its constant presence and the way it has changed our world has had an impact on everything, including literature.

I, like I'm sure many others, had no interest in reading books about plagues generally or about how we were dealing with COVID-19 more specifically over the last two years. But as this pandemic seems like it will eventually turn into an epidemic or become endemic, I have started freeing myself up to read about these topics beyond daily news — and to start looking back, and forward, with literature that either mentions COVID-19 or features it a central element of its narrative. And from the slew of books coming out this year, it seems like other have too (or at least publishing houses think they have!).

Pandemic fiction and nonfiction began more quickly trickling into our libraries and bookstores in the second half of 2021, and has since found a growing presence. We've seen novels like Louise Erdrich's The Sentence, Catherine Ryan Howard's 56 Days , Amitava Kumar's A Time Outside This Time , and Sarah Hall's Burntcoat. There have also been anthologies like COVID Chronicles: A Comics Anthology , Lockdown: Stories of Crime, Terror, and Hope During a Pandemic , and And We Came Outside and Saw the Stars Again: Writers from Around the World on the Covid-19 Pandemic (the latter two of these actually came out in 2020). All directly address the pandemic and chronicle how it has affected our lives, relationships, plans, and productivity.

Still, it was Kristen Radtke's Seek You: A Journey Through American Loneliness -- exploring the way loneliness and the forced seclusion that came with the pandemic was affecting us — in mid-2021 that suggested pandemic writing might offer us a map to start dealing with the aftermath of what's happened, as well as its lingering effects and ongoing presence.

And the first two months of 2022 have made it clear that COVID as a theme in both fiction and nonfiction is here to stay — at least for now. Peter S. Goodman's Davos Man out in January, for example, homes in on how the impact of billionaires like Amazon's Jeff Bezos, JPMorgan Chase's Jamie Dimon, Blackstone Group's Stephen Schwarzman and BlackRock's Larry Fink affects the world — but it also discusses how they became much richer during the pandemic. And we've seen more passing references to pandemics, such as in in Kim Fu's Lesser Known Monsters of the 21st and in Hanya Yanagihara's To Paradise , which includes a section taking in place in 2093 — a time in which there are various plagues all over the world.

However, Laura Kipnis' Love in the Time of Contagion and Margaret Peacock and Erik L. Peterson's A Deeper Sickness: Journal of America in the Pandemic Year might be the two books that truly announce the arrival of literature with a central goal of helping us understand the psychology of the pandemic as it relates to relationships and dealing with each other, in the case of the former, and to understand the pandemic in a political, social, and cultural context in the case of the latter.

Peacock, a media and propaganda professor at the University of Alabama, and Peterson, a professor of science and history at the same institution, took notes on everything that was happening in the news as well as on social media during 2020. The result is a book that presents these notes as a day-by-day journal and shows that there were things already brewing — things like racial tension and the opioid epidemic — that contributed to making the pandemic even worse. The book, which is both an alarm and a call timely call to action, ultimately names three factors that the authors consider made America a much "sicker" place than it should have been in 2020: "(a) entrenched racial hierarchies; (b) an economic structure dependent on individual accumulation of wealth and widespread consumption of ephemeral goods and entertainment; (c) distraction, cognitive dissonance, and an intentional historical amnesia that prevented the majority of comfortable, well-intentioned, middle-class, white Americans like ourselves from doing anything about the first two issues."

If Peacock and Peterson focus on the country at large, Kipnis looks at the problem in your own home, a much more immediate, personal place.

"If you're reading this you recently survived a massive worldwide extinction event, congratulations," she writes to kick off Love in the Time of Contagion. Then it immediately tackles the anger that has been a "normal" part of life:

"Have a nice big helping of residual simmering rage (so great for the immune system!) at being abandoned by our 'leaders,' at the profiteers and incompetents and liars, at a cleverly murderous microscopic entity that wants to exploit you as a host and strip your organs for parts. Along with grief about everything that was lost. About everyone who was lost."

Kipnis book is about the way we change as rapidly as the virus itself, how things like narcissism — which she claims was also a pandemic even before COVID — and other "unhealthy dynamics" rot relationships to the core, and how spending more time in the company of our partners became something very different in the last two years. "It's not just viruses that mutate, so do we," states Kipnis — and those changes weren't good.

When things get dark, we're told love always helps, but what happens when love starts to fail because of that darkness? Love in the Time of Contagion is a funny and incredibly timely investigation into what the pandemic has done to our relationships and our ability to love. At the core of the book is the idea that the pandemic revealed a lot of ugly truths about our nation, but that it did the same to our relationships:

"Recently I asked a shrink I know if she'd noticed any themes among her patients during COVID times. She said everyone had a fantasy that other people were doing better. The singles envied the couples, the couples envied the singles, the people with kids envied the people without kids, and so on. All her patients had regressed in different ways, which I entirely understood (meaning "entirely identified with.") Between COVID lockdown and the flailing government response it was like being locked in your bedroom with a sibling while a crazy abusive parent rants in the living room making shit up and changing the story. Everyone felt deprived of something essential, said my shrink friend. There was so much loneliness, no less among the coupled."

Love in the Time of Contagion might offer a blueprint for an entire series: Work in the Time of Contagion, Loss in the Time of Contagion, Trauma in the Time of Contagion Anger in the Time of Contagion, Horror in the Time of Contagion Friendship in the Time of Contagion, etc. One way or another, it looks like all of these, and many more, are coming.

We are naturally inclined to stay away from things we find unpleasant, and there's a chance pandemic literature strikes some readers as precisely that. However, the narratives we've seen so far have shown that the pandemic can be a starting point for any story — and that writing about it can be a way of processing trauma, an exercise in trying to understand its impact on our psyche. This literature can add to a growing map of work that helps us navigate not only recent history but also our present and immediate future.

Gabino Iglesias is an author, book reviewer and professor living in Austin, Texas. Find him on Twitter at @Gabino_Iglesias .

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Forging good titles in academic writing

Published on March 20, 2015 by Shane Bryson . Revised on July 23, 2023.

The title is the first thing your reader will see, and most readers will make their first judgements of your work based on it. For this reason, it’s important to think about your titles carefully.

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Table of contents

Informative, striking, appropriate, title templates, writing effective headings, other interesting articles, informative title.

Your title should, above all else, convey the topic of your paper. In other words, no matter how witty, clever, original, or otherwise appealing your title may be, it fails if it is not informative.

Decide whether you’ve given a sense of the paper’s topic and claims by comparing your title’s content to the most important aspect(s) of your dissertation statement or hypothesis and conclusions.

Striking title

A striking title is one that entices your audience to read, so know your audience’s tastes.

The analogy of cultivating sexual attraction in a prospective mate is useful here: some audiences will be enticed by a title’s edginess (as with, for example, V. Alneng’s “‘What the Fuck is a Vietnam?’ Touristic Phantasms and the Popcolonization of [the] Vietnam [War],” published in Critique on Anthropology ); others will almost always prefer a more straightforward title (as with J.C. Henderson’s “War as a tourist attraction: The case of Vietnam,” published in the International Journal of Tourism Research ).

You should be able to gauge how edgy your title can be by the tone of your discipline or the publication you’re submitting to, and your main concern should be forming a title that appeals to your readers’ specific tastes.

Consider also that a title that highlights the paper’s fresh insights will often be striking.

An endocrinologist, for example, might become very excited upon seeing the collaboratively authored article “Comparison of the effects on glycaemic control and β-cell function in newly diagnosed type 2 diabetes patients of treatment with exenatide, insulin or pioglitazone: A multicentre randomized parallel-group trial,” published in 2015 in the Journal of Internal Medicine .

This rather long title is more acceptable in the sciences, where what readers tend to find provocative in a title is the degree to which it reveals the paper’s specifics.

Appropriate title

Ensuring that your title is appropriate in a way of making sure not only that your audience understands it, but also that its appeal contributes to its meaning. To make sure the title will be understood, you need to consider how familiar your research topic will be to your audience.

In an academic essay, you can use highly technical terms in your title, but generally avoid terms that the average well-read person in your discipline might not know.

In any writing that has a broad audience, titles need to avoid language that is too sophisticated; a news article, for example, should be easily understood by all.

As a second consideration of appropriateness, make sure that your title does not entice without substance.

The title of Alneng’s paper, for example, does not use “fuck” merely to shock and therefore entice the reader; the uncommon use of a swearword here helps convey the topic of the article: more or less vulgar representations of Vietnam.

The same is true for other striking titles, such as Nancy Tuana’s “Coming to Understand: Orgasm and the Epistemology of Ignorance,” published in Hypatia .

The title’s sexually charged play on words (“coming to understand”) hooks the audience, but is not merely a hook. The pun is directly relevant to the essay’s argument, which is that sexual pleasure offers an important form of knowledge.

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• Use key terms. Find words that your audience can easily identify as markers of the topic matter. These will include, for example, terms that convey the field of research, central concepts, or subjects of study.
• Identify the context (sometimes called “the location”). By context, I mean the source or the setting of the discussion, depending on discipline. In a history paper this might be a certain century or era; in literary studies a certain book or author; and in the sciences an organism or compound.

The following is a list of title formats, with examples of each. I’ve given the names of the publications in brackets to give a sense of how different disciplines treat titles.

Note that these are not mutually exclusive patterns (i.e. it’s possible to have various combinations; e.g. General & interesting: Informative & specific). Note also that this is not meant to be an exhaustive list.

• Striking: Informative – The Specter of Wall Street: “Bartleby, the Scrivener” and the Language of Commodities ( American Literature )
• Informative: Striking – Carbon capture and storage: How green can black be? ( Science )
• General: Specific – The issues of the sixties: An exploratory study in the dynamics of public opinion ( Public Opinion Quarterly )
• “Quotation”: Discussion (social studies) – “I’d rather not talk about it”: Adolescents’ and young adults’ use of topic avoidance in stepfamilies ( Journal of Applied Communication Research )
• “Quotation”: Discussion (literary studies) – “I Would Prefer Not To”: Giorgio Agamben, Bartleby and the Potentiality of the Law ( Law and Critique )
• Simple and precise – Methodological issues in the use of Tsimshian oral Traditions (Adawx) in Archaeology ( Canadian Journal of Archaeology )
• Topic: Method – Mortality in sleep apnea patients: A multivariate analysis of risk factors ( Sleep )
• Topic: Significance – LC3 binds externalized cardiolipin on injured mitochondria to signal mitophagy in neurons: Implications for Parkinson disease ( Autophagy )
• Technical and very specific – Single-shot quantum nondemolition measurement of a quantum-dot electron spin using cavity exciton-polaritons ( Physical Review )

Although similar, headings are not the same as titles. Headings head paragraphs and help structure a document. Effective headings make your paper easily scannable.

Common high level headings in dissertations and research papers are “Methods”, “Research results”, and “Discussion”. Lower level headings are often more descriptive.

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11 Meaningful Writing Assignments Connected to the Pandemic

Writing gives students an outlet to express their feelings and connect with others during this unsettling time in their lives.

With students currently at home because of the pandemic, it’s helpful to provide learning opportunities that get them talking about what’s happening in the world with trusted adults and peers.

These ideas for home assignments build connection and help our young people process this difficult experience while developing their writing skills.

11 Writing Assignments for the Current Moment

1. Interview senior members of the community: With our older community members at higher risk, hearing their stories has increasing significance. Generate interview questions with your students, and conduct a sample interview as a model.

Students can interview family members, senior members of the school staff, or others through handwritten letters, phone calls, or video chats. When students write up and share their interviews with the class, they will get a broader, more nuanced view of older generations’ experiences.

2. Folding stories: In the traditional version of this activity, one person writes a sentence or two on a piece of paper and then folds the paper so that only the last word or phrase can be seen. The next person continues the story for a few sentences before again hiding all but the last word or phrase and then passing the paper on.

To do this remotely, set up a randomized list of all of your students. The first student sends you their contribution, and you send the last phrase of that to the next name on the list. Compile all the contributions in order in a Google Doc to create a single story. Once everyone has contributed, share the whole story with the class.

The format may allow students an imaginative outlet for anxious thoughts and predictions about the future, and the result is almost guaranteed to be hilarious and inspiring to both eager and reluctant writers.

3. Dialogue journals: A journal in which a teacher and student write back and forth to each other is an ongoing communication that helps teachers build relationships with each student while they model writing and observe students’ progressing skills. Start this off by writing a first short entry for each of your students in separate Google Docs, choosing topics you already know they’re interested in and offering personal details about yourself.

You can ask each student to write something once a week—and you’ll respond to each entry, so this does entail a time commitment on your part. The benefit in relationship-building, so difficult to do in distance learning, makes this worth the work.

4. Student-to-student letters: Organize pen pals or small letter-writing groups. Ask students to write back and forth to one or more peers using provided prompts and sample questions. Teach students to consider their audience and to keep a written dialogue going over several letters as they write to different peers. Encourage students to include self-created activities in their letters to peers: They might make a crossword puzzle using the class vocabulary words, create a maze, or share a recipe or a silly joke.

5. Write to an author: A professional writer may be a great correspondent for a young fan, offering insight into key aspects of a favorite book. Follow #WriteToAnAuthor on Twitter for access to mailing addresses of authors who are standing by for letters from young readers. Provide your students with prompts, templates, samples, and feedback to support them in writing thoughtful letters.

6. Adapt a text to reflect current conditions: Lately any story we read or watch can be a painful reminder of how much is changing. Characters are dancing, hugging or shaking hands, and talking to each other in public places. Some students find it comforting to be immersed in that world, but others find these moments upsetting. Assign students the task of rewriting a scene from a story, show, or movie, considering what needs to change for it to be realistic in our current situation but still retain the original essential themes and meaning.

7. Letters to the editor: What do students think about our leaders, policies, and proposed solutions to this pandemic? Guide them through the art of writing a well-crafted letter to the editor, and post submissions on your district, school, or class website, if privacy policies permit that. Give your students guidelines that specify word count, style, and topics, just as official publications do.

8. Student-created blog: Begin by sharing strong examples of student journalism as mentor texts. Invite students to brainstorm ideas for articles and columns. Some students can assume the role of section editors—News, Features, Arts—and others can write articles, take photos, and work on the design and marketing of the website, which students can build using Edublogs .

9. “Slow looking” documentation: Shari Tishman describes “slow looking” as prolonged observation that occurs through all the senses. Students can use a variety of slow looking strategies to observe their setting and sketch or write about their observations. There are seasonal changes to observe, among other things. By practicing slow looking, students may learn to see things they never noticed before. When they share their observations with the class, everyone gains a broader perspective of how the larger environment is changing.

10. Covid-19 comics: The genre of  graphic medicine —which uses comics to explore the physical and emotional impacts of medical conditions—shows that comics can be a good way for students to explore troubling experiences. Share comics related to Covid-19  that engage with the wider implications of the pandemic, such as feeling increased isolation, processing conflicting news, and coping with social distancing or unemployment.

Invite students to explore their experiences through an intentional combination of words and pictures. Make it collaborative by having students write text for a peer’s drawings. Students can use Canva to make comics , or draw them on paper and then take photos to upload to the class learning management system.

11. Pandemic journals: A pandemic journal invites students to process their feelings and document their experience for future generations. To structure the assignment, provide prompts and templates. Suggest to students that they layer in artifacts such as news reports, a note received from a friend or neighbor, a copy of an online school schedule for a day, a snippet of an overheard conversation, or a sketch of a parent hunched over a laptop.

Seven short essays about life during the pandemic

The boston book festival's at home community writing project invites area residents to describe their experiences during this unprecedented time..

My alarm sounds at 8:15 a.m. I open my eyes and take a deep breath. I wiggle my toes and move my legs. I do this religiously every morning. Today, marks day 74 of staying at home.

My mornings are filled with reading biblical scripture, meditation, breathing in the scents of a hanging eucalyptus branch in the shower, and making tea before I log into my computer to work. After an hour-and-a-half Zoom meeting, I decided to take a long walk to the post office and grab a fresh bouquet of burnt orange ranunculus flowers. I embrace the warm sun beaming on my face. I feel joy. I feel at peace.

I enter my apartment and excessively wash my hands and face. I pour a glass of iced kombucha. I sit at my table and look at the text message on my phone. My coworker writes that she is thinking of me during this difficult time. She must be referring to the Amy Cooper incident. I learn shortly that she is not.

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I Google Minneapolis and see his name: George Floyd. And just like that a simple and beautiful day transitions into a day of sorrow.

Nakia Hill, Boston

It was a wobbly, yet solemn little procession: three masked mourners and a canine. Beginning in Kenmore Square, at David and Sue Horner’s condo, it proceeded up Commonwealth Avenue Mall.

S. Sue Horner died on Good Friday, April 10, in the Year of the Virus. Sue did not die of the virus but her parting was hemmed by it: no gatherings to mark the passing of this splendid human being.

David devised a send-off nevertheless. On April 23rd, accompanied by his daughter and son-in-law, he set out for Old South Church. David led, bearing the urn. His daughter came next, holding her phone aloft, speaker on, through which her brother in Illinois played the bagpipes for the length of the procession, its soaring thrum infusing the Mall. Her husband came last with Melon, their golden retriever.

I unlocked the empty church and led the procession into the columbarium. David drew the urn from its velvet cover, revealing a golden vessel inset with incandescent tiles. We lifted the urn into the niche, prayed, recited Psalm 23, and shared some words.

It was far too small for the luminous “Dr. Sue”, but what we could manage in the Year of the Virus.

Nancy S. Taylor, Boston

On April 26, 2020, our household was a bustling home for four people. Our two sons, ages 18 and 22, have a lot of energy. We are among the lucky ones. I can work remotely. Our food and shelter are not at risk.

As I write this a week later, it is much quieter here.

On April 27, our older son, an EMT, transported a COVID-19 patient to the ER. He left home to protect my delicate health and became ill with the virus a week later.

On April 29, my husband’s 95-year-old father had a stroke. My husband left immediately to be with his 90-year-old mother near New York City and is now preparing for his father’s discharge from the hospital. Rehab people will come to the house; going to a facility would be too dangerous.

My husband just called me to describe today’s hospital visit. The doctors had warned that although his father had regained the ability to speak, he could only repeat what was said to him.

“It’s me,” said my husband.

“It’s me,” said my father-in-law.

“I love you,” said my husband.

“I love you,” said my father-in-law.

“Sooooooooo much,” said my father-in-law.

Lucia Thompson, Wayland

Would racism exist if we were blind?

I felt his eyes bore into me as I walked through the grocery store. At first, I thought nothing of it. With the angst in the air attributable to COVID, I understood the anxiety-provoking nature of feeling as though your 6-foot bubble had burst. So, I ignored him and maintained my distance. But he persisted, glaring at my face, squinting to see who I was underneath the mask. This time I looked back, when he yelled, in my mother tongue, for me to go back to my country.

In shock, I just laughed. How could he tell what I was under my mask? Or see anything through the sunglasses he was wearing inside? It baffled me. I laughed at the irony that he would use my own language against me, that he knew enough to guess where I was from in some version of culturally competent racism. I laughed because dealing with the truth behind that comment generated a sadness in me that was too much to handle. If not now, then when will we be together?

So I ask again, would racism exist if we were blind?

Faizah Shareef, Boston

My Family is “Out” There

But I am “in” here. Life is different now “in” Assisted Living since the deadly COVID-19 arrived. Now the staff, employees, and all 100 residents have our temperatures taken daily. Everyone else, including my family, is “out” there. People like the hairdresser are really missed — with long straight hair and masks, we don’t even recognize ourselves.

Since mid-March we are in quarantine “in” our rooms with meals served. Activities are practically non-existent. We can sit on the back patio 6 feet apart, wearing masks, do exercises there, chat, and walk nearby. Nothing inside. Hopefully June will improve.

My family is “out” there — somewhere! Most are working from home (or Montana). Hopefully an August wedding will happen, but unfortunately, I may still be “in” here.

From my window I wave to my son “out” there. Recently, when my daughter visited, I opened the window “in” my second-floor room and could see and hear her perfectly “out” there. Next time she will bring a chair so we can have an “in” and “out” conversation all day, or until we run out of words.

Barbara Anderson, Raynham

My boyfriend Marcial lives in Boston, and I live in New York City. We had been doing the long-distance thing pretty successfully until coronavirus hit. In mid-March, I was furloughed from my temp job, Marcial began working remotely, and New York started shutting down. I went to Boston to stay with Marcial.

We are opposites in many ways, but we share a love of food. The kitchen has been the center of quarantine life —and also quarantine problems.

Marcial and I have gone from eating out and cooking/grocery shopping for each other during our periodic visits to cooking/grocery shopping with each other all the time. We’ve argued over things like the proper way to make rice and what greens to buy for salad. Our habits are deeply rooted in our upbringing and individual cultures (Filipino immigrant and American-born Chinese, hence the strong rice opinions).

On top of the mundane issues, we’ve also dealt with a flooded kitchen (resulting in cockroaches) and a mandoline accident leading to an ER visit. Marcial and I have spent quarantine navigating how to handle the unexpected and how to integrate our lifestyles. We’ve been eating well along the way.

Melissa Lee, Waltham

It’s 3 a.m. and my dog Rikki just gave me a worried look. Up again?

“I can’t sleep,” I say. I flick the light, pick up “Non-Zero Probabilities.” But the words lay pinned to the page like swatted flies. I watch new “Killing Eve” episodes, play old Nathaniel Rateliff and The Night Sweats songs. Still night.

We are — what? — 12 agitated weeks into lockdown, and now this. The thing that got me was Chauvin’s sunglasses. Perched nonchalantly on his head, undisturbed, as if he were at a backyard BBQ. Or anywhere other than kneeling on George Floyd’s neck, on his life. And Floyd was a father, as we all now know, having seen his daughter Gianna on Stephen Jackson’s shoulders saying “Daddy changed the world.”

Precious child. I pray, safeguard her.

Rikki has her own bed. But she won’t leave me. A Goddess of Protection. She does that thing dogs do, hovers increasingly closely the more agitated I get. “I’m losing it,” I say. I know. And like those weighted gravity blankets meant to encourage sleep, she drapes her 70 pounds over me, covering my restless heart with safety.

As if daybreak, or a prayer, could bring peace today.

Kirstan Barnett, Watertown

Until June 30, send your essay (200 words or less) about life during COVID-19 via bostonbookfest.org . Some essays will be published on the festival’s blog and some will appear in The Boston Globe.

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Covid 19 Essay in English

Essay on Covid -19: In a very short amount of time, coronavirus has spread globally. It has had an enormous impact on people's lives, economy, and societies all around the world, affecting every country. Governments have had to take severe measures to try and contain the pandemic. The virus has altered our way of life in many ways, including its effects on our health and our economy. Here are a few sample essays on ‘CoronaVirus’.

100 Words Essay on Covid 19

200 words essay on covid 19, 500 words essay on covid 19.

COVID-19 or Corona Virus is a novel coronavirus that was first identified in 2019. It is similar to other coronaviruses, such as SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV, but it is more contagious and has caused more severe respiratory illness in people who have been infected. The novel coronavirus became a global pandemic in a very short period of time. It has affected lives, economies and societies across the world, leaving no country untouched. The virus has caused governments to take drastic measures to try and contain it. From health implications to economic and social ramifications, COVID-19 impacted every part of our lives. It has been more than 2 years since the pandemic hit and the world is still recovering from its effects.

Since the outbreak of COVID-19, the world has been impacted in a number of ways. For one, the global economy has taken a hit as businesses have been forced to close their doors. This has led to widespread job losses and an increase in poverty levels around the world. Additionally, countries have had to impose strict travel restrictions in an attempt to contain the virus, which has resulted in a decrease in tourism and international trade. Furthermore, the pandemic has put immense pressure on healthcare systems globally, as hospitals have been overwhelmed with patients suffering from the virus. Lastly, the outbreak has led to a general feeling of anxiety and uncertainty, as people are fearful of contracting the disease.

My Experience of COVID-19

I still remember how abruptly colleges and schools shut down in March 2020. I was a college student at that time and I was under the impression that everything would go back to normal in a few weeks. I could not have been more wrong. The situation only got worse every week and the government had to impose a lockdown. There were so many restrictions in place. For example, we had to wear face masks whenever we left the house, and we could only go out for essential errands. Restaurants and shops were only allowed to operate at take-out capacity, and many businesses were shut down.

In the current scenario, coronavirus is dominating all aspects of our lives. The coronavirus pandemic has wreaked havoc upon people’s lives, altering the way we live and work in a very short amount of time. It has revolutionised how we think about health care, education, and even social interaction. This virus has had long-term implications on our society, including its impact on mental health, economic stability, and global politics. But we as individuals can help to mitigate these effects by taking personal responsibility to protect themselves and those around them from infection.

Effects of CoronaVirus on Education

The outbreak of coronavirus has had a significant impact on education systems around the world. In China, where the virus originated, all schools and universities were closed for several weeks in an effort to contain the spread of the disease. Many other countries have followed suit, either closing schools altogether or suspending classes for a period of time.

This has resulted in a major disruption to the education of millions of students. Some have been able to continue their studies online, but many have not had access to the internet or have not been able to afford the costs associated with it. This has led to a widening of the digital divide between those who can afford to continue their education online and those who cannot.

The closure of schools has also had a negative impact on the mental health of many students. With no face-to-face contact with friends and teachers, some students have felt isolated and anxious. This has been compounded by the worry and uncertainty surrounding the virus itself.

The situation with coronavirus has improved and schools have been reopened but students are still catching up with the gap of 2 years that the pandemic created. In the meantime, governments and educational institutions are working together to find ways to support students and ensure that they are able to continue their education despite these difficult circumstances.

Effects of CoronaVirus on Economy

The outbreak of the coronavirus has had a significant impact on the global economy. The virus, which originated in China, has spread to over two hundred countries, resulting in widespread panic and a decrease in global trade. As a result of the outbreak, many businesses have been forced to close their doors, leading to a rise in unemployment. In addition, the stock market has taken a severe hit.

Effects of CoronaVirus on Health

The effects that coronavirus has on one's health are still being studied and researched as the virus continues to spread throughout the world. However, some of the potential effects on health that have been observed thus far include respiratory problems, fever, and coughing. In severe cases, pneumonia, kidney failure, and death can occur. It is important for people who think they may have been exposed to the virus to seek medical attention immediately so that they can be treated properly and avoid any serious complications. There is no specific cure or treatment for coronavirus at this time, but there are ways to help ease symptoms and prevent the virus from spreading.

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Essays reveal experiences during pandemic, unrest.

Field study students share their thoughts 

Members of Advanced Field Study, a select group of Social Ecology students who are chosen from a pool of applicants to participate in a year-long field study experience and course, had their internships and traditional college experience cut short this year. During our final quarter of the year together, during which we met weekly for two hours via Zoom, we discussed their reactions as the world fell apart around them. First came the pandemic and social distancing, then came the death of George Floyd and the response of the Black Lives Matter movement, both of which were imprinted on the lives of these students. This year was anything but dull, instead full of raw emotion and painful realizations of the fragility of the human condition and the extent to which we need one another. This seemed like the perfect opportunity for our students to chronicle their experiences — the good and the bad, the lessons learned, and ways in which they were forever changed by the events of the past four months. I invited all of my students to write an essay describing the ways in which these times had impacted their learning and their lives during or after their time at UCI. These are their voices. — Jessica Borelli , associate professor of psychological science

Becoming Socially Distant Through Technology: The Tech Contagion

The current state of affairs put the world on pause, but this pause gave me time to reflect on troubling matters. Time that so many others like me probably also desperately needed to heal without even knowing it. Sometimes it takes one’s world falling apart for the most beautiful mosaic to be built up from the broken pieces of wreckage. 

As the school year was coming to a close and summer was edging around the corner, I began reflecting on how people will spend their summer breaks if the country remains in its current state throughout the sunny season. Aside from living in the sunny beach state of California where people love their vitamin D and social festivities, I think some of the most damaging effects Covid-19 will have on us all has more to do with social distancing policies than with any inconveniences we now face due to the added precautions, despite how devastating it may feel that Disneyland is closed to all the local annual passholders or that the beaches may not be filled with sun-kissed California girls this summer. During this unprecedented time, I don’t think we should allow the rare opportunity we now have to be able to watch in real time how the effects of social distancing can impact our mental health. Before the pandemic, many of us were already engaging in a form of social distancing. Perhaps not the exact same way we are now practicing, but the technology that we have developed over recent years has led to a dramatic decline in our social contact and skills in general. 

The debate over whether we should remain quarantined during this time is not an argument I am trying to pursue. Instead, I am trying to encourage us to view this event as a unique time to study how social distancing can affect people’s mental health over a long period of time and with dramatic results due to the magnitude of the current issue. Although Covid-19 is new and unfamiliar to everyone, the isolation and separation we now face is not. For many, this type of behavior has already been a lifestyle choice for a long time. However, the current situation we all now face has allowed us to gain a more personal insight on how that experience feels due to the current circumstances. Mental illness continues to remain a prevalent problem throughout the world and for that reason could be considered a pandemic of a sort in and of itself long before the Covid-19 outbreak. 

One parallel that can be made between our current restrictions and mental illness reminds me in particular of hikikomori culture. Hikikomori is a phenomenon that originated in Japan but that has since spread internationally, now prevalent in many parts of the world, including the United States. Hikikomori is not a mental disorder but rather can appear as a symptom of a disorder. People engaging in hikikomori remain confined in their houses and often their rooms for an extended period of time, often over the course of many years. This action of voluntary confinement is an extreme form of withdrawal from society and self-isolation. Hikikomori affects a large percent of people in Japan yearly and the problem continues to become more widespread with increasing occurrences being reported around the world each year. While we know this problem has continued to increase, the exact number of people practicing hikikomori is unknown because there is a large amount of stigma surrounding the phenomenon that inhibits people from seeking help. This phenomenon cannot be written off as culturally defined because it is spreading to many parts of the world. With the technology we now have, and mental health issues on the rise and expected to increase even more so after feeling the effects of the current pandemic, I think we will definitely see a rise in the number of people engaging in this social isolation, especially with the increase in legitimate fears we now face that appear to justify the previously considered irrational fears many have associated with social gatherings. We now have the perfect sample of people to provide answers about how this form of isolation can affect people over time. 

Likewise, with the advancements we have made to technology not only is it now possible to survive without ever leaving the confines of your own home, but it also makes it possible for us to “fulfill” many of our social interaction needs. It’s very unfortunate, but in addition to the success we have gained through our advancements we have also experienced a great loss. With new technology, I am afraid that we no longer engage with others the way we once did. Although some may say the advancements are for the best, I wonder, at what cost? It is now commonplace to see a phone on the table during a business meeting or first date. Even worse is how many will feel inclined to check their phone during important or meaningful interactions they are having with people face to face. While our technology has become smarter, we have become dumber when it comes to social etiquette. As we all now constantly carry a mini computer with us everywhere we go, we have in essence replaced our best friends. We push others away subconsciously as we reach for our phones during conversations. We no longer remember phone numbers because we have them all saved in our phones. We find comfort in looking down at our phones during those moments of free time we have in public places before our meetings begin. These same moments were once the perfect time to make friends, filled with interactive banter. We now prefer to stare at other people on our phones for hours on end, and often live a sedentary lifestyle instead of going out and interacting with others ourselves. 

These are just a few among many issues the advances to technology led to long ago. We have forgotten how to practice proper tech-etiquette and we have been inadvertently practicing social distancing long before it was ever required. Now is a perfect time for us to look at the society we have become and how we incurred a different kind of pandemic long before the one we currently face. With time, as the social distancing regulations begin to lift, people may possibly begin to appreciate life and connecting with others more than they did before as a result of the unique experience we have shared in together while apart.

Maybe the world needed a time-out to remember how to appreciate what it had but forgot to experience. Life is to be lived through experience, not to be used as a pastime to observe and compare oneself with others. I’ll leave you with a simple reminder: never forget to take care and love more because in a world where life is often unpredictable and ever changing, one cannot risk taking time or loved ones for granted. With that, I bid you farewell, fellow comrades, like all else, this too shall pass, now go live your best life!

Privilege in a Pandemic 

Covid-19 has impacted millions of Americans who have been out of work for weeks, thus creating a financial burden. Without a job and the certainty of knowing when one will return to work, paying rent and utilities has been a problem for many. With unemployment on the rise, relying on unemployment benefits has become a necessity for millions of people. According to the Washington Post , unemployment rose to 14.7% in April which is considered to be the worst since the Great Depression. 

Those who are not worried about the financial aspect or the thought never crossed their minds have privilege. Merriam Webster defines privilege as “a right or immunity granted as a peculiar benefit, advantage, or favor.” Privilege can have a negative connotation. What you choose to do with your privilege is what matters. Talking about privilege can bring discomfort, but the discomfort it brings can also carry the benefit of drawing awareness to one’s privilege, which can lead the person to take steps to help others. 

I am a first-generation college student who recently transferred to a four-year university. When schools began to close, and students had to leave their on-campus housing, many lost their jobs.I was able to stay on campus because I live in an apartment. I am fortunate to still have a job, although the hours are minimal. My parents help pay for school expenses, including housing, tuition, and food. I do not have to worry about paying rent or how to pay for food because my parents are financially stable to help me. However, there are millions of college students who are not financially stable or do not have the support system I have. Here, I have the privilege and, thus, I am the one who can offer help to others. I may not have millions in funding, but volunteering for centers who need help is where I am able to help. Those who live in California can volunteer through Californians For All  or at food banks, shelter facilities, making calls to seniors, etc. 

I was not aware of my privilege during these times until I started reading more articles about how millions of people cannot afford to pay their rent, and landlords are starting to send notices of violations. Rather than feel guilty and be passive about it, I chose to put my privilege into a sense of purpose: Donating to nonprofits helping those affected by COVID-19, continuing to support local businesses, and supporting businesses who are donating profits to those affected by COVID-19.

My World is Burning 

As I write this, my friends are double checking our medical supplies and making plans to buy water and snacks to pass out at the next protest we are attending. We write down the number for the local bailout fund on our arms and pray that we’re lucky enough not to have to use it should things get ugly. We are part of a pivotal event, the kind of movement that will forever have a place in history. Yet, during this revolution, I have papers to write and grades to worry about, as I’m in the midst of finals. 

My professors have offered empty platitudes. They condemn the violence and acknowledge the stress and pain that so many of us are feeling, especially the additional weight that this carries for students of color. I appreciate their show of solidarity, but it feels meaningless when it is accompanied by requests to complete research reports and finalize presentations. Our world is on fire. Literally. On my social media feeds, I scroll through image after image of burning buildings and police cars in flames. How can I be asked to focus on school when my community is under siege? When police are continuing to murder black people, adding additional names to the ever growing list of their victims. Breonna Taylor. Ahmaud Arbery. George Floyd. David Mcatee. And, now, Rayshard Brooks. 

It already felt like the world was being asked of us when the pandemic started and classes continued. High academic expectations were maintained even when students now faced the challenges of being locked down, often trapped in small spaces with family or roommates. Now we are faced with another public health crisis in the form of police violence and once again it seems like educational faculty are turning a blind eye to the impact that this has on the students. I cannot study for exams when I am busy brushing up on my basic first-aid training, taking notes on the best techniques to stop heavy bleeding and treat chemical burns because at the end of the day, if these protests turn south, I will be entering a warzone. Even when things remain peaceful, there is an ugliness that bubbles just below the surface. When beginning the trek home, I have had armed members of the National Guard follow me and my friends. While kneeling in silence, I have watched police officers cock their weapons and laugh, pointing out targets in the crowd. I have been emailing my professors asking for extensions, trying to explain that if something is turned in late, it could be the result of me being detained or injured. I don’t want to be penalized for trying to do what I wholeheartedly believe is right. 

I have spent my life studying and will continue to study these institutions that have been so instrumental in the oppression and marginalization of black and indigenous communities. Yet, now that I have the opportunity to be on the frontlines actively fighting for the change our country so desperately needs, I feel that this study is more of a hindrance than a help to the cause. Writing papers and reading books can only take me so far and I implore that professors everywhere recognize that requesting their students split their time and energy between finals and justice is an impossible ask.

Opportunity to Serve

Since the start of the most drastic change of our lives, I have had the privilege of helping feed more than 200 different families in the Santa Ana area and even some neighboring cities. It has been an immense pleasure seeing the sheer joy and happiness of families as they come to pick up their box of food from our site, as well as a $50 gift card to Northgate, a grocery store in Santa Ana. Along with donating food and helping feed families, the team at the office, including myself, have dedicated this time to offering psychosocial and mental health check-ups for the families we serve. 

Every day I go into the office I start my day by gathering files of our families we served between the months of January, February, and March and calling them to check on how they are doing financially, mentally, and how they have been affected by COVID-19. As a side project, I have been putting together Excel spreadsheets of all these families’ struggles and finding a way to turn their situation into a success story to share with our board at PY-OCBF and to the community partners who make all of our efforts possible. One of the things that has really touched me while working with these families is how much of an impact this nonprofit organization truly has on family’s lives. I have spoken with many families who I just call to check up on and it turns into an hour call sharing about how much of a change they have seen in their child who went through our program. Further, they go on to discuss that because of our program, their children have a different perspective on the drugs they were using before and the group of friends they were hanging out with. Of course, the situation is different right now as everyone is being told to stay at home; however, there are those handful of kids who still go out without asking for permission, increasing the likelihood they might contract this disease and pass it to the rest of the family. We are working diligently to provide support for these parents and offering advice to talk to their kids in order to have a serious conversation with their kids so that they feel heard and validated. 

Although the novel Coronavirus has impacted the lives of millions of people not just on a national level, but on a global level, I feel that in my current position, it has opened doors for me that would have otherwise not presented themselves. Fortunately, I have been offered a full-time position at the Project Youth Orange County Bar Foundation post-graduation that I have committed to already. This invitation came to me because the organization received a huge grant for COVID-19 relief to offer to their staff and since I was already part-time, they thought I would be a good fit to join the team once mid-June comes around. I was very excited and pleased to be recognized for the work I have done at the office in front of all staff. I am immensely grateful for this opportunity. I will work even harder to provide for the community and to continue changing the lives of adolescents, who have steered off the path of success. I will use my time as a full-time employee to polish my resume, not forgetting that the main purpose of my moving to Irvine was to become a scholar and continue the education that my parents couldn’t attain. I will still be looking for ways to get internships with other fields within criminology. One specific interest that I have had since being an intern and a part-time employee in this organization is the work of the Orange County Coroner’s Office. I don’t exactly know what enticed me to find it appealing as many would say that it is an awful job in nature since it relates to death and seeing people in their worst state possible. However, I feel that the only way for me to truly know if I want to pursue such a career in forensic science will be to just dive into it and see where it takes me. 

I can, without a doubt, say that the Coronavirus has impacted me in a way unlike many others, and for that I am extremely grateful. As I continue working, I can also state that many people are becoming more and more hopeful as time progresses. With people now beginning to say Stage Two of this stay-at-home order is about to allow retailers and other companies to begin doing curbside delivery, many families can now see some light at the end of the tunnel.

Let’s Do Better

This time of the year is meant to be a time of celebration; however, it has been difficult to feel proud or excited for many of us when it has become a time of collective mourning and sorrow, especially for the Black community. There has been an endless amount of pain, rage, and helplessness that has been felt throughout our nation because of the growing list of Black lives we have lost to violence and brutality.

To honor the lives that we have lost, George Floyd, Tony McDade, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, Eric Garner, Oscar Grant, Michael Brown, Trayon Martin, and all of the other Black lives that have been taken away, may they Rest in Power.

Throughout my college experience, I have become more exposed to the various identities and the upbringings of others, which led to my own self-reflection on my own privileged and marginalized identities. I identify as Colombian, German, and Mexican; however navigating life as a mixed race, I have never been able to identify or have one culture more salient than the other. I am visibly white-passing and do not hold any strong ties with any of my ethnic identities, which used to bring me feelings of guilt and frustration, for I would question whether or not I could be an advocate for certain communities, and whether or not I could claim the identity of a woman of color. In the process of understanding my positionality, I began to wonder what space I belonged in, where I could speak up, and where I should take a step back for others to speak. I found myself in a constant theme of questioning what is my narrative and slowly began to realize that I could not base it off lone identities and that I have had the privilege to move through life without my identities defining who I am. Those initial feelings of guilt and confusion transformed into growth, acceptance, and empowerment.

This journey has driven me to educate myself more about the social inequalities and injustices that people face and to focus on what I can do for those around me. It has motivated me to be more culturally responsive and competent, so that I am able to best advocate for those around me. Through the various roles I have worked in, I have been able to listen to a variety of communities’ narratives and experiences, which has allowed me to extend my empathy to these communities while also pushing me to continue educating myself on how I can best serve and empower them. By immersing myself amongst different communities, I have been given the honor of hearing others’ stories and experiences, which has inspired me to commit myself to support and empower others.

I share my story of navigating through my privileged and marginalized identities in hopes that it encourages others to explore their own identities. This journey is not an easy one, and it is an ongoing learning process that will come with various mistakes. I have learned that with facing our privileges comes feelings of guilt, discomfort, and at times, complacency. It is very easy to become ignorant when we are not affected by different issues, but I challenge those who read this to embrace the discomfort. With these emotions, I have found it important to reflect on the source of discomfort and guilt, for although they are a part of the process, in taking the steps to become more aware of the systemic inequalities around us, understanding the source of discomfort can better inform us on how we perpetuate these systemic inequalities. If we choose to embrace ignorance, we refuse to acknowledge the systems that impact marginalized communities and refuse to honestly and openly hear cries for help. If we choose our own comfort over the lives of those being affected every day, we can never truly honor, serve, or support these communities.

I challenge any non-Black person, including myself, to stop remaining complacent when injustices are committed. We need to consistently recognize and acknowledge how the Black community is disproportionately affected in every injustice experienced and call out anti-Blackness in every role, community, and space we share. We need to keep ourselves and others accountable when we make mistakes or fall back into patterns of complacency or ignorance. We need to continue educating ourselves instead of relying on the emotional labor of the Black community to continuously educate us on the history of their oppressions. We need to collectively uplift and empower one another to heal and rise against injustice. We need to remember that allyship ends when action ends.

To the Black community, you are strong. You deserve to be here. The recent events are emotionally, mentally, and physically exhausting, and the need for rest to take care of your mental, physical, and emotional well-being are at an all time high. If you are able, take the time to regain your energy, feel every emotion, and remind yourself of the power you have inside of you. You are not alone.

The Virus That Makes You Forget

Following Jan. 1 of 2020 many of my classmates and I continued to like, share, and forward the same meme. The meme included any image but held the same phrase: I can see 2020. For many of us, 2020 was a beacon of hope. For the Class of 2020, this meant walking on stage in front of our families. Graduation meant becoming an adult, finding a job, or going to graduate school. No matter what we were doing in our post-grad life, we were the new rising stars ready to take on the world with a positive outlook no matter what the future held. We felt that we had a deal with the universe that we were about to be noticed for our hard work, our hardships, and our perseverance.

Then March 17 of 2020 came to pass with California Gov. Newman ordering us to stay at home, which we all did. However, little did we all know that the world we once had open to us would only be forgotten when we closed our front doors.

Life became immediately uncertain and for many of us, that meant graduation and our post-graduation plans including housing, careers, education, food, and basic standards of living were revoked! We became the forgotten — a place from which many of us had attempted to rise by attending university. The goals that we were told we could set and the plans that we were allowed to make — these were crushed before our eyes.

Eighty days before graduation, in the first several weeks of quarantine, I fell extremely ill; both unfortunately and luckily, I was isolated. All of my roommates had moved out of the student apartments leaving me with limited resources, unable to go to the stores to pick up medicine or food, and with insufficient health coverage to afford a doctor until my throat was too swollen to drink water. For nearly three weeks, I was stuck in bed, I was unable to apply to job deadlines, reach out to family, and have contact with the outside world. I was forgotten.

Forty-five days before graduation, I had clawed my way out of illness and was catching up on an honors thesis about media depictions of sexual exploitation within the American political system, when I was relayed the news that democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden was accused of sexual assault. However, when reporting this news to close friends who had been devastated and upset by similar claims against past politicians, they all were too tired and numb from the quarantine to care. Just as I had written hours before reading the initial story, history was repeating, and it was not only I who COVID-19 had forgotten, but now survivors of violence.

After this revelation, I realize the silencing factor that COVID-19 has. Not only does it have the power to terminate the voices of our older generations, but it has the power to silence and make us forget the voices of every generation. Maybe this is why social media usage has gone up, why we see people creating new social media accounts, posting more, attempting to reach out to long lost friends. We do not want to be silenced, moreover, we cannot be silenced. Silence means that we have been forgotten and being forgotten is where injustice and uncertainty occurs. By using social media, pressing like on a post, or even sending a hate message, means that someone cares and is watching what you are doing. If there is no interaction, I am stuck in the land of indifference.

This is a place that I, and many others, now reside, captured and uncertain. In 2020, my plan was to graduate Cum Laude, dean's honor list, with three honors programs, three majors, and with research and job experience that stretched over six years. I would then go into my first year of graduate school, attempting a dual Juris Doctorate. I would be spending my time experimenting with new concepts, new experiences, and new relationships. My life would then be spent giving a microphone to survivors of domestic violence and sex crimes. However, now the plan is wiped clean, instead I sit still bound to graduate in 30 days with no home to stay, no place to work, and no future education to come back to. I would say I am overly qualified, but pandemic makes me lost in a series of names and masked faces.

Welcome to My Cage: The Pandemic and PTSD

When I read the campuswide email notifying students of the World Health Organization’s declaration of the coronavirus pandemic, I was sitting on my couch practicing a research presentation I was going to give a few hours later. For a few minutes, I sat there motionless, trying to digest the meaning of the words as though they were from a language other than my own, familiar sounds strung together in way that was wholly unintelligible to me. I tried but failed to make sense of how this could affect my life. After the initial shock had worn off, I mobilized quickly, snapping into an autopilot mode of being I knew all too well. I began making mental checklists, sharing the email with my friends and family, half of my brain wondering if I should make a trip to the grocery store to stockpile supplies and the other half wondering how I was supposed take final exams in the midst of so much uncertainty. The most chilling realization was knowing I had to wait powerlessly as the fate of the world unfolded, frozen with anxiety as I figured out my place in it all.

These feelings of powerlessness and isolation are familiar bedfellows for me. Early October of 2015, shortly after beginning my first year at UCI, I was diagnosed with Post-traumatic Stress Disorder. Despite having had years of psychological treatment for my condition, including Cognitive Behavior Therapy and Eye Movement Desensitization and Retraining, the flashbacks, paranoia, and nightmares still emerge unwarranted. People have referred to the pandemic as a collective trauma. For me, the pandemic has not only been a collective trauma, it has also been the reemergence of a personal trauma. The news of the pandemic and the implications it has for daily life triggered a reemergence of symptoms that were ultimately ignited by the overwhelming sense of helplessness that lies in waiting, as I suddenly find myself navigating yet another situation beyond my control. Food security, safety, and my sense of self have all been shaken by COVID-19.

The first few weeks after UCI transitioned into remote learning and the governor issued the stay-at-home order, I hardly got any sleep. My body was cycling through hypervigilance and derealization, and my sleep was interrupted by intrusive nightmares oscillating between flashbacks and frightening snippets from current events. Any coping methods I had developed through hard-won efforts over the past few years — leaving my apartment for a change of scenery, hanging out with friends, going to the gym — were suddenly made inaccessible to me due to the stay-at-home orders, closures of non-essential businesses, and many of my friends breaking their campus leases to move back to their family homes. So for me, learning to cope during COVID-19 quarantine means learning to function with my re-emerging PTSD symptoms and without my go-to tools. I must navigate my illness in a rapidly evolving world, one where some of my internalized fears, such as running out of food and living in an unsafe world, are made progressively more external by the minute and broadcasted on every news platform; fears that I could no longer escape, being confined in the tight constraints of my studio apartment’s walls. I cannot shake the devastating effects of sacrifice that I experience as all sense of control has been stripped away from me.

However, amidst my mental anguish, I have realized something important—experiencing these same PTSD symptoms during a global pandemic feels markedly different than it did years ago. Part of it might be the passage of time and the growth in my mindset, but there is something else that feels very different. Currently, there is widespread solidarity and support for all of us facing the chaos of COVID-19, whether they are on the frontlines of the fight against the illness or they are self-isolating due to new rules, restrictions, and risks. This was in stark contrast to what it was like to have a mental disorder. The unity we all experience as a result of COVID-19 is one I could not have predicted. I am not the only student heartbroken over a cancelled graduation, I am not the only student who is struggling to adapt to remote learning, and I am not the only person in this world who has to make sacrifices.

Between observations I’ve made on social media and conversations with my friends and classmates, this time we are all enduring great pain and stress as we attempt to adapt to life’s challenges. As a Peer Assistant for an Education class, I have heard from many students of their heartache over the remote learning model, how difficult it is to study in a non-academic environment, and how unmotivated they have become this quarter. This is definitely something I can relate to; as of late, it has been exceptionally difficult to find motivation and put forth the effort for even simple activities as a lack of energy compounds the issue and hinders basic needs. However, the willingness of people to open up about their distress during the pandemic is unlike the self-imposed social isolation of many people who experience mental illness regularly. Something this pandemic has taught me is that I want to live in a world where mental illness receives more support and isn’t so taboo and controversial. Why is it that we are able to talk about our pain, stress, and mental illness now, but aren’t able to talk about it outside of a global pandemic? People should be able to talk about these hardships and ask for help, much like during these circumstances.

It has been nearly three months since the coronavirus crisis was declared a pandemic. I still have many bad days that I endure where my symptoms can be overwhelming. But somehow, during my good days — and some days, merely good moments — I can appreciate the resilience I have acquired over the years and the common ground I share with others who live through similar circumstances. For veterans of trauma and mental illness, this isn’t the first time we are experiencing pain in an extreme and disastrous way. This is, however, the first time we are experiencing it with the rest of the world. This strange new feeling of solidarity as I read and hear about the experiences of other people provides some small comfort as I fight my way out of bed each day. As we fight to survive this pandemic, I hope to hold onto this feeling of togetherness and acceptance of pain, so that it will always be okay for people to share their struggles. We don’t know what the world will look like days, months, or years from now, but I hope that we can cultivate such a culture to make life much easier for people coping with mental illness.

A Somatic Pandemonium in Quarantine

I remember hearing that our brains create the color magenta all on their own. 

When I was younger I used to run out of my third-grade class because my teacher was allergic to the mold and sometimes would vomit in the trash can. My dad used to tell me that I used to always have to have something in my hands, later translating itself into the form of a hair tie around my wrist.

Sometimes, I think about the girl who used to walk on her tippy toes. medial and lateral nerves never planted, never grounded. We were the same in this way. My ability to be firmly planted anywhere was also withered. 

Was it from all the times I panicked? Or from the time I ran away and I blistered the soles of my feet 'til they were black from the summer pavement? Emetophobia. 

I felt it in the shower, dressing itself from the crown of my head down to the soles of my feet, noting the feeling onto my white board in an attempt to solidify it’s permanence.

As I breathed in the chemical blue transpiring from the Expo marker, everything was more defined. I laid down and when I looked up at the starlet lamp I had finally felt centered. Still. No longer fleeting. The grooves in the lamps glass forming a spiral of what felt to me like an artificial landscape of transcendental sparks. 

She’s back now, magenta, though I never knew she left or even ever was. Somehow still subconsciously always known. I had been searching for her in the tremors.

I can see her now in the daphnes, the golden rays from the sun reflecting off of the bark on the trees and the red light that glowed brighter, suddenly the town around me was warmer. A melting of hues and sharpened saturation that was apparent and reminded of the smell of oranges.

I threw up all of the carrots I ate just before. The trauma that my body kept as a memory of things that may or may not go wrong and the times that I couldn't keep my legs from running. Revelations bring memories bringing anxieties from fear and panic released from my body as if to say “NO LONGER!” 

I close my eyes now and my mind's eye is, too, more vivid than ever before. My inner eyelids lit up with orange undertones no longer a solid black, neurons firing, fire. Not the kind that burns you but the kind that can light up a dull space. Like the wick of a tea-lit candle. Magenta doesn’t exist. It is perception. A construct made of light waves, blue and red.

Demolition. Reconstruction. I walk down the street into this new world wearing my new mask, somatic senses tingling and I think to myself “Houston, I think we’ve just hit equilibrium.”

How COVID-19 Changed My Senior Year

During the last two weeks of Winter quarter, I watched the emails pour in. Spring quarter would be online, facilities were closing, and everyone was recommended to return home to their families, if possible. I resolved to myself that I would not move back home; I wanted to stay in my apartment, near my boyfriend, near my friends, and in the one place I had my own space. However, as the COVID-19 pandemic worsened, things continued to change quickly. Soon I learned my roommate/best friend would be cancelling her lease and moving back up to Northern California. We had made plans for my final quarter at UCI, as I would be graduating in June while she had another year, but all of the sudden, that dream was gone. In one whirlwind of a day, we tried to cram in as much of our plans as we could before she left the next day for good. There are still so many things – like hiking, going to museums, and showing her around my hometown – we never got to cross off our list.

Then, my boyfriend decided he would also be moving home, three hours away. Most of my sorority sisters were moving home, too. I realized if I stayed at school, I would be completely alone. My mom had been encouraging me to move home anyway, but I was reluctant to return to a house I wasn’t completely comfortable in. As the pandemic became more serious, gentle encouragement quickly turned into demands. I had to cancel my lease and move home.

I moved back in with my parents at the end of Spring Break; I never got to say goodbye to most of my friends, many of whom I’ll likely never see again – as long as the virus doesn’t change things, I’m supposed to move to New York over the summer to begin a PhD program in Criminal Justice. Just like that, my time at UCI had come to a close. No lasts to savor; instead I had piles of things to regret. In place of a final quarter filled with memorable lasts, such as the senior banquet or my sorority’s senior preference night, I’m left with a laundry list of things I missed out on. I didn’t get to look around the campus one last time like I had planned; I never got to take my graduation pictures in front of the UC Irvine sign. Commencement had already been cancelled. The lights had turned off in the theatre before the movie was over. I never got to find out how the movie ended.

Transitioning to a remote learning system wasn’t too bad, but I found that some professors weren’t adjusting their courses to the difficulties many students were facing. It turned out to be difficult to stay motivated, especially for classes that are pre-recorded and don’t have any face-to-face interaction. It’s hard to make myself care; I’m in my last few weeks ever at UCI, but it feels like I’m already in summer. School isn’t real, my classes aren’t real. I still put in the effort, but I feel like I’m not getting much out of my classes.

The things I had been looking forward to this quarter are gone; there will be no Undergraduate Research Symposium, where I was supposed to present two projects. My amazing internship with the US Postal Inspection Service is over prematurely and I never got to properly say goodbye to anyone I met there. I won’t receive recognition for the various awards and honors I worked so hard to achieve.

And I’m one of the lucky ones! I feel guilty for feeling bad about my situation, when I know there are others who have it much, much worse. I am like that quintessential spoiled child, complaining while there are essential workers working tirelessly, people with health concerns constantly fearing for their safety, and people dying every day. Yet knowing that doesn't help me from feeling I was robbed of my senior experience, something I worked very hard to achieve. I know it’s not nearly as important as what many others are going through. But nevertheless, this is my situation. I was supposed to be enjoying this final quarter with my friends and preparing to move on, not be stuck at home, grappling with my mental health and hiding out in my room to get some alone time from a family I don’t always get along with. And while I know it’s more difficult out there for many others, it’s still difficult for me.

The thing that stresses me out most is the uncertainty. Uncertainty for the future – how long will this pandemic last? How many more people have to suffer before things go back to “normal” – whatever that is? How long until I can see my friends and family again? And what does this mean for my academic future? Who knows what will happen between now and then? All that’s left to do is wait and hope that everything will work out for the best.

Looking back over my last few months at UCI, I wish I knew at the time that I was experiencing my lasts; it feels like I took so much for granted. If there is one thing this has all made me realize, it’s that nothing is certain. Everything we expect, everything we take for granted – none of it is a given. Hold on to what you have while you have it, and take the time to appreciate the wonderful things in life, because you never know when it will be gone.

Physical Distancing

Thirty days have never felt so long. April has been the longest month of the year. I have been through more in these past three months than in the past three years. The COVID-19 outbreak has had a huge impact on both physical and social well-being of a lot of Americans, including me. Stress has been governing the lives of so many civilians, in particular students and workers. In addition to causing a lack of motivation in my life, quarantine has also brought a wave of anxiety.

My life changed the moment the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention and the government announced social distancing. My busy daily schedule, running from class to class and meeting to meeting, morphed into identical days, consisting of hour after hour behind a cold computer monitor. Human interaction and touch improve trust, reduce fear and increases physical well-being. Imagine the effects of removing the human touch and interaction from midst of society. Humans are profoundly social creatures. I cannot function without interacting and connecting with other people. Even daily acquaintances have an impact on me that is only noticeable once removed. As a result, the COVID-19 outbreak has had an extreme impact on me beyond direct symptoms and consequences of contracting the virus itself.

It was not until later that month, when out of sheer boredom I was scrolling through my call logs and I realized that I had called my grandmother more than ever. This made me realize that quarantine had created some positive impacts on my social interactions as well. This period of time has created an opportunity to check up on and connect with family and peers more often than we were able to. Even though we might be connecting solely through a screen, we are not missing out on being socially connected. Quarantine has taught me to value and prioritize social connection, and to recognize that we can find this type of connection not only through in-person gatherings, but also through deep heart to heart connections. Right now, my weekly Zoom meetings with my long-time friends are the most important events in my week. In fact, I have taken advantage of the opportunity to reconnect with many of my old friends and have actually had more meaningful conversations with them than before the isolation.

This situation is far from ideal. From my perspective, touch and in-person interaction is essential; however, we must overcome all difficulties that life throws at us with the best we are provided with. Therefore, perhaps we should take this time to re-align our motives by engaging in things that are of importance to us. I learned how to dig deep and find appreciation for all the small talks, gatherings, and face-to-face interactions. I have also realized that friendships are not only built on the foundation of physical presence but rather on meaningful conversations you get to have, even if they are through a cold computer monitor. My realization came from having more time on my hands and noticing the shift in conversations I was having with those around me. After all, maybe this isolation isn’t “social distancing”, but rather “physical distancing” until we meet again.

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Why the Pandemic Probably Started in a Lab, in 5 Key Points

By Alina Chan

Dr. Chan is a molecular biologist at the Broad Institute of M.I.T. and Harvard, and a co-author of “Viral: The Search for the Origin of Covid-19.”

This article has been updated to reflect news developments.

On Monday, Dr. Anthony Fauci returned to the halls of Congress and testified before the House subcommittee investigating the Covid-19 pandemic. He was questioned about several topics related to the government’s handling of Covid-19, including how the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which he directed until retiring in 2022, supported risky virus work at a Chinese institute whose research may have caused the pandemic.

For more than four years, reflexive partisan politics have derailed the search for the truth about a catastrophe that has touched us all. It has been estimated that at least 25 million people around the world have died because of Covid-19, with over a million of those deaths in the United States.

Although how the pandemic started has been hotly debated, a growing volume of evidence — gleaned from public records released under the Freedom of Information Act, digital sleuthing through online databases, scientific papers analyzing the virus and its spread, and leaks from within the U.S. government — suggests that the pandemic most likely occurred because a virus escaped from a research lab in Wuhan, China. If so, it would be the most costly accident in the history of science.

Here’s what we now know:

1 The SARS-like virus that caused the pandemic emerged in Wuhan, the city where the world’s foremost research lab for SARS-like viruses is located.

• At the Wuhan Institute of Virology, a team of scientists had been hunting for SARS-like viruses for over a decade, led by Shi Zhengli.
• Their research showed that the viruses most similar to SARS‑CoV‑2, the virus that caused the pandemic, circulate in bats that live r oughly 1,000 miles away from Wuhan. Scientists from Dr. Shi’s team traveled repeatedly to Yunnan province to collect these viruses and had expanded their search to Southeast Asia. Bats in other parts of China have not been found to carry viruses that are as closely related to SARS-CoV-2.

The closest known relatives to SARS-CoV-2 were found in southwestern China and in Laos.

Large cities

Mine in Yunnan province

Cave in Laos

South China Sea

The closest known relatives to SARS-CoV-2

were found in southwestern China and in Laos.

philippines

The closest known relatives to SARS-CoV-2 were found

in southwestern China and Laos.

Sources: Sarah Temmam et al., Nature; SimpleMaps

Note: Cities shown have a population of at least 200,000.

There are hundreds of large cities in China and Southeast Asia.

There are hundreds of large cities in China

and Southeast Asia.

The pandemic started roughly 1,000 miles away, in Wuhan, home to the world’s foremost SARS-like virus research lab.

The pandemic started roughly 1,000 miles away,

in Wuhan, home to the world’s foremost SARS-like virus research lab.

The pandemic started roughly 1,000 miles away, in Wuhan,

home to the world’s foremost SARS-like virus research lab.

• Even at hot spots where these viruses exist naturally near the cave bats of southwestern China and Southeast Asia, the scientists argued, as recently as 2019 , that bat coronavirus spillover into humans is rare .
• When the Covid-19 outbreak was detected, Dr. Shi initially wondered if the novel coronavirus had come from her laboratory , saying she had never expected such an outbreak to occur in Wuhan.
• The SARS‑CoV‑2 virus is exceptionally contagious and can jump from species to species like wildfire . Yet it left no known trace of infection at its source or anywhere along what would have been a thousand-mile journey before emerging in Wuhan.

2 The year before the outbreak, the Wuhan institute, working with U.S. partners, had proposed creating viruses with SARS‑CoV‑2’s defining feature.

• Dr. Shi’s group was fascinated by how coronaviruses jump from species to species. To find viruses, they took samples from bats and other animals , as well as from sick people living near animals carrying these viruses or associated with the wildlife trade. Much of this work was conducted in partnership with the EcoHealth Alliance, a U.S.-based scientific organization that, since 2002, has been awarded over $80 million in federal funding to research the risks of emerging infectious diseases.
• The laboratory pursued risky research that resulted in viruses becoming more infectious : Coronaviruses were grown from samples from infected animals and genetically reconstructed and recombined to create new viruses unknown in nature. These new viruses were passed through cells from bats, pigs, primates and humans and were used to infect civets and humanized mice (mice modified with human genes). In essence, this process forced these viruses to adapt to new host species, and the viruses with mutations that allowed them to thrive emerged as victors.
• By 2019, Dr. Shi’s group had published a database describing more than 22,000 collected wildlife samples. But external access was shut off in the fall of 2019, and the database was not shared with American collaborators even after the pandemic started , when such a rich virus collection would have been most useful in tracking the origin of SARS‑CoV‑2. It remains unclear whether the Wuhan institute possessed a precursor of the pandemic virus.
• In 2021, The Intercept published a leaked 2018 grant proposal for a research project named Defuse , which had been written as a collaboration between EcoHealth, the Wuhan institute and Ralph Baric at the University of North Carolina, who had been on the cutting edge of coronavirus research for years. The proposal described plans to create viruses strikingly similar to SARS‑CoV‑2.
• Coronaviruses bear their name because their surface is studded with protein spikes, like a spiky crown, which they use to enter animal cells. T he Defuse project proposed to search for and create SARS-like viruses carrying spikes with a unique feature: a furin cleavage site — the same feature that enhances SARS‑CoV‑2’s infectiousness in humans, making it capable of causing a pandemic. Defuse was never funded by the United States . However, in his testimony on Monday, Dr. Fauci explained that the Wuhan institute would not need to rely on U.S. funding to pursue research independently.

The Wuhan lab ran risky experiments to learn about how SARS-like viruses might infect humans.

1. Collect SARS-like viruses from bats and other wild animals, as well as from people exposed to them.

2. Identify high-risk viruses by screening for spike proteins that facilitate infection of human cells.

2. Identify high-risk viruses by screening for spike proteins that facilitate infection of

human cells.

In Defuse, the scientists proposed to add a furin cleavage site to the spike protein.

3. Create new coronaviruses by inserting spike proteins or other features that could make the viruses more infectious in humans.

4. Infect human cells, civets and humanized mice with the new coronaviruses, to determine how dangerous they might be.

• While it’s possible that the furin cleavage site could have evolved naturally (as seen in some distantly related coronaviruses), out of the hundreds of SARS-like viruses cataloged by scientists, SARS‑CoV‑2 is the only one known to possess a furin cleavage site in its spike. And the genetic data suggest that the virus had only recently gained the furin cleavage site before it started the pandemic.
• Ultimately, a never-before-seen SARS-like virus with a newly introduced furin cleavage site, matching the description in the Wuhan institute’s Defuse proposal, caused an outbreak in Wuhan less than two years after the proposal was drafted.
• When the Wuhan scientists published their seminal paper about Covid-19 as the pandemic roared to life in 2020, they did not mention the virus’s furin cleavage site — a feature they should have been on the lookout for, according to their own grant proposal, and a feature quickly recognized by other scientists.
• Worse still, as the pandemic raged, their American collaborators failed to publicly reveal the existence of the Defuse proposal. The president of EcoHealth, Peter Daszak, recently admitted to Congress that he doesn’t know about virus samples collected by the Wuhan institute after 2015 and never asked the lab’s scientists if they had started the work described in Defuse. In May, citing failures in EcoHealth’s monitoring of risky experiments conducted at the Wuhan lab, the Biden administration suspended all federal funding for the organization and Dr. Daszak, and initiated proceedings to bar them from receiving future grants. In his testimony on Monday, Dr. Fauci said that he supported the decision to suspend and bar EcoHealth.
• Separately, Dr. Baric described the competitive dynamic between his research group and the institute when he told Congress that the Wuhan scientists would probably not have shared their most interesting newly discovered viruses with him . Documents and email correspondence between the institute and Dr. Baric are still being withheld from the public while their release is fiercely contested in litigation.
• In the end, American partners very likely knew of only a fraction of the research done in Wuhan. According to U.S. intelligence sources, some of the institute’s virus research was classified or conducted with or on behalf of the Chinese military . In the congressional hearing on Monday, Dr. Fauci repeatedly acknowledged the lack of visibility into experiments conducted at the Wuhan institute, saying, “None of us can know everything that’s going on in China, or in Wuhan, or what have you. And that’s the reason why — I say today, and I’ve said at the T.I.,” referring to his transcribed interview with the subcommittee, “I keep an open mind as to what the origin is.”

3 The Wuhan lab pursued this type of work under low biosafety conditions that could not have contained an airborne virus as infectious as SARS‑CoV‑2.

• Labs working with live viruses generally operate at one of four biosafety levels (known in ascending order of stringency as BSL-1, 2, 3 and 4) that describe the work practices that are considered sufficiently safe depending on the characteristics of each pathogen. The Wuhan institute’s scientists worked with SARS-like viruses under inappropriately low biosafety conditions .

In the United States, virologists generally use stricter Biosafety Level 3 protocols when working with SARS-like viruses.

Biosafety cabinets prevent

viral particles from escaping.

Viral particles

Personal respirators provide

a second layer of defense against breathing in the virus.

DIRECT CONTACT

Gloves prevent skin contact.

Disposable wraparound

gowns cover much of the rest of the body.

Personal respirators provide a second layer of defense against breathing in the virus.

Disposable wraparound gowns

cover much of the rest of the body.

Note: ​​Biosafety levels are not internationally standardized, and some countries use more permissive protocols than others.

The Wuhan lab had been regularly working with SARS-like viruses under Biosafety Level 2 conditions, which could not prevent a highly infectious virus like SARS-CoV-2 from escaping.

Some work is done in the open air, and masks are not required.

Less protective equipment provides more opportunities

for contamination.

Some work is done in the open air,

and masks are not required.

Less protective equipment provides more opportunities for contamination.

• In one experiment, Dr. Shi’s group genetically engineered an unexpectedly deadly SARS-like virus (not closely related to SARS‑CoV‑2) that exhibited a 10,000-fold increase in the quantity of virus in the lungs and brains of humanized mice . Wuhan institute scientists handled these live viruses at low biosafet y levels , including BSL-2.
• Even the much more stringent containment at BSL-3 cannot fully prevent SARS‑CoV‑2 from escaping . Two years into the pandemic, the virus infected a scientist in a BSL-3 laboratory in Taiwan, which was, at the time, a zero-Covid country. The scientist had been vaccinated and was tested only after losing the sense of smell. By then, more than 100 close contacts had been exposed. Human error is a source of exposure even at the highest biosafety levels , and the risks are much greater for scientists working with infectious pathogens at low biosafety.
• An early draft of the Defuse proposal stated that the Wuhan lab would do their virus work at BSL-2 to make it “highly cost-effective.” Dr. Baric added a note to the draft highlighting the importance of using BSL-3 to contain SARS-like viruses that could infect human cells, writing that “U.S. researchers will likely freak out.” Years later, after SARS‑CoV‑2 had killed millions, Dr. Baric wrote to Dr. Daszak : “I have no doubt that they followed state determined rules and did the work under BSL-2. Yes China has the right to set their own policy. You believe this was appropriate containment if you want but don’t expect me to believe it. Moreover, don’t insult my intelligence by trying to feed me this load of BS.”
• SARS‑CoV‑2 is a stealthy virus that transmits effectively through the air, causes a range of symptoms similar to those of other common respiratory diseases and can be spread by infected people before symptoms even appear. If the virus had escaped from a BSL-2 laboratory in 2019, the leak most likely would have gone undetected until too late.
• One alarming detail — leaked to The Wall Street Journal and confirmed by current and former U.S. government officials — is that scientists on Dr. Shi’s team fell ill with Covid-like symptoms in the fall of 2019 . One of the scientists had been named in the Defuse proposal as the person in charge of virus discovery work. The scientists denied having been sick .

4 The hypothesis that Covid-19 came from an animal at the Huanan Seafood Market in Wuhan is not supported by strong evidence.

• In December 2019, Chinese investigators assumed the outbreak had started at a centrally located market frequented by thousands of visitors daily. This bias in their search for early cases meant that cases unlinked to or located far away from the market would very likely have been missed. To make things worse, the Chinese authorities blocked the reporting of early cases not linked to the market and, claiming biosafety precautions, ordered the destruction of patient samples on January 3, 2020, making it nearly impossible to see the complete picture of the earliest Covid-19 cases. Information about dozens of early cases from November and December 2019 remains inaccessible.
• A pair of papers published in Science in 2022 made the best case for SARS‑CoV‑2 having emerged naturally from human-animal contact at the Wuhan market by focusing on a map of the early cases and asserting that the virus had jumped from animals into humans twice at the market in 2019. More recently, the two papers have been countered by other virologists and scientists who convincingly demonstrate that the available market evidence does not distinguish between a human superspreader event and a natural spillover at the market.
• Furthermore, the existing genetic and early case data show that all known Covid-19 cases probably stem from a single introduction of SARS‑CoV‑2 into people, and the outbreak at the Wuhan market probably happened after the virus had already been circulating in humans.

An analysis of SARS-CoV-2’s evolutionary tree shows how the virus evolved as it started to spread through humans.

SARS-COV-2 Viruses closest

to bat coronaviruses

more mutations

Source: Lv et al., Virus Evolution (2024) , as reproduced by Jesse Bloom

The viruses that infected people linked to the market were most likely not the earliest form of the virus that started the pandemic.

• Not a single infected animal has ever been confirmed at the market or in its supply chain. Without good evidence that the pandemic started at the Huanan Seafood Market, the fact that the virus emerged in Wuhan points squarely at its unique SARS-like virus laboratory.

5 Key evidence that would be expected if the virus had emerged from the wildlife trade is still missing.

In previous outbreaks of coronaviruses, scientists were able to demonstrate natural origin by collecting multiple pieces of evidence linking infected humans to infected animals.

Infected animals

Earliest known

cases exposed to

live animals

Antibody evidence

of animals and

animal traders having

been infected

Ancestral variants

of the virus found in

Documented trade

of host animals

between the area

where bats carry

closely related viruses

and the outbreak site

Infected animals found

Earliest known cases exposed to live animals

Antibody evidence of animals and animal

traders having been infected

Ancestral variants of the virus found in animals

Documented trade of host animals

between the area where bats carry closely

related viruses and the outbreak site

For SARS-CoV-2, these same key pieces of evidence are still missing , more than four years after the virus emerged.

For SARS-CoV-2, these same key pieces of evidence are still missing ,

more than four years after the virus emerged.

• Despite the intense search trained on the animal trade and people linked to the market, investigators have not reported finding any animals infected with SARS‑CoV‑2 that had not been infected by humans. Yet, infected animal sources and other connective pieces of evidence were found for the earlier SARS and MERS outbreaks as quickly as within a few days, despite the less advanced viral forensic technologies of two decades ago.
• Even though Wuhan is the home base of virus hunters with world-leading expertise in tracking novel SARS-like viruses, investigators have either failed to collect or report key evidence that would be expected if Covid-19 emerged from the wildlife trade . For example, investigators have not determined that the earliest known cases had exposure to intermediate host animals before falling ill. No antibody evidence shows that animal traders in Wuhan are regularly exposed to SARS-like viruses, as would be expected in such situations.
• With today’s technology, scientists can detect how respiratory viruses — including SARS, MERS and the flu — circulate in animals while making repeated attempts to jump across species . Thankfully, these variants usually fail to transmit well after crossing over to a new species and tend to die off after a small number of infections. In contrast, virologists and other scientists agree that SARS‑CoV‑2 required little to no adaptation to spread rapidly in humans and other animals . The virus appears to have succeeded in causing a pandemic upon its only detected jump into humans.

The pandemic could have been caused by any of hundreds of virus species, at any of tens of thousands of wildlife markets, in any of thousands of cities, and in any year. But it was a SARS-like coronavirus with a unique furin cleavage site that emerged in Wuhan, less than two years after scientists, sometimes working under inadequate biosafety conditions, proposed collecting and creating viruses of that same design.

While several natural spillover scenarios remain plausible, and we still don’t know enough about the full extent of virus research conducted at the Wuhan institute by Dr. Shi’s team and other researchers, a laboratory accident is the most parsimonious explanation of how the pandemic began.

Given what we now know, investigators should follow their strongest leads and subpoena all exchanges between the Wuhan scientists and their international partners, including unpublished research proposals, manuscripts, data and commercial orders. In particular, exchanges from 2018 and 2019 — the critical two years before the emergence of Covid-19 — are very likely to be illuminating (and require no cooperation from the Chinese government to acquire), yet they remain beyond the public’s view more than four years after the pandemic began.

Whether the pandemic started on a lab bench or in a market stall, it is undeniable that U.S. federal funding helped to build an unprecedented collection of SARS-like viruses at the Wuhan institute, as well as contributing to research that enhanced them . Advocates and funders of the institute’s research, including Dr. Fauci, should cooperate with the investigation to help identify and close the loopholes that allowed such dangerous work to occur. The world must not continue to bear the intolerable risks of research with the potential to cause pandemics .

A successful investigation of the pandemic’s root cause would have the power to break a decades-long scientific impasse on pathogen research safety, determining how governments will spend billions of dollars to prevent future pandemics. A credible investigation would also deter future acts of negligence and deceit by demonstrating that it is indeed possible to be held accountable for causing a viral pandemic. Last but not least, people of all nations need to see their leaders — and especially, their scientists — heading the charge to find out what caused this world-shaking event. Restoring public trust in science and government leadership requires it.

A thorough investigation by the U.S. government could unearth more evidence while spurring whistleblowers to find their courage and seek their moment of opportunity. It would also show the world that U.S. leaders and scientists are not afraid of what the truth behind the pandemic may be.

More on how the pandemic may have started

Where Did the Coronavirus Come From? What We Already Know Is Troubling.

Even if the coronavirus did not emerge from a lab, the groundwork for a potential disaster had been laid for years, and learning its lessons is essential to preventing others.

By Zeynep Tufekci

Why Does Bad Science on Covid’s Origin Get Hyped?

If the raccoon dog was a smoking gun, it fired blanks.

By David Wallace-Wells

A Plea for Making Virus Research Safer

A way forward for lab safety.

By Jesse Bloom

The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips . And here’s our email: [email protected] .

Follow the New York Times Opinion section on Facebook , Instagram , TikTok , WhatsApp , X and Threads .

Alina Chan ( @ayjchan ) is a molecular biologist at the Broad Institute of M.I.T. and Harvard, and a co-author of “ Viral : The Search for the Origin of Covid-19.” She was a member of the Pathogens Project , which the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists organized to generate new thinking on responsible, high-risk pathogen research.

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How a new Utah center will help kids get mental health care

The campus is expected to open in 2025 and will feature a walk-in crisis center for children..

(Chris Samuels | The Salt Lake Tribune) From left: Rep. Steve Eliason, R-Sandy; Katy Welkie, CEO of Primary Children's Hospital; Gail Miller; and Rob Allen, CEO of Intermountain Health, unveil a rendering of a new pediatric behavioral health center planned for Taylorsville during a news conference at Primary Children’s Hospital in Salt Lake City, Monday, June 17, 2024.

Utah’s pediatric health care landscape is set to significantly change next year.

Intermountain Primary Children’s Hospital is opening a first-of-its-kind behavioral health center in Taylorsville. The $96 million campus will offer specialized mental health treatment and neurodivergent care for children of all ages, officials announced Monday.

The 90,000-square-foot facility is currently under construction and expected to open in late 2025. It will ultimately replace the current Primary Children’s Wasatch Canyons Behavioral Health Campus, located at 5770 S. 1500 West.

Here’s what Intermountain Health says the new center will be able to offer young patients:

A new walk-in crisis center

(Intermountain Health) A rendering of the planned Intermountain Primary Children’s Hospital Behavioral Health Center in Taylorsville. The center is slated to open in late 2025.

The facility’s planned walk-in crisis center will be completely new to Utah, officials said.

It will be accessible 24/7, functioning similar to a traditional emergency room but with an inpatient care team tailored to provide children with specialized treatment during mental health crises.

Suicide is a leading cause of death for Utah children, according to Intermountain Health. Last year, nearly 43% of Utah children who felt sad, hopeless or suicidal did not talk to anyone about it, a news release stated.

‘Family-centered’ care

The new facility will also be “family-centered,” officials said, allowing relatives to stay overnight with young patients and be actively involved in all stages of their inpatient and outpatient care.

Amanda Choudhary, senior director of pediatric behavioral health, said that right now, “you will often see parents in their cars, waiting for their kid’s treatment to finish.”

The new facility will include a lobby, cafe and mediation room so parents can feel liked a welcomed member of their child’s care team, officials said.

The hospital will also offer parent groups and parent therapy sessions, so they can develop tools to cope with their child’s needs and learn how to best to support them.

How much will it cost patients?

(Chris Samuels | The Salt Lake Tribune) Katy Welkie, CEO of Primary Children's Hospital, speaks about a new pediatric behavioral health center planned for Taylorsville during a news conference at Primary Children’s Hospital in Salt Lake City, Monday, June 17, 2024.

Patients at the center who do not have insurance and cannot afford treatment will qualify for charity care through Intermountain Health, said spokesperson Jess Gomez.

That is possible in part through $25 million in state funding, as well as Intermountain Health’s financial match, according to a news release.

“We’re fortunate to be able to pursue these critical behavioral health services for youth in our community right now without the costs translating to our patients,” said Katy Welkie, CEO of Intermountain Primary Children’s Hospital and vice president of Intermountain Children’s Health.

Increase in inpatient beds

The new Taylorsville facility will offer a roughly 50% increase in patient beds, allowing health care providers to take on more patients.

The Wasatch Canyons campus that it will replace was initially built in the 1980s as a mixed-use facility, officials explained. It was eventually converted to a children’s behavioral health campus, but current need has outgrown the existing facility.

More therapy options

The new center will be intentionally designed to accommodate several kinds of therapy, with an emphasis on group environments. Research indicates group therapy can make patients feel less isolated, officials said.

The facility will also accommodate children who are unable to attend school during the day during treatment without requiring overnight care.

The previous Wasatch Canyons campus was retrofitted for such outpatient care, but the new center will prioritize these services, officials explained. With more space and options, health teams will be better able to adjust care based on a patient’s evolving needs.

Specific care spaces for neurodivergent children

(Intermountain Health) A rendering of the Intermountain Primary Children’s Hospital Behavioral Health Center in Taylorsville. The center is slated to open in late 2025.

The new facility will also include a specific care center for autistic and neurodivergent children.

The space will work to limit sensory levels, creating a better environment for their care. Services there can also be individualized for patients who may be overstimulated in a group-therapy setting.

The new facility will not include specific treatment spaces for other behavioral health challenges, such as substance misuse or eating disorders. But Choudhard says that creating more “population-specific” centers such as this one is a part of Intermountain’s long-term goal.

The Taylorsville campus works toward Intermountain Primary Children’s Hospital’s greater “Primary Promise,” a campaign that aims to provide lifesaving care advancements for children. In Utah, 60% of children with behavioral disorders go without treatment, officials said.

Utah philanthropist Gail Miller and her family contributed $50 million through the Larry H. & Gail Miller Family Foundation to the “Primary Promise” campaign in 2020. Gail Miller is the namesake of the new Intermountain Primary Children’s Hospital, Larry H. & Gail Miller Family Campus under construction in Lehi.

A home base for existing crisis care teams

The new facility will also act as a home base for two existing crisis care teams: the Stabilization and Mobile Response Team, as well as Primary Children’s Assessment, Referral, and Consultation Service (ARCS).

The former responds to crisis situations at patients’ homes. It may be reached by calling 1-833-SAFE-FAM (1-833-723-3326). The team’s services are free to everyone in Utah and do not require proof of citizenship, insurance, or a social security number, officials said.

ARCS is also a free service line that can match a patient to the best possible health care options based on a child’s location, insurance and level of care required. It may be reached by calling 801-313-7711.

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More than 1.5 million foreign pilgrims arrive in Mecca for annual Hajj pilgrimage

Muslim pilgrims have been streaming into Saudi Arabia’s holy city of Mecca for the Hajj, as the annual pilgrimage returns to its monumental scale. Saudi officials say more than 1.5 million foreign pilgrims have arrived in Mecca so far. More are expected, and hundreds of thousands of Saudis and others living in Saudi Arabia will also join them when the pilgrimage officially begins on Friday. (AP video by Bassam Hatoum, Baraa Anwar and Rafiq Maqbool).

Muslim pilgrims circumambulate the Kaaba, the cubic building at the Grand Mosque, during the annual Hajj pilgrimage in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, Tuesday, June 11, 2024. (AP Photo/Rafiq Maqbool)

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Muslim pilgrims offer prayers at the Grand Mosque, during the annual Hajj pilgrimage in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, Tuesday, June 11, 2024. (AP Photo/Rafiq Maqbool)

Muslim pilgrims arrive to offer prayers at the Grand Mosque, during the annual Hajj pilgrimage in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, Tuesday, June 11, 2024. (AP Photo/Rafiq Maqbool)

Pilgrim buses line up during the annual Hajj pilgrimage in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, Tuesday, June 11, 2024. (AP Photo/Rafiq Maqbool)

MECCA, Saudi Arabia (AP) — Muslim pilgrims have been streaming into Saudi Arabia’s holy city of Mecca ahead of the start of the Hajj later this week, as the annual pilgrimage returns to its monumental scale.

Saudi officials say more than 1.5 million foreign pilgrims have arrived in the country by Tuesday, the vast majority by air, from across the world. More are expected, and hundreds of thousands of Saudis and others living in Saudi Arabia will also join them when the pilgrimage officially begins on Friday.

Saudi officials have said they expect the number of pilgrims this year to exceed those in 2023, when more than 1.8 million people performed Hajj, approaching pre-pandemic levels. In 2019, more than 2.4 million Muslims made the pilgrimage. Saudi authorities control the flow of pilgrims through quotas, allowing each country one pilgrim for every thousand Muslim citizens.

The pilgrims included 4,200 Palestinians from the occupied West Bank who arrived in Mecca earlier this month, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Awqaf and Religious Affairs. Palestinians in the Gaza Strip were not able to travel to Saudi Arabia for Hajj this year, because of the 8-month war between Israel and Hamas .

“We are praying for Palestine to be free and (for Palestinians) to liberate their land and to be like other nations, to live in peace and not always to have war,” said Ibrahim al-Hadhari, an Algerian pilgrim, as he was standing in the Grand Mosque court waiting for evening prayers.

On Tuesday, pilgrims thronged the Grand Mosque in Mecca, performing a ritual circuit walking seven times around the Kaaba, the cube-shaped structure inside the mosque that is considered Islam’s holiest site. They wore ihrams, two unstitched sheets of white cloth that resemble a shroud.

Many were seen sweating heavily from the burning sun, Others were carrying umbrellas against the sun as temperatures reached 42 degrees Celsius (107 Fahrenheit) and 45 degree Celsius (113 Fahrenheit) during the day on Tuesday and Wednesday respectively.

“I was relieved when I arrived at the Al-Masjid Al-Haram and saw the Kaaba,” said Rabeia al-Raghi, a Moroccan woman who came to Mecca for Hajj along with her husband and their daughter. “I am very happy.”

AP AUDIO: More than 1.5 million foreign pilgrims arrive in Mecca for annual Hajj pilgrimage

AP correspondent Charles de Ledesma reports vast numbers of pilgrims are streaming into Mecca.

Mohammad Abdel-Baset, an Iraqi pilgrim, said he was overjoyed to perform Hajj.

“We congratulate the great crowd and thank God for gathering us from all regions, globally and not from the Arab world only, from all the global Muslim regions (who) came to the Grand Mosque,” said Abdel-Baset, a lawyer from Baghdad.

At night, the vast marble court around the Kaaba was packed with the faithful, walking nearly shoulder to shoulder and often jostling with barricades set up by security forces to direct the giant flows of people in and around the Grand Mosque.

Shopping in Mecca flourishes during Hajj. Pilgrims were seen shopping from malls and stores in the city’s centerpiece, the monumental Makkah Royal Clock Tower which faces the Grand Mosque’s main entrance. Makkah is an alternative spelling of the city’s name.

“Trade movement is always excellent during Hajj,” said Bander Mohammed al-Juwayri, who owns a watch store a few meters from the Grand Mosque. “Hajj season strongly helps the economy.”

Pilgrims do the circumambulation, known as “Tawaf” in Arabic, upon arriving in Mecca. The large crowds circling the Kaaba will last into the Hajj’s first day.

On Friday, pilgrims will move to Mina, before heading the following day to the Mountain of Arafat for a daylong vigil. They will then head to Muzdalifah, a rocky plain area a few miles away. In Muzdalifa, pilgrims collect pebbles to be used in the symbolic stoning of pillars representing the devil back in Mina.

One of the world’s largest religious gatherings, the Hajj is one of the Five Pillars of Islam. All Muslims are required to undertake it at least once in their lives if they are physically and financially able to do so.

Those in the Hajj view the pilgrimage as an opportunity to strengthen their faith, wipe out old sins and start new.

Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.