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Essay On Covid-19: 100, 200 and 300 Words

• Updated on  
• Apr 30, 2024

COVID-19, also known as the Coronavirus, is a global pandemic that has affected people all around the world. It first emerged in a lab in Wuhan, China, in late 2019 and quickly spread to countries around the world. This virus was reportedly caused by SARS-CoV-2. Since then, it has spread rapidly to many countries, causing widespread illness and impacting our lives in numerous ways. This blog talks about the details of this virus and also drafts an essay on COVID-19 in 100, 200 and 300 words for students and professionals. 

Table of Contents

• 1 Essay On COVID-19 in English 100 Words
• 2 Essay On COVID-19 in 200 Words
• 3 Essay On COVID-19 in 300 Words
• 4 Short Essay on Covid-19

Essay On COVID-19 in English 100 Words

COVID-19, also known as the coronavirus, is a global pandemic. It started in late 2019 and has affected people all around the world. The virus spreads very quickly through someone’s sneeze and respiratory issues.

COVID-19 has had a significant impact on our lives, with lockdowns, travel restrictions, and changes in daily routines. To prevent the spread of COVID-19, we should wear masks, practice social distancing, and wash our hands frequently. 

People should follow social distancing and other safety guidelines and also learn the tricks to be safe stay healthy and work the whole challenging time. 

Also Read: National Safe Motherhood Day 2023

Essay On COVID-19 in 200 Words

COVID-19 also known as coronavirus, became a global health crisis in early 2020 and impacted mankind around the world. This virus is said to have originated in Wuhan, China in late 2019. It belongs to the coronavirus family and causes flu-like symptoms. It impacted the healthcare systems, economies and the daily lives of people all over the world. 

The most crucial aspect of COVID-19 is its highly spreadable nature. It is a communicable disease that spreads through various means such as coughs from infected persons, sneezes and communication. Due to its easy transmission leading to its outbreaks, there were many measures taken by the government from all over the world such as Lockdowns, Social Distancing, and wearing masks. 

There are many changes throughout the economic systems, and also in daily routines. Other measures such as schools opting for Online schooling, Remote work options available and restrictions on travel throughout the country and internationally. Subsequently, to cure and top its outbreak, the government started its vaccine campaigns, and other preventive measures. 

In conclusion, COVID-19 tested the patience and resilience of the mankind. This pandemic has taught people the importance of patience, effort and humbleness. 

Also Read : Essay on My Best Friend

Essay On COVID-19 in 300 Words

COVID-19, also known as the coronavirus, is a serious and contagious disease that has affected people worldwide. It was first discovered in late 2019 in Cina and then got spread in the whole world. It had a major impact on people’s life, their school, work and daily lives. 

COVID-19 is primarily transmitted from person to person through respiratory droplets produced and through sneezes, and coughs of an infected person. It can spread to thousands of people because of its highly contagious nature. To cure the widespread of this virus, there are thousands of steps taken by the people and the government. 

Wearing masks is one of the essential precautions to prevent the virus from spreading. Social distancing is another vital practice, which involves maintaining a safe distance from others to minimize close contact.

Very frequent handwashing is also very important to stop the spread of this virus. Proper hand hygiene can help remove any potential virus particles from our hands, reducing the risk of infection. 

In conclusion, the Coronavirus has changed people’s perspective on living. It has also changed people’s way of interacting and how to live. To deal with this virus, it is very important to follow the important guidelines such as masks, social distancing and techniques to wash your hands. Getting vaccinated is also very important to go back to normal life and cure this virus completely.

Also Read: Essay on Abortion in English in 650 Words

Short Essay on Covid-19

Please find below a sample of a short essay on Covid-19 for school students:

Also Read: Essay on Women’s Day in 200 and 500 words

to write an essay on COVID-19, understand your word limit and make sure to cover all the stages and symptoms of this disease. You need to highlight all the challenges and impacts of COVID-19. Do not forget to conclude your essay with positive precautionary measures.

Writing an essay on COVID-19 in 200 words requires you to cover all the challenges, impacts and precautions of this disease. You don’t need to describe all of these factors in brief, but make sure to add as many options as your word limit allows.

The full form for COVID-19 is Corona Virus Disease of 2019.

Related Reads

Hence, we hope that this blog has assisted you in comprehending with an essay on COVID-19. For more information on such interesting topics, visit our essay writing page and follow Leverage Edu.

Simran Popli

An avid writer and a creative person. With an experience of 1.5 years content writing, Simran has worked with different areas. From medical to working in a marketing agency with different clients to Ed-tech company, the journey has been diverse. Creative, vivacious and patient are the words that describe her personality.

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How to write an essay on coronavirus (COVID-19)

(Last updated: 10 November 2021)

Since 2006, Oxbridge Essays has been the UK’s leading paid essay-writing and dissertation service

We have helped 10,000s of undergraduate, Masters and PhD students to maximise their grades in essays, dissertations, model-exam answers, applications and other materials. If you would like a free chat about your project with one of our UK staff, then please just reach out on one of the methods below.

With the coronavirus pandemic affecting every aspect of our lives for the last 18 months, it is no surprise that it has become a common topic in academic assignments. Writing a COVID-19 essay can be challenging, whether you're studying biology, philosophy, or any course in between.

Your first question might be, how would an essay about a pandemic be any different from a typical academic essay? Well, the answer is that in many ways it is largely similar. The key difference, however, is that this pandemic is much more current than usual academic topics. That means that it may be difficult to rely on past research to demonstrate your argument! As a result, COVID-19 essay writing needs to balance theories of past scholars with very current data (that is constantly changing).

In this post, we are going to give you our top tips on how to write a coronavirus academic essay, so that you are able to approach your writing with confidence and produce a great piece of work.

1. Do background reading

Critical reading is an essential component for any essay, but the question is – what should you be reading for a coronavirus essay? It might seem like a silly question, but the choices that you make during the reading process may determine how well you actually do on the paper. Therefore, we recommend the following steps.

First, read (and re-read) the assignment prompt that you have been given by the instructor. If you write an excellent essay, but it is off topic, you’ll likely be marked down. Make notes on the words that explain what is being asked of you – perhaps the essay asks you to “analyse”, “describe”, “list”, or “evaluate”. Make sure that these same words actually appear in your paper.

Second, look for specific things you have been instructed to do. This might include using themes from your textbook or incorporating assigned readings. Make a note of these things and read them first. Remember to take good notes while you read.

Once you have done your course readings, the question then becomes: what types of external readings are you going to need? Typically, at this point, you are going to be left with newspapers/websites, and a few scholarly articles (books on coronavirus might not be readily available at this stage, but could still be useful!). If it is a research essay, you are likely going to need to rely on a variety of sources as you work through this assignment. This might seem different than other academic writing where you would typically focus on only peer-reviewed articles or books. With coronavirus essays, there is a need for a more diverse set of sources, including;

Newspaper articles and websites

Just like with academic articles, not all newspaper articles and/or websites are created equal. Further, there are likely to be a variety of different statistics released, as the way that countries calculate coronavirus cases, deaths, and other components of the virus are not always the same.

Try to pick sources that are reputable. This might be reports done by key governmental organisations or even the World Health Organisation. If you are reading through an article and can identify obvious areas of bias, you may need to find alternate readings for your paper.

Academic articles

You may be surprised to discover the variety of articles published so far on COVID-19 - a lot can be achieved over multiple lockdowns! The research that has been done has been fairly extensive, covering a broad range of topics. Therefore, when preparing to write your academic essay, make sure to check the literature frequently as new publications are being released all the time.

If you do a search and you cannot find anything on the coronavirus specifically, you will have to widen your search. Think about the topic more widely. Are there theories that you have learned about in your classes that you can link to academic articles? Surely the answer must be yes! Just because there is limited research on this topic does not mean that you should avoid academic articles all together. Relying solely on websites or newspapers can lead you to a biased piece of writing, which usually is not what an academic essay is all about.

2. Plan your essay

Brainstorming.

Taking the time to brainstorm out your ideas can be the first step in a super successful essay. Brainstorming does not have to take a lot of time, and can be done in about 20 minutes if you have already done some background reading on the topic.

First, figure out how many points you need to identify. Each point is likely to equate to one paragraph of your paper, so if you are writing a 1500-word essay (and you use 300 words for the introduction and conclusion) you will be left with 1200 words, which means you will need between 5-6 paragraphs (and 5-6 points).

Start with a blank piece of paper. In the middle of the paper write the question or statement that you are trying to answer. From there, draw 5 or 6 lines out from the centre. At the end of each of these lines will be a point you want to address in your essay. From here, write down any additional ideas that you have.

It might look messy, but that’s OK! This is just the first step in the process and an opportunity for you to get your ideas down on paper. From this messiness, you can easily start to form a logical and linear outline that will soon become the template for your essay.

Creating an outline

Once you have a completed brainstorm, the next step is to put your ideas into a logical format The first step in this process is usually to write out a rough draft of the argument you are attempting to make. In doing this, you are then able to see how your subsequent paragraphs are addressing this topic (and if they are not addressing the topic, now is the time to change this!).

Once you have a position/argument/thesis statement, create space for your body paragraphs, but numbering each section. Then, write a rough draft of the topic sentence that you think will fit well in that section. Once you have done this, pull up the coronavirus articles, data, and other reports that you have read. Determine where each will fit best in your paper (and exclude the ones that do not fit well). Put a citation of the document in each paragraph section (this will make it easier to construct your reference list at the end).

Once every paragraph is organised, double check to make sure they are all still on track to address your main thesis. At this point you are ready to write an excellent and well-organised COVID-19 essay!

3. Structure your paragraphs

When structuring an academic essay on COVID-19, there will be a need to balance the news, evidence from academic articles, and course theory. This adds an extra layer of complexity because there are just so many things to juggle.

One strategy that can be helpful is to structure all your paragraphs in the same way. Now, you might be thinking, how boring! In reality, it is likely that the reader will appreciate the fact that you have carefully thought out your process and how you are going to approach this essay.

How to design your essay paragraphs

• Create a topic sentence. A topic sentence is a sentence that presents the main idea for the paragraph. Usually it links back to your thesis, argument, or position.
• Start to introduce your evidence. Use the next sentence in your introduction as a bridge between the topic sentence and the evidence/data you are going to present.
• Add evidence. Take 2-4 sentences to give the reader some good information that supports your topic sentence. This can be statistics, details from an empirical study, information from a news article, or some other form of information.
• Give some critical thought. It is essential to make a connection for the reader between your evidence and your topic sentence. Tell the reader why the information you have presented is important.
• Provide a concluding sentence. Make sure you wrap up your argument or transition to the next one.

4. Write your essay

Keep it academic.

There is a lot of information available about the coronavirus, but because much of it is coming from newspaper articles, the evidence that you might use for your paper can be skewed. In order to keep your paper academic, it is best to maintain a professional and academic style.

Present statistics from reputable sources (like the World Health Organisation), rather than those that have been selected by third parties. Furthermore, if you are writing a COVID-19 essay that is about a specific region (e.g. the United Kingdom), make sure that your statistics and evidence also come from this region.

Use up-to-date sources

The information on coronavirus is constantly changing. By now, everyone has seen the exponential curve of cases reoccurring all over the world at different times. Therefore, what was true last month may not necessarily be the case now. This can be challenging when you are planning an essay, because your outline from a previous week may need to be modified.

There are a number of ways you can address this. One way is, obviously, to continue going back and refreshing the data. Another way, which can be equally useful, is to outline the scope of the problem in your paper, writing something like, “data on COVID-19 is constantly changing, but the data presented was accurate at the time of writing”.

Avoid personal bias or opinion (unless asked!)

Everybody has an opinion – this opinion can often relate to how you or your family members have been affected by the pandemic (and the government response to this). People have lost jobs, have had to avoid family/friends, or have lost someone as a result of this pandemic. Life, for many, is very different.

While all of this is extremely important, it may not necessarily be relevant for an academic essay. One of the more challenging components of this type of academic paper is to try and remove yourself from the evidence you are providing. Now… there are exceptions. If you are writing a COVID-19 reflective essay, then it is your responsibility to include your opinion; otherwise, do your best to remain objective.

Avoid personal pronouns

Along the same lines as avoiding bias, it is also a good idea to avoid personal pronouns in your academic essay (except in a reflection, of course). This means avoiding words like “I, we, our, my”. While you may agree (or disagree) with the sentiment you are presenting, try and present your information from a distanced perspective.

Proofread carefully

Finally (and this is true of any essay), make sure that you take the time to proofread your essay carefully. Is it free from spelling errors? Have you checked the grammar? Have you made sure that your references are correct and in order? Have you carefully reviewed the submission requirements of your instructor (e.g. font, margins, spacing, etc.)? If the answer is yes, it sounds as if you are finally ready to submit your essay.

Final thoughts

Writing an essay is not easy. Writing an essay on a pandemic while living in that same pandemic is even more difficult.

A good essay is appropriately structured with a clear purpose and is presented according to the recommended guidelines. Unless it is a personal reflection, it attempts to present information as if it were free from bias.

So before you start to panic about having to write an essay about a pandemic, take a breath. You can do this. Take all the same steps as you would in a conventional academic essay, but expand your search to include relevant and up-to-date information that you know will make your essay a success. Once you have done this, make sure to have your university writing centre or an academic at Oxbridge Essays check it over and make suggestions! Now, stop reading and get writing! Good luck.

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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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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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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."

Searching for a college? Get our complete rankings of Best Colleges.

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• v.45(4); 2020 Jul

A Narrative Review of COVID-19: The New Pandemic Disease

Kiana shirani, md.

1 Infectious Diseases and Tropical Medicine Research Center, Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, Isfahan, Iran

Erfan Sheikhbahaei, MD

2 Student Research Committee, School of Medicine, Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, Isfahan, Iran

Zahra Torkpour, MD

Mazyar ghadiri nejad, phd.

3 Industrial Engineering Department, Girne American University, Kyrenia, TRNC, Turkey

Bahareh Kamyab Moghadas, PhD

4 Department of Chemical Engineering, Shiraz Branch, Islamic Azad University, Shiraz, Iran

Matina Ghasemi, PhD

5 Faculty of Business and Economics, Business Department, Girne American University, Kyrenia, TRNC, Turkey

Hossein Akbari Aghdam, MD

6 Department of Orthopedic Surgery, School of Medicine, Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, Isfahan, Iran

Athena Ehsani, PhD

7 Department of Biomedical Engineering, Science and Research Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran

Saeed Saber-Samandari, PhD

8 New Technologies Research Center, Amirkabir University of Technology, Tehran, Iran

Amirsalar Khandan, PhD

9 Department of Electrical Engineering, Isfahan (Khorasgan) Branch, Islamic Azad University, Isfahan, Iran

10 0Technology Incubator Center, Isfahan (Khorasgan) Branch, Islamic Azad University, Isfahan, Iran

Nearly every 100 years, humans collectively face a pandemic crisis. After the Spanish flu, now the world is in the grip of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). First detected in 2019 in the Chinese city of Wuhan, COVID-19 causes severe acute respiratory distress syndrome. Despite the initial evidence indicating a zoonotic origin, the contagion is now known to primarily spread from person to person through respiratory droplets. The precautionary measures recommended by the scientific community to halt the fast transmission of the disease failed to prevent this contagious disease from becoming a pandemic for a whole host of reasons. After an incubation period of about two days to two weeks, a spectrum of clinical manifestations can be seen in individuals afflicted by COVID-19: from an asymptomatic condition that can spread the virus in the environment, to a mild/moderate disease with cold/flu-like symptoms, to deteriorated conditions that need hospitalization and intensive care unit management, and then a fatal respiratory distress syndrome that becomes refractory to oxygenation. Several diagnostic modalities have been advocated and evaluated; however, in some cases, diagnosis is made on the clinical picture in order not to lose time. A consensus on what constitutes special treatment for COVID-19 has yet to emerge. Alongside conservative and supportive care, some potential drugs have been recommended and a considerable number of investigations are ongoing in this regard

What’s Known

• Substantial numbers of articles on COVID-19 have been published, yet there is controversy among clinicians and confusion among the general population in this regard. Furthermore, it is unreasonable to expect physicians to read all the available literature on this subject.

What’s New

• This article reviews high-quality articles on COVID-19 and effectively summarizes them for healthcare providers and the general population.

Introduction

A pathogen from a human-animal virus family, the coronavirus (CoV), which was identified as the main cause of respiratory tract infections, evolved to a novel and wild kind in Wuhan, a city in Hubei Province of China, and spread throughout the world, such that it created a pandemic crisis according to the World Health Organization (WHO). CoV is a large family of viruses that were first discovered in 1960. These viruses cause such diseases as common colds in humans and animals. Sometimes they attack the respiratory system, and sometimes their signs appear in the gastrointestinal tract. There have been different types of human CoV including CoV-229E, CoV-OC43, CoV-NL63, and CoV-HKU1, with the latter two having been discovered in 2004 and 2005, respectively. These types of CoV regularly cause respiratory infections in children and adults. 1 There are also other types of these viruses that are associated with more severe symptoms. The new CoV, scientifically known as “SARS-CoV-2”, causes severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS). 2 A newer type of the virus was discovered in September 2012 in a 60-year-old man in Saudi Arabia who died of the disease; the man had traveled to Dubai a few days earlier. The second case was a 49-year-old man in Qatar who also passed away. The discovery was first confirmed at the Health Protection Agency’s Laboratory in Colindale, London. The outbreak of this CoV is known as the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), commonly referred to as “MERS-CoV”. The virus has infected 2260 people and has killed 912, most of them in the Middle East. 3 - 5 Finally, in December 2019, for the first time in Wuhan, in Hubei Province of China, a new type of CoV was identified that caused pneumonia in humans. 6 SARS-CoV-2 has affected 5404512 people and killed more than 343514 around the world according to the WHO situation report-127 (May 26, 2020). 3 , 7 - 10 The WHO has officially termed the disease “COVID-19”, which refers to corona, the virus, the disease, the year 2019, and its etiology (SARS-CoV-2). This type of CoV had never been seen in humans before. The initial estimates showed a mortality rate ranging from between 1% and 3% in most countries to 5% in the worst-hit areas ( Figure 1 ). 9 Some Chinese researchers succeeded in determining how SARS-CoV-2 affects human cells, which could help to develop techniques of viral detection and had antiviral therapy potential. Via a process termed “cryogenic electron microscopy (cryo-EM)”, these scientists discovered that CoV enters human cells utilizing a kind of cell membrane glycoprotein: angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2). Then, the S protein is split into two sub-units: S1 and S2. S1 keeps a receptor-binding domain (RBD); accordingly, SARS-CoV-2 can bind to the peptidase domain of ACE2 directly. It appears that S2 subsequently plays a role in cellular fusion. Chinese researchers used the cryo-EM technique to provide ACE2 when it is linked to an amino acid transporter called “B0AT1”. They also discovered how to connect SARS-CoV-2 to ACE2-B0AT1, which is another complex structure. Given that none of these molecular structures was previously known, the researchers hoped that these studies would lead to the development of an antiviral or vaccine that would help to prevent CoV. Along the way, scientists found that ACE2 has to undergo a molecular process in which it binds to another molecule to be activated. The resulting molecule can bind two SARS-CoV-2 protein molecules simultaneously. The scientists also studied different SARS-CoV-2 RBD binding methods compared with other SARS-CoV-RBDs, which showed how subtle changes in the molecular binding sequence make the coronal structure of the virus stronger.

Most cases with SARS-CoV-2 are asymptomatic or have mild clinical pictures such as influenza and colds. This group of patients should be detected and isolated in their homes to break the transmission chain of the disease and adhere to the precautionary recommendations in order not to infect other people. The screening process will help this group and suppress the outbreak in the community. Patients with the confirmed disease who are admitted to hospitals can contaminate this environment, which should be borne in mind by healthcare providers and policymakers.

Transmission

While the first mode of the transmission of COVID-19 to humans is still unknown, a seafood market where live animals were sold was identified as a potential source at the beginning of the outbreak in the epidemiologic investigations that found some infected patients who had visited or worked in that place. The other viruses in this family, namely MERS and SARS, were both confirmed to be zoonotic viruses. Afterward, the person-to-person spread was established as the main mode of transmission and the reason for the progression of the outbreak. 11 Similar to the influenza virus, SARS-CoV-2 spreads through the population via respiratory droplets. When an infected person coughs, sneezes, or talks, the respiratory secretions, which contain the virus, enter the environment as droplets. These droplets can reach the mucous membranes of individuals directly or indirectly when they touch an infected surface or any other source; the virus, thereafter, finds its ways to the eyes, nose, or mouth as the first incubation places. 11 - 15 It has been reported that droplets cannot travel more than two meters in the air, nor can they remain in the air owing to their high density. Nonetheless, given the other hitherto unknown modes of transmission, routine airborne transmission precautions should be considered in high-risk countries and during high-risk procedures such as manual ventilation with bags and masks, endotracheal intubation, open endotracheal suctioning, bronchoscopy, cardiopulmonary resuscitation, sputum induction, lung surgery, nebulizer therapy, noninvasive positive pressure ventilation (eg, bilevel positive airway pressure and continuous positive airway pressure ), and lung autopsy. In the early stages of the disease, the chances of the spread of the virus to other persons are high because the viral load in the body may be high despite the absence of any symptoms ( Figure 2 ). 11 - 13 The person-to-person transmission rates can be different depending on the location and the infection control intervention; still, according to the latest reports, the secondary COVID-19 infection rate ranges from 1% to 5%. 13 - 23 Although the RNA of the virus has been detected in blood and stool, fecal-oral and blood-borne transmissions are not regarded as significant modes of transmission yet. 19 - 26 There have been no reports of mother-to-fetus transmission in pregnant women. 27

SARS-CoV-2 mode of transmission and clinical manifestations are illustrated in this figure. The potential source of this outbreak was identified to be from animals, similar to MERS and SARS, in epidemiologic studies; nonetheless, person-to-person transmission through droplets is currently the important mode. After reaching mucous membranes by direct or indirect close contact, the virus replicates in the cells and the immune system attacks the body due to its nature. Afterward, the clinical pictures appear, which are much more similar to influenza. However, different patients will have a spectrum of signs and symptoms.

Source Investigation

Recently, the appearance of SARS-CoV-2 in society shocked the healthcare system. 28 - 32 Veterinary corona virologists reported that COVID-19 was isolated from wildlife. Several studies have shown that bats are receptors of the CoV new version in 2019 with variants and changes in the environment featuring various biological characteristics. 33 - 36 The aforementioned mammals are a major source of CoV, which causes mild-to-severe respiratory illness and can even be deadly. In recent years, the virus has killed several thousands of people of all ages. 37 - 39 The mutated alternative of the virus can be transmitted to humans and cause acute respiratory distress. 40 , 41 One of the main causes of the spread of the virus is the exotic and unusual Chinese food in Wuhan: CoV is a direct result of the Chinese food cycle. The virus is found in the body of animals such as bats, 42 and snake or bat soup is a favorite Chinese food. Therefore, this sequence is replicated continuously. Almost everyone who was infected for the first time was directly in the local Wuhan market or had indirectly tried snake or bat soup in a Chinese restaurant. An investigation stated that the Malayan pangolin (Manis javanica) was a possible host for SARS-CoV-2 and recommended that it be removed from the wet market to prevent zoonotic transmissions in the future. 43 , 44

Pathogenesis

The important mechanisms of the severe pathogenesis of SARS-CoV-2 are not fully understood. Extensive lung injury in SARS-CoV-2 has been related to increased virus titers; monocyte, macrophage, and neutrophil infiltrations into the lungs; and elevated levels of pro-inflammatory cytokines and chemokines. Thus, the clinical exacerbation of SARS-CoV-2 infection may be in consequence of a combination of direct virus-induced cytopathic and immunopathological effects due to excessive cytokinesis. Changes in the cytokine/chemokine profile during SARS infection showed increased levels of circulating cytokines such as tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α), C–X–C motif chemokine 10 (CXCL10), interleukin (IL)-6, and IL-8 levels, in conjunction with elevated levels of serum pro-inflammatory cytokines such as IL-1, IL-6, IL-12, interferon-gamma (IFN-γ), and transforming growth factor-β (TGF-β). Nevertheless, constant stimulation by the virus creates a cytokine storm that has been related to acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) and multiple organ dysfunction syndromes (MODS) in patients with COVID-19, which may ultimately lead to diminished immunity by lowering the number of CD4+ and CD8+ T cells and natural killer cells (crucial in antiviral immunity) and decreasing cytokine production and functional ability (exhaustion). It has been shown that IL-10, an inhibitory cytokine, is a major player and a potential target for therapeutic aims. 45 - 51 Severe cases of COVID-19 have respiratory distress and failure, which has been linked to the altered metabolism of heme by SARS-CoV-2. Some virus proteins can dissociate iron from porphyrins by attacking the 1-β chain of hemoglobin, which decreases the oxygen-transferring ability of hemoglobin. Research has also indicated that chloroquine and favipiravir might inhibit this process. 52

Clinical Manifestations

SARS-CoV-2, which attacks the respiratory system, has a spectrum of manifestations; nonetheless, it has three main primary symptoms after an incubation period of about two days to two weeks: fever and its associated symptoms such as malaise/fatigue/weakness; cough, which is nonproductive in most of the cases but can be productive indeed; and shortness of breath (dyspnea) due to low blood oxygenation. Although these symptoms appear in the body of the affected person over two to 14 days, patients may refer to the clinic with gastrointestinal symptoms (nausea/vomiting-diarrhea) or decreased sense of smell and/or taste. More devastatingly, however, patients may refer to the emergency room with such coagulopathies as pulmonary thromboembolism, cerebral venous thrombosis, and other related manifestations. The WHO has stated that dry throat and dry cough are other symptoms detected in the early stages of the infection. 53 , 54 The estimations of the severity of the disease are as follows: mild (no or mild pneumonia) in 81%, severe (eg, with dyspnea, hypoxia, or >50% lung involvement on imaging within 24 to 48 hours) in 14%, and critical (eg, with respiratory failure, shock, or multiorgan dysfunction) in 5%. In the early stages, the overall mortality rate was 2.3% and no deaths were observed in non-severe patients. Patients with advanced age or underlying medical comorbidities have more mortality and morbidity. 55 Although adults of middle age and older are most commonly affected by SARS-CoV-2, individuals at any age can be infected. A few studies have reported symptomatic infection in children; still, when it occurs, it has mild symptoms. The vast majority of cases have the infection with no signs and symptoms or mild clinical pictures; they are called “the asymptomatic group”. These patients do not seek medical care and if they come into close contact with others, they can spread the virus. Therefore, quarantine in their home is the best option for the population to break the transmission of the virus. It should be considered that some of these asymptomatic patients have clinical signs such as chest computed tomography scan (CT-Scan) infiltrations. Similar to bacterial pneumonia, lower respiratory signs and symptoms are the most frequent manifestations in serious cases of COVID-19, characterized by fever, cough, dyspnea, and bilateral infiltrates on chest imaging. In a study describing pneumonia in Wuhan, the most common clinical signs and symptoms at the onset of the illness were fever in 99% (although fever might not be a universal finding), fatigue in 70%, dry cough in 59%, anorexia in 40%, myalgia in 35%, dyspnea in 31%, and sputum production in 27%. Headache, sore throat, and rhinorrhea are less common, and gastrointestinal symptoms (eg, nausea and diarrhea) are relatively rare. 7 , 42 , 43 , 45 - 48 , 56 , 57 According to our clinical experience in Iran, anosmia, atypical chest pain, diarrhea, nausea/vomiting, and hemoptysis are other presenting symptoms in the clinic. It should be noted that COVID-19 has some unexplained potential complications such as secondary bacterial infections, myocarditis, central nervous system injury, cerebral edema, MODS, acute demyelinating encephalomyelitis (ADEM), kidney injury, liver injury, new-onset seizure, coagulopathy, and arrhythmias.

Laboratory data : Complete blood counts, which constitute a routine laboratory test, have shown different results in terms of the white blood cell count: from leukopenia and lymphopenia to leukocytosis, although lymphopenia appears to be the most common. Fatal cases have exhibited severe lymphopenia accompanied by an increased level of D-dimer. Liver function enzymes can be increased; however, it is not sufficient to diagnose a disease. The serum procalcitonin level is a marker of infection, especially in bacterial diseases. Patients with COVID-19 who require intensive care unit (ICU) management may have elevated procalcitonin. Increased urea and creatinine, creatinine-phosphokinase, lactate dehydrogenase, and C-reactive protein are other findings in some cases. 7 , 56 , 57

Imaging studies : Routine chest X-ray (CXR) is widely deemed the first-step management to evaluate any respiratory involvement. Although negative findings in CXR do not rule out the viral disease, patients without common findings do not have severe disease and can, consequently, be managed in the outpatient setting. 58 , 59 Another modality is chest CT-Scan. It can be ordered in suspected cases with typical symptoms at the first step, or it can be performed after the detection of any abnormalities in CXR. The most common demonstrations in CT-Scan images are ground-glass opacification, round opacities, and crazy paving with or without bilateral consolidative abnormalities (multilobar involvement) in contrast to most cases of bacterial pneumonia, which have locally limited involvement. Pleural thickening, pleural effusion, and lymphadenopathy are less common. 58 - 61 Tree-in-bud, peribronchial distribution, nodules, and cavity are not in favor of common COVID-19 findings. Although reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) is used to confirm the diagnosis, it is a time-consuming procedure and has high false-negative/false-positive findings; hence, in the emergency clinical setting, CT-Scan findings can be a good approach to make the diagnosis. It is deserving of note, however, that false-positive/false-negative cases were reported by one study to be high and other differential diagnoses should be in mind in order not to miss any other cases such as acute pulmonary edema in patients with heart disease.

Suspected cases should be diagnosed as soon as possible to isolate and control the infection immediately. COVID-19 should be considered in any patient with fever and/or lower respiratory tract symptoms with any of the following risk factors in the previous 2 weeks: close contact with confirmed or suspected cases in any environment, especially at work in healthcare places without sufficient protective equipment or long-time standing in those places, and living in or traveling from well-known places where the disease is an epidemic. 61 - 66 Patients with severe lower respiratory tract disease without alternative etiologies and a clear history of exposure should be considered having COVID-19 unless confirmed otherwise. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), sending tests to check SARS-CoV-2 in suspected cases is based on physicians’ clinical judgment. Although there are some positive cases without clinical manifestations (ie, fever and/or symptoms of acute respiratory illness such as cough and dyspnea), infectious disease and control centers should take action in society to limit the exposure of such patients to other healthy individuals. The CDC prioritizes the use of the specific test for hospitalized patients, symptomatic patients who are at risk of fatal conditions (eg, age ≥65 y, chronic medical conditions, and immunocompromising conditions) and those who have exposure risks (recent travel, contact with patients with COVID-19, and healthcare workers). 61 - 66 Although treatment should be started after the confirmation of the disease, RT-PCR for highly suspected cases is a time-consuming test; accordingly, a considerable number of clinicians favor the use of a combination of clinical manifestations with imaging modalities (eg, CT-Scan findings) and their clinical judgment regarding the probability of the disease in order not to lose more time. 61 - 66

Treatment of COVID-19

There is no confirmed recommended treatment or vaccine for SARS-CoV-2; prevention is, therefore, better than treatment. Nevertheless, the high contagiousness of COVID-19, combined with the fact that some individuals fail to adhere to precautionary measures or they have significant risk factors, means that this infectious disease is inevitable in some people. Beside supportive treatments, many types of medications have been introduced. These medications come from previous experimental studies on SARS, MERS, influenza, or human immunodeficiency virus (HIV); hence, their efficacy needs further experimental and clinical approval. Patients with mild symptoms who do not have significant risk factors should be managed in their home like a self-made quarantine (in an isolated room); still, prompt hospital admission is required if patients exhibit signs of disease deterioration. 25 , 67 , 68 Isolation from other family members is an important prevention tip. Patients should wear face masks, eat healthy and warm foods similar to when struggling with influenza or colds, do the handwashing process, dispose of the contaminated materials cautiously, and disinfect suspicious surfaces with standard disinfectants. 69 Patients with severe symptoms or admission criteria should be hospitalized with other patients who have the same disease in an isolated department. When the disease is progressed, ICU care is mandatory. 25 , 67 , 68 SARS-CoV-2 attacks the respiratory system, diminishing the oxygenation process and forcing patients with low blood oxygen saturation to take extra oxygen from different modalities. Nasal cannulae, face masks with or without a reservoir, intubation in severe cases, and then extracorporeal membrane oxygenation in refractory hypoxia have been used; however, the safety and efficacy of these measures should be evaluated. As was mentioned above, impaired coagulation is one of the major complications of the disease; consequently, alongside all recommended supportive care and drugs, anticoagulants such as heparin should be administered prophylactically ( Table 1 ). Although it is said that all the clinical signs and symptoms of COVID-19 are induced by the immune system, as other research on influenza and MERS has revealed, glucocorticoids are not recommended in COVID-19 pneumonia unless other indications are present (eg, exacerbation of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and refractory septic shock) due to the high risk of mortality and delayed viral clearance. Earlier in the national and international guidelines, nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs such as naproxen were recommended on the strength of their antipyretic and anti-inflammatory components; however, the guideline has been revised recently and acetaminophen with or without codeine is currently the favored drug in patients with COVID-19. 25 , 67 , 68 According to the pathogenesis of the disease, whereby cytokine storm and immune-cell exhaustion can be seen in severe cases, selective antibodies against harmful interleukins such as IL-6 and IL-10 or other possible agents can be therapeutic for fatal complications. Tocilizumab, an IL-6 inhibitor, albeit with limited clinical efficacy, has been introduced in China’s National Health Commission treatment guideline for severe infection with profound pulmonary involvement (ie, white lung). 70 , 87

Summary of possible anti-COVID-19 drugs

mg, Milligrams; BD, Every 12 hours; RdRP, RNA-dependent RNA polymerase; TDS, Every 8 hours; IV, Intravenous; IL, Interleukin; μg, Micrograms

RNA synthesis inhibitors (eg, tenofovir disoproxil fumarate and 2’-deoxy-3’-thiacytidine [3TC]), neuraminidase inhibitors (NAIs), nucleoside analogs, lopinavir/ritonavir, atazanavir, remdesivir, favipiravir, INF-β, and Chinese traditional medicine (eg, Shufeng Jiedu and Lianhuaqingwen capsules) are the major candidates for COVID-19. 26 , 70 , 85 , 88 - 96 Antiviral drugs have been investigated for various diseases, but their efficacy in the treatment of COVID-19 is under investigation and several randomized clinical trials are ongoing to release a consensus result on the treatment of this infectious disease. Moderate-to-severe SARS-CoV-2 disease needs drug therapy. Favipiravir, a previously validated drug for influenza, is a drug that has shown promising results for COVID-19 in experimental and clinical studies, but it is under further evaluation. 70 , 79 , 80 Remdesivir, which was developed for Ebola, is an antiviral drug that is under evaluation for moderate-to-severe COVID-19 owing to its promising results in in vitro investigations. 70 , 73 - 75 , 81 Remdesivir was shown to have reduced the virus titer in infected mice with MERS-CoV and improved lung tissue damage with more efficiency compared with a group treated with lopinavir/ritonavir/INF-β. 67 , 70 Another investigation studied the potential efficacy of INF-β-1 in the early stages of COVID-19 as a potential antiviral drug. 86 Although there is some hope, an evidence-based consensus requires further clinical trials. 70 , 77 A combined protease inhibitor, lopinavir/ritonavir, is used for HIV infection and has shown interesting results for SARS and MERS in in vitro studies. 73 - 75 The clinical effectiveness of lopinavir/ritonavir for SARS-CoV-2 was also reported in a case report. 70 , 71 , 74 , 76 Atazanavir, another protease inhibitor, with or without ritonavir is another possible anti-COVID-19 treatment. 77 , 78 NAIs, including oseltamivir, zanamivir, and peramivir, are recommended as antiviral treatment in influenza. 68 Oral oseltamivir was tried for COVID-19 in China and was first recommended in the Iranian guideline for COVID-19 treatment; nevertheless, because of the absence of strong evidence indicating its efficacy for SARS-CoV-2, it was eliminated from the subsequent updates of the guideline. 85 RNA-dependent RNA polymerase inhibitors with anti-hepatitis C effects such as ribavirin have shown satisfactory results against SARS-CoV-2 RNA polymerase; however, they have limited clinical approval. 82 - 84 The well-known drugs for rheumatoid arthritis, systemic lupus erythematosus, and an antimalarial drug, chloroquine 71 and hydroxychloroquine 21 are other potential drugs for moderate-to-severe COVID-19 but with limited or no clinical appraisal. Hydroxychloroquine has exhibited better safety and fewer side effects than chloroquine, which makes it the preferred choice. 70 Furthermore, the immunomodulatory effects of hydroxychloroquine can be used to control the cytokine precipitation in the late phases of SARS-CoV-2 infections. There are numerous mechanisms for the antiviral activity of hydroxychloroquine. A weak base drug, hydroxychloroquine concentrates on such intracellular sections as endosomes and lysosomes, thereby halting viral replication in the phase of fusion and uncoating. Additionally, this immunosuppressive and antiparasitic drug is capable of altering the glycosylation of ACE2 and inhibiting both S-protein binding and phagocytosis. 72 A recent multicenter study showed that regarding the risks of cardiovascular adverse effects and mortality rates, hydroxychloroquine or chloroquine with or without a macrolide (eg, azithromycin) was not beneficial for hospitalized patients, although further research is needed to end such controversies. 97

Disease Duration

It is not easy to quarantine the patients who have fully recovered because there is evidence that they are highly infectious. 81 The recovery time for confirmed cases based on the National Health Commission reports of China’s government was estimated to range between 18 and 22 days. 73 As indicated by the WHO, the healing time seems to be around two weeks for moderate infections and 3 to 6 weeks for the severe/ serious disease. 75 Pan Feng and others studied 21 confirmed cases with COVID-19 pneumonia with about 82 CT-Scan images with a mean interval of four days. Lung abnormalities on chest CT showed the highest severity approximately 10 days after the initial onset of symptoms. All patients became clear after 11 to 26 days of hospitalization. From day zero to day 26, four stages of lung CT were defined as follows: Stage 1 (first 4 days): ground-glass opacities; Stage 2 (second 4 days): crazy-paving patterns; Stage 3 (days 9–13): maximum total CT scores in the consolidations; and Stage 4 (≥14 d): steady improvements in the consolidations with a reduction in the total CT score without any crazy-paving pattern. 74 Nevertheless, there are also rare cases reported from some studies that show the recurrence of COVID-19 after negative preliminary RT-PCR results. For example, Lan and othersstudied one hospitalized and three home-quarantined patients with COVID-19 and evaluated them with RT-PCR tests of the nucleic acid. All the patients with positive RT-PCR test results had CT imaging with ground-glass opacification or mixed ground-glass opacification and consolidation with mild-to-moderate disease. After antiviral treatments, all four patients had two consecutive negative RT-PCR test results within 12 to 32 days. Five to 13 days after hospital discharge or the discontinuation of the quarantine, RT-PCR tests were repeated, and all were positive. An additional RT-PCR test was performed using a kit from a different manufacturer, and the results were also positive. Their findings propose that a minimum percentage of recovered patients may still be infection carriers. 76

Supplements for COVID-19

Since the appearance of SARS-CoV-2 in Wuhan, China, there have been reports of the unreliable and unpredictable use of mysterious therapies. Some recommendations such as the use of certain herbs and extracts including oregano oil, mulberry leaf, garlic, and black sesame may be safe as long as people do not utilize their hands for instance. 98 According to data released by the CDC, vitamin C (VitC) supplements can decrease the risk of colds in people besides preventing CoV from spreading. The aforementioned organization states that frequent consumption of VitC supplements can also decrease the duration of the cold; however, if used only after the cold has risen, its consumption does not influence the disease course. VitC also plays an important role in the body. One of the main reasons for taking VitC is to strengthen the immune system because this vitamin plays a significant part in the immune system. Firstly, VitC can increase the production of white blood cells (lymphocytes and phagocytes) in the bone marrow, which can support and protect the body against infections. Secondly, VitC helps immune cells to function better while preserving white blood cells from damaging molecules such as free oxidative radicals and ions. Thirdly, VitC is an essential part of the skin’s immune system. This vitamin is actively transported to the skin surface, where it serves as an antioxidant and helps to strengthen the skin barrier by optimizing the collagen synthesis process. Patients with pneumonia have lower levels of VitC and have been revealed to have a longer recovery time. 69 , 99 In a randomized investigation, 200 mg/d of VitC was applied to older patients and resulted in improvements in the respiratory symptoms. Another investigation reported 80% fewer mortalities in a controlled group of VitC takers. 73 However, for effective immune system improvement, VitC should be consumed alongside adequate doses of several other supplements. Although VitC plays an important role in the body, often a balanced diet and the consumption of fresh fruits and vegetables can quickly fill the blanks. While taking high amounts of VitC is less risky because it is water-soluble and its waste is eliminated in the urine, it can induce diarrhea, nausea, and abdominal spasms at higher concentrations. Too much VitC may cause calcium-oxalate kidney stones. People with genetic hemochromatosis, an iron deficiency disorder, should consult a physician before taking any VitC supplements as high levels of VitC can lead to tissue damage. Some studies have evaluated the different doses of oral or intravenous VitC for patients admitted to the hospital for COVID-19. Although they used different regimens, all of them demonstrated satisfactory results regarding the resolution of the compilations of the disease, decreased mortality, and shortened lengths of stay in the ICU and/or the hospital. 100 , 101 Immunologists have also recommended 6 000 units of vitamin A (VitA) per day for two weeks, more than twice the recommended limit for VitA, which can create a poisoning environment over time. According to the guidance of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), middle-aged men and women should take 1 and 2 mg of VitA every day, respectively. The safe upper limit of this vitamin is 6000 mg or 5000 units, and overdose can have serious outcomes such as dizziness, nausea, headache, coma, and even death. Extreme consumption of VitA throughout pregnancy can lead to birth anomalies.

Similar to VitC, vitamin D (VitD) has antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and immune-modulatory effects in our body such as reducing pro-inflammatory cytokines and inhibiting viral replication according to experimental studies. 83 The VitD state of our body is checked through 25 (OH) VitD in the serum. VitD deficiency is pandemic around the world due to multifactorial reasons. It has been shown that VitD deficient patients are prone to SARS-CoV-2 and, accordingly, treating VitD deficiency is not without benefits. Grant and others recommended 10 000 units per day for two weeks and then 5 000 units per day as the maintenance dose to keep the level between 40 and 100 ng/mL. 102 VitD toxicity causes gastrointestinal discomfort (dyspepsia), congestion, hypercalcemia, confusion, positional disorders, dysrhythmia, and kidney dysfunction.

James Robb, 103 a researcher who detected CoV for the first time as a consultant pathologist with the National Cancer Institute of America, suggested the influence of zinc consumption. Oral zinc supplements can be dissolved in the nback of the throat. Short-term therapy with oral zinc can decrease the duration of viral colds in adults. Zinc intake is also associated with the faster resolution of nasal congestion, nasal drainage, sore throats, and coughs. Researchers 104 , 105 have warned that the consumption of more than 1 mg of zinc a day can lead to zinc poisoning and have side effects such as lowered immune function. Children and old people with zinc insufficiency in developing nations are extremely vulnerable to pneumonia and other viral infections. It has also been determined that zinc has a major role in the production and activation of T-cell lymphocytes. 106 , 107

And finally, for high-risk people or those who work in high-risk places such as healthcare providers, hydroxychloroquine has been mentioned to be effective as a prophylactic regimen ( Table 2 ). Although different doses have been investigated so far, Pourdowlat and others recommended 200 mg daily before exposure, and for the post-exposure scenario, a loading dose of 600-800 mg followed by a maintenance dose of 200 mg daily. 74

Possible prophylactic regimens against SARS-CoV-2 infection

IU, International unit; mg, Milligrams; kg, Kilograms; ICU, Intensive care unit; g, Grams; IV, Intravenous; Vit, Vitamin; ng, Nanograms; mL, Milliliter

COVID-19 Kits and Deep Learning

COVID-19 has threatened public health, and its fast global spread has caught the scientific community by surprise. 108 Hence, developing a technique capable of swiftly and reliably detecting the virus in patients is vital to prevent the spreading of the virus. 109 , 110 One of the ways to diagnose this new virus is through RT-PCR, a test that has previously demonstrated its efficacy in detecting such CoV infections as MERS-CoV and SARS-CoV. Consequently, increasing the availability of RT-PCR kits is a worldwide concern. The timing of the RT-PCR test and the type of strain collected are of vital importance in the diagnosis of COVID-19. One of the characteristics of this new virus is that the serum is negative in the early stage, while respiratory specimens are positive. The level of the virus at the early stage of the illness is also high, even though the infected individual experiences mild symptoms. 111 For the management of the emerging situation of COVID-19 in Wuhan, various effective diagnostic kits were urgently made available to markets. While a few different diagnostics kits are used merely for research endeavors, only a single kit developed by the Beijing Genome Institute (BGI) called “Real-Time Fluorescent PCR” has been authenticated for clinical diagnostics. Fluorescent RT-PCR is reliable and able to offer fast results probably within a few hours (usually within two hours). Besides RT-PCR, China has successfully developed a metagenomic-sequencing kit based on combinatorial probe-anchor synthesis that can identify virus-related bacteria, allowing observation and evaluation during the transmission of the virus. Furthermore, the metagenomic-sequencing kit based on combinatorial probe-anchor synthesis is far faster than the abovementioned fluorescent RT-PCR kit. Apart from China, a Singapore-based laboratory, Veredus, developed a virus detection kit (Vere-CoV) in late January. It is a portable Lab-On-Chip used to detect MERS-CoV, SARS-CoV, and SARS-CoV-2, in a single examination. This kit works based on the VereChip™ technology, the lines of code (LOC) program incorporating two different influential molecular biological functions (microarray and PCR) precisely. Several studies have focused on SARS-CoV diagnostic testing. These papers have presented investigative approaches to the identification of the virus using molecular testing (ie, RT-PCR). Researchers probed into the use of a nested PCR technique that contains a pre-amplification step or integrating the N gene as an extra subtle molecular marker to improve on the sensitivity. 112 - 115 CT-Scan is very useful for diagnosing, evaluating, and screening infections caused by COVID-19. One recommendation for scanning the disease is to take a scan every three to five days. According to researchers, most CT-Scan images from patients with COVID-19 are bilateral or peripheral ground-glass opacification, with or without stabilization. Nowadays, because of a paucity of computerized quantification tools, only qualitative reports and sometimes inaccurate analyses of contaminated areas are drawn upon in radiology reports. A categorization system based on the deep learning approach was proposed by a study to automatically measure infected parts and their volumetric ratios in the lung. The functionality of this system was evaluated by making some comparisons between the infected portions and the manually-delineated ones on the CT-Scan images of 300 patients with COVID-19. To increase the manual drawing of training samples and the non-interference in the automated results, researchers adopted a human-based approach in collaboration with radiologists so as to segment the infected region. This approach shortens the time to about four minutes after 3-time updating. The mean Dice similarity coefficient illustrated that the automatically detected infected parts were 91.6% similar to the manually detected ones, and the average of the percentage estimated error was 0.3% for the whole lung. 116 , 117

Prevention Considerations

In the healthcare setting, any individual with the manifestations of COVID-19 (eg, fever, cough, and dyspnea) should wear a face mask, have a separate waiting area, and keep the distance of at least two meters. Symptomatic patients should be asked about recent travel or close contact with a patient in the preceding two weeks to find other possible infected patients. The CDC and WHO have announced special precautions for healthcare providers in the hospital and during different procedures. Wearing tight-fitting face masks with special filters and impermeable face shields is necessary for all of them. 11 , 18 , 65 , 66 , 76 , 118 - 124 Other people should pay attention to the CDC and WHO preventive strategies, which recommend that individuals not touch their eyes, mouth, and nose before washing or disinfecting their hands; wash their hands regularly according to the standard protocol; use effective disinfection solutions (ie, containing at least 60% ethylic alcohol) for contaminated surfaces; cover their mouth when coughing and sneezing; avoid waiting or walking in crowded areas, and observe isolation protocols in their home. Postponing elective work and decreasing non-urgent visits and traveling to areas in the grip of COVID-19 may be useful to lessen the risk of exposure. If suspected individuals with mild symptoms are managed in outpatient settings, an isolated room with minimal exposure to others should be designed. Patients and their caregivers should wear tight-fitting face masks. 11 , 18 , 65 , 66 , 76 , 118 - 124 Substantial numbers of individuals with COVID-19 are asymptomatic with potential exposure; accordingly, a screening tool should be employed to evaluate these cases. In addition to passport checks, corona checks have been incorporated into the protocols in airports and other crowded places. The use of a remote thermometer to measure body temperature leads to an increase in the number of false-negative cases. It is, thus, essential that everyone pay sufficient heed to the WHO and CDC recommendations in their daily life. Traveling is not prohibited, but it should be restricted and passengers from any country should be monitored. 11 , 18 , 65 , 66 , 76 , 118 - 124

SARS-CoV-2 is the new highly contagious CoV, which was first reported in China. While it had a zoonotic origin in the beginning, it subsequently spread throughout the world by human contact. COVID-19 has a spectrum of manifestations, which is not lethal most of the time. To diagnose this condition, physicians can avail themselves of laboratory and imaging findings besides signs and symptoms. RT-PCR is the gold standard, but it lacks sufficient sensitivity and specificity. Although there are some potential drugs for COVID-19 and some vitamins or minerals for prophylaxis, the best preventive strategies are quarantine (staying at home) and the use of personal protective equipment and disinfectants.

Acknowledgement

The authors express their gratitude toward the Supporting Organizations for Foreign Iranian Students, Islamic Azad University Isfahan (Khorasgan) Branch, and Isfahan University of Medical Sciences.

Conflict of Interest: None declared.

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 .

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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.

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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.

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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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Students’ Essays on Infectious Disease Prevention, COVID-19 Published Nationwide

As part of the BIO 173: Global Change and Infectious Disease course, Professor Fred Cohan assigns students to write an essay persuading others to prevent future and mitigate present infectious diseases. If students submit their essay to a news outlet—and it’s published—Cohan awards them with extra credit.

As a result of this assignment, more than 25 students have had their work published in newspapers across the United States. Many of these essays cite and applaud the University’s Keep Wes Safe campaign and its COVID-19 testing protocols.

Cohan, professor of biology and Huffington Foundation Professor in the College of the Environment (COE), began teaching the Global Change and Infectious Disease course in 2009, when the COE was established. “I wanted very much to contribute a course to what I saw as a real game-changer in Wesleyan’s interest in the environment. The course is about all the ways that human demands on the environment have brought us infectious diseases, over past millennia and in the present, and why our environmental disturbances will continue to bring us infections into the future.”

Over the years, Cohan learned that he can sustainably teach about 170 students every year without running out of interested students. This fall, he had 207. Although he didn’t change the overall structure of his course to accommodate COVID-19 topics, he did add material on the current pandemic to various sections of the course.

“I wouldn’t say that the population of the class increased tremendously as a result of COVID-19, but I think the enthusiasm of the students for the material has increased substantially,” he said.

To accommodate online learning, Cohan shaved off 15 minutes from his normal 80-minute lectures to allow for discussion sections, led by Cohan and teaching assistants. “While the lectures mostly dealt with biology, the discussions focused on how changes in behavior and policy can solve the infectious disease problems brought by human disturbance of the environment,” he said.

Based on student responses to an introspective exam question, Cohan learned that many students enjoyed a new hope that we could each contribute to fighting infectious disease. “They discovered that the solution to infectious disease is not entirely a waiting game for the right technologies to come along,” he said. “Many enjoyed learning about fighting infectious disease from a moral and social perspective. And especially, the students enjoyed learning about the ‘socialism of the microbe,’ how preventing and curing others’ infections will prevent others’ infections from becoming our own. The students enjoyed seeing how this idea can drive both domestic and international health policies.”

A sampling of the published student essays are below:

Alexander Giummo ’22 and Mike Dunderdale’s ’23  op-ed titled “ A National Testing Proposal: Let’s Fight Back Against COVID-19 ” was published in the Journal Inquirer in Manchester, Conn.

They wrote: “With an expansive and increased testing plan for U.S. citizens, those who are COVID-positive could limit the number of contacts they have, and this would also help to enable more effective contact tracing. Testing could also allow for the return of some ‘normal’ events, such as small social gatherings, sports, and in-person class and work schedules.

“We propose a national testing strategy in line with the one that has kept Wesleyan students safe this year. The plan would require a strong push by the federal government to fund the initiative, but it is vital to successful containment of the virus.

“Twice a week, all people living in the U.S. should report to a local testing site staffed with professionals where the anterior nasal swab Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) test, used by Wesleyan and supported by the Broad Institute, would be implemented.”

Kalyani Mohan ’22 and Kalli Jackson ’22 penned an essay titled “ Where Public Health Meets Politics: COVID-19 in the United States ,” which was published in Wesleyan’s Arcadia Political Review .

They wrote: “While the U.S. would certainly benefit from a strengthened pandemic response team and structural changes to public health systems, that alone isn’t enough, as American society is immensely stratified, socially and culturally. The politicization of the COVID-19 pandemic shows that individualism, libertarianism and capitalism are deeply ingrained in American culture, to the extent that Americans often blind to the fact community welfare can be equivalent to personal welfare. Pandemics are multifaceted, and preventing them requires not just a cultural shift but an emotional one amongst the American people, one guided by empathy—towards other people, different communities and the planet. Politics should be a tool, not a weapon against its people.”

Sydnee Goyer ’21 and Marcel Thompson’s ’22  essay “ This Flu Season Will Be Decisive in the Fight Against COVID-19 ” also was published in Arcadia Political Review .

“With winter approaching all around the Northern Hemisphere, people are preparing for what has already been named a “twindemic,” meaning the joint threat of the coronavirus and the seasonal flu,” they wrote. “While it is known that seasonal vaccinations reduce the risk of getting the flu by up to 60% and also reduce the severity of the illness after the contamination, additional research has been conducted in order to know whether or not flu shots could reduce the risk of people getting COVID-19. In addition to the flu shot, it is essential that people remain vigilant in maintaining proper social distancing, washing your hands thoroughly, and continuing to wear masks in public spaces.”

An op-ed titled “ The Pandemic Has Shown Us How Workplace Culture Needs to Change ,” written by Adam Hickey ’22 and George Fuss ’21, was published in Park City, Utah’s The Park Record .

They wrote: “One review of academic surveys (most of which were conducted in the United States) conducted in 2019 found that between 35% and 97% of respondents in those surveys reported having attended work while they were ill, often because of workplace culture or policy which generated pressure to do so. Choosing to ignore sickness and return to the workplace while one is ill puts colleagues at risk, regardless of the perceived severity of your own illness; COVID-19 is an overbearing reminder that a disease that may cause mild, even cold-like symptoms for some can still carry fatal consequences for others.

“A mandatory paid sick leave policy for every worker, ideally across the globe, would allow essential workers to return to work when necessary while still providing enough wiggle room for economically impoverished employees to take time off without going broke if they believe they’ve contracted an illness so as not to infect the rest of their workplace and the public at large.”

Women’s cross country team members and classmates Jane Hollander ’23 and Sara Greene ’23 wrote a sports-themed essay titled “ This Season, High School Winter Sports Aren’t Worth the Risk ,” which was published in Tap into Scotch Plains/Fanwood , based in Scotch Plains, N.J. Their essay focused on the risks high school sports pose on student-athletes, their families, and the greater community.

“We don’t propose cutting off sports entirely— rather, we need to be realistic about the levels at which athletes should be participating. There are ways to make practices safer,” they wrote. “At [Wesleyan], we began the season in ‘cohorts,’ so the amount of people exposed to one another would be smaller. For non-contact sports, social distancing can be easily implemented, and for others, teams can focus on drills, strength and conditioning workouts, and skill-building exercises. Racing sports such as swim and track can compete virtually, comparing times with other schools, and team sports can focus their competition on intra-team scrimmages. These changes can allow for the continuation of a sense of normalcy and team camaraderie without the exposure to students from different geographic areas in confined, indoor spaces.”

Brook Guiffre ’23 and Maddie Clarke’s ’22  op-ed titled “ On the Pandemic ” was published in Hometown Weekly,  based in Medfield, Mass.

“The first case of COVID-19 in the United States was recorded on January 20th, 2020. For the next month and a half, the U.S. continued operating normally, while many other countries began their lockdown,” they wrote. “One month later, on February 29th, 2020, the federal government approved a national testing program, but it was too little too late. The U.S. was already in pandemic mode, and completely unprepared. Frontline workers lacked access to N-95 masks, infected patients struggled to get tested, and national leaders informed the public that COVID-19 was nothing more than the common flu. Ultimately, this unpreparedness led to thousands of avoidable deaths and long-term changes to daily life. With the risk of novel infectious diseases emerging in the future being high, it is imperative that the U.S. learn from its failure and better prepare for future pandemics now. By strengthening our public health response and re-establishing government organizations specialized in disease control, we have the ability to prevent more years spent masked and six feet apart.”

In addition, their other essay, “ On Mass Extinction ,” was also published by Hometown Weekly .

“The sixth mass extinction—which scientists have coined as the Holocene Extinction—is upon us. According to the United Nations, around one million plant and animal species are currently in danger of extinction, and many more within the next decade. While other extinctions have occurred in Earth’s history, none have occurred at such a rapid rate,” they wrote. “For the sake of both biodiversity and infectious diseases, it is in our best interest to stop pushing this Holocene Extinction further.”

An essay titled “ Learning from Our Mistakes: How to Protect Ourselves and Our Communities from Diseases ,” written by Nicole Veru ’21 and Zoe Darmon ’21, was published in My Hometown Bronxville, based in Bronxville, N.Y.

“We can protect ourselves and others from future infectious diseases by ensuring that we are vaccinated,” they wrote. “Vaccines have high levels of success if enough people get them. Due to vaccines, society is no longer ravaged by childhood diseases such as mumps, rubella, measles, and smallpox. We have been able to eradicate diseases through vaccines; smallpox, one of the world’s most consequential diseases, was eradicated from the world in the 1970s.

“In 2000, the U.S. was nearly free of measles, yet, due to hesitations by anti-vaxxers, there continues to be cases. From 2000–2015 there were over 18 measles outbreaks in the U.S. This is because unless a disease is completely eradicated, there will be a new generation susceptible.

“Although vaccines are not 100% effective at preventing infection, if we continue to get vaccinated, we protect ourselves and those around us. If enough people are vaccinated, societies can develop herd immunity. The amount of people vaccinated to obtain herd immunity depends on the disease, but if this fraction is obtained, the spread of disease is contained. Through herd immunity, we protect those who may not be able to get vaccinated, such as people who are immunocompromised and the tiny portion of people for whom the vaccine is not effective.”

Dhruvi Rana ’22 and Bryce Gillis ’22 co-authored an op-ed titled “ We Must Educate Those Who Remain Skeptical of the Dangers of COVID-19 ,” which was published in Rhode Island Central .

“As Rhode Island enters the winter season, temperatures are beginning to drop and many studies have demonstrated that colder weather and lower humidity are correlated with higher transmissibility of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19,” they wrote. “By simply talking or breathing, we release respiratory droplets and aerosols (tiny fluid particles which could carry the coronavirus pathogen), which can remain in the air for minutes to hours.

“In order to establish herd immunity in the US, we must educate those who remain skeptical of the dangers of COVID-19.  Whether community-driven or state-funded, educational campaigns are needed to ensure that everyone fully comprehends how severe COVID-19 is and the significance of airborne transmission. While we await a vaccine, it is necessary now more than ever that we social distance, avoid crowds, and wear masks, given that colder temperatures will likely yield increased transmission of the virus.”

Danielle Rinaldi ’21 and Verónica Matos Socorro ’21 published their op-ed titled “ Community Forum: How Mask-Wearing Demands a Cultural Reset ” in the Ewing Observer , based in Lawrence, N.J.

“In their own attempt to change personal behavior during the pandemic, Wesleyan University has mandated mask-wearing in almost every facet of campus life,” they wrote. “As members of our community, we must recognize that mask-wearing is something we are all responsible and accountable for, not only because it is a form of protection for us, but just as important for others as well. However, it seems as though both Covid fatigue and complacency are dominating the mindsets of Americans, leading to even more unwillingness to mask up. Ultimately, it is inevitable that this pandemic will not be the last in our lifespan due to global warming creating irreversible losses in biodiversity. As a result, it is imperative that we adopt the norm of mask-wearing now and undergo a culture shift of the abandonment of an individualistic mindset, and instead, create a society that prioritizes taking care of others for the benefit of all.”

Shayna Dollinger ’22 and Hayley Lipson ’21  wrote an essay titled “ My Pandemic Year in College Has Brought Pride and Purpose. ” Dollinger submitted the piece, rewritten in first person, to Jewish News of Northern California . Read more about Dollinger’s publication in this News @ Wesleyan article .

“I lay in the dead grass, a 6-by-6-foot square all to myself. I cheer for my best friend, who is on the stage constructed at the bottom of Foss hill, dancing with her Bollywood dance group. Masks cover their ordinarily smiling faces as their bodies move in sync. Looking around at friends and classmates, each in their own 6-by-6 world, I feel an overwhelming sense of normalcy.

“One of the ways in which Wesleyan has prevented outbreaks on campus is by holding safe, socially distanced events that students want to attend. By giving us places to be and things to do on the weekends, we are discouraged from breaking rules and causing outbreaks at ‘super-spreader’ events.”

An op-ed written by Luna Mac-Williams ’22 and Daëlle Coriolan ’24 titled “ Collectivist Practices to Combat COVID-19 ” was published in the Wesleyan Argus .

“We are embroiled in a global pandemic that disproportionately affects poor communities of color, and in the midst of a higher cultural consciousness of systemic inequities,” they wrote. “A cultural shift to center collectivist thought and action not only would prove helpful in disease prevention, but also belongs in conversation with the Black Lives Matter movement. Collectivist models of thinking effectively target the needs of vulnerable populations including the sick, the disenfranchised, the systematically marginalized. Collectivist systems provide care, decentering the capitalist, individualist system, and focusing on how communities can work to be self-sufficient and uplift our own neighbors.”

An essay written by Maria Noto ’21 , titled “ U.S. Individualism Has Deadly Consequences ,” is published in the Oneonta Daily Star , based in Oneonta, N.Y.

She wrote, “When analyzing the cultures of certain East Asian countries, several differences stand out. For instance, when people are sick and during the cold and flu season, many East Asian cultures, including South Korea, use mask-wearing. What is considered a threat to freedom by some Americans is a preventive action and community obligation in this example. This, along with many other cultural differences, is insightful in understanding their ability to contain the virus.

“These differences are deeply seeded in the values of a culture. However, there is hope for the U.S. and other individualistic cultures in recognizing and adopting these community-centered approaches. Our mindset needs to be revolutionized with the help of federal and local assistance: mandating masks, passing another stimulus package, contact tracing, etc… However, these measures will be unsuccessful unless everyone participates for the good of a community.”

A published op-ed by Madison Szabo ’23 , Caitlyn Ferrante ’23 ran in the Two Rivers Times . The piece is titled “ Anxiety and Aspiration: Analyzing the Politicization of the Pandemic .”

John Lee ’21 and Taylor Goodman-Leong ’21 have published their op-ed titled “ Reassessing the media’s approach to COVID-19 ” in Weekly Monday Cafe 24 (Page 2).

An essay by Eleanor Raab ’21 and Elizabeth Nefferdorf ’22 titled “ Preventing the Next Epidemic ” was published in The Almanac .

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Impact of COVID-19 on people's livelihoods, their health and our food systems

Joint statement by ilo, fao, ifad and who.

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to a dramatic loss of human life worldwide and presents an unprecedented challenge to public health, food systems and the world of work. The economic and social disruption caused by the pandemic is devastating: tens of millions of people are at risk of falling into extreme poverty, while the number of undernourished people, currently estimated at nearly 690 million, could increase by up to 132 million by the end of the year.

Millions of enterprises face an existential threat. Nearly half of the world’s 3.3 billion global workforce are at risk of losing their livelihoods. Informal economy workers are particularly vulnerable because the majority lack social protection and access to quality health care and have lost access to productive assets. Without the means to earn an income during lockdowns, many are unable to feed themselves and their families. For most, no income means no food, or, at best, less food and less nutritious food. 

The pandemic has been affecting the entire food system and has laid bare its fragility. Border closures, trade restrictions and confinement measures have been preventing farmers from accessing markets, including for buying inputs and selling their produce, and agricultural workers from harvesting crops, thus disrupting domestic and international food supply chains and reducing access to healthy, safe and diverse diets. The pandemic has decimated jobs and placed millions of livelihoods at risk. As breadwinners lose jobs, fall ill and die, the food security and nutrition of millions of women and men are under threat, with those in low-income countries, particularly the most marginalized populations, which include small-scale farmers and indigenous peoples, being hardest hit.

Millions of agricultural workers – waged and self-employed – while feeding the world, regularly face high levels of working poverty, malnutrition and poor health, and suffer from a lack of safety and labour protection as well as other types of abuse. With low and irregular incomes and a lack of social support, many of them are spurred to continue working, often in unsafe conditions, thus exposing themselves and their families to additional risks. Further, when experiencing income losses, they may resort to negative coping strategies, such as distress sale of assets, predatory loans or child labour. Migrant agricultural workers are particularly vulnerable, because they face risks in their transport, working and living conditions and struggle to access support measures put in place by governments. Guaranteeing the safety and health of all agri-food workers – from primary producers to those involved in food processing, transport and retail, including street food vendors – as well as better incomes and protection, will be critical to saving lives and protecting public health, people’s livelihoods and food security.

In the COVID-19 crisis food security, public health, and employment and labour issues, in particular workers’ health and safety, converge. Adhering to workplace safety and health practices and ensuring access to decent work and the protection of labour rights in all industries will be crucial in addressing the human dimension of the crisis. Immediate and purposeful action to save lives and livelihoods should include extending social protection towards universal health coverage and income support for those most affected. These include workers in the informal economy and in poorly protected and low-paid jobs, including youth, older workers, and migrants. Particular attention must be paid to the situation of women, who are over-represented in low-paid jobs and care roles. Different forms of support are key, including cash transfers, child allowances and healthy school meals, shelter and food relief initiatives, support for employment retention and recovery, and financial relief for businesses, including micro, small and medium-sized enterprises. In designing and implementing such measures it is essential that governments work closely with employers and workers.

Countries dealing with existing humanitarian crises or emergencies are particularly exposed to the effects of COVID-19. Responding swiftly to the pandemic, while ensuring that humanitarian and recovery assistance reaches those most in need, is critical.

Now is the time for global solidarity and support, especially with the most vulnerable in our societies, particularly in the emerging and developing world. Only together can we overcome the intertwined health and social and economic impacts of the pandemic and prevent its escalation into a protracted humanitarian and food security catastrophe, with the potential loss of already achieved development gains.

We must recognize this opportunity to build back better, as noted in the Policy Brief issued by the United Nations Secretary-General. We are committed to pooling our expertise and experience to support countries in their crisis response measures and efforts to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. We need to develop long-term sustainable strategies to address the challenges facing the health and agri-food sectors. Priority should be given to addressing underlying food security and malnutrition challenges, tackling rural poverty, in particular through more and better jobs in the rural economy, extending social protection to all, facilitating safe migration pathways and promoting the formalization of the informal economy.

We must rethink the future of our environment and tackle climate change and environmental degradation with ambition and urgency. Only then can we protect the health, livelihoods, food security and nutrition of all people, and ensure that our ‘new normal’ is a better one.

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Kimberly Chriscaden

Communications Officer World Health Organization

Nutrition and Food Safety (NFS) and COVID-19

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Writing Prompts, Lesson Plans, Graphs and Films: 150 Resources for Teaching About the Coronavirus Pandemic

This cross-curricular resource collection, including math, history, science and music, helps students process, deepen and challenge their understanding of the pandemic and its effects on our society.

By The Learning Network

Since January, The Learning Network has published over 150 resources to help students process, deepen and challenge their understanding of the pandemic and its far-reaching effects on our society.

Via our daily writing prompts, we’ve asked students to share their experiences: finding joy in the face of isolation, staying fit, and managing social distancing and online schooling. Through our daily lesson plans, we’ve encouraged students to explore topics like the science of the virus, the history of global pandemics and the effects of social class.

Our graphs have encouraged students to analyze how interventions can slow the spread of the coronavirus, and our short films have helped students consider how the crisis has contributed to growing racism and inequality — and a need for ice cream. We also have a quiz to help educate students on the basics.

While our regular daily and weekly features are on hiatus during the summer, we’ll be back in September with many more resources for the new school year. Let us know what else we might add to this collection as the world continues to battle the virus by making a comment or emailing us at [email protected].

Teaching Resource Collections

A good place to start exploring the Learning Network’s materials on the coronavirus pandemic is our three in-depth resource collections below. Each includes student-centered activities and projects as well as a wealth of links to New York Times coverage.

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Prevent COVID-19: How to Protect Yourself from the Coronavirus

Follow these simple precautions to reduce your chances of contracting covid-19..

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The COVID-19 pandemic has been a part of our daily lives since March 2020, but with about 151,000 new cases a day in the United States, it remains as important as ever to stay vigilant and know how to protect yourself from coronavirus.

According to the  Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) , “The best way to prevent illness is to avoid being exposed to this virus.” As the vaccines continue their roll out, here are the simple steps you can take to help prevent the spread of COVID-19 and protect yourself and others.

Know how it spreads

Scientists are still learning about COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, but according to the CDC, this highly contagious virus appears to be most commonly spread during close (within 6 feet) person-to-person contact through respiratory droplets.

“The means of transmission can be through respiratory droplets produced when a person coughs or sneezes, or by direct physical contact with an infected person, such as shaking hands,” says  Dr. David Goldberg , an internist and infectious disease specialist at NewYork-Presbyterian Medical Group Westchester and an assistant professor of medicine at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons.

The CDC also notes that COVID-19 can spread by airborne transmission , although this is less common than close contact with a person. “Some infections can be spread by exposure to virus in small droplets and particles that can linger in the air for minutes to hours,” the CDC states. “These viruses may be able to infect people who are further than 6 feet away from the person who is infected or after that person has left the space. These transmissions occurred within enclosed spaces that had inadequate ventilation.”

Finally, it’s possible for coronavirus to spread through contaminated surfaces, but this is also less likely. According to the CDC, “Based on data from lab studies on COVID-19 and what we know about similar respiratory diseases, it may be possible that a person can get COVID-19 by touching a surface or object that has the virus on it and then touching their own mouth, nose, or possibly their eyes, but this isn’t thought to be the main way the virus spreads.”

Practice social distancing

Since close person-to-person contact appears to be the main source of transmission, social distancing remains a key way to mitigate spread. The CDC recommends maintaining a distance of approximately 6 feet from others in public places. This distance will help you avoid direct contact with respiratory droplets produced by coughing or sneezing.

In addition, studies have found that outdoor settings with enough space to distance and good ventilation will reduce risk of exposure. “There is up to 80% less transmission of the virus happening outdoors versus indoors,” says Dr. Ashwin Vasan , an assistant attending physician in the Department of Medicine at NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia University Irving Medical Center and an assistant professor at the Mailman School of Public Health and Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons. “One  study  found that of 318 outbreaks that accounted for 1,245 confirmed cases in China, only one outbreak occurred outdoors. That’s significant. I recommend spending time with others outside. We’re not talking about going to a sporting event or a concert. We’re talking about going for a walk or going to the park, or even having a conversation at a safe distance with someone outside.”

Wash your hands

Practicing good hygiene is an important habit that helps prevent the spread of COVID-19. Make these CDC recommendations part of your routine:

• Wash your hands often with soap and water for at least 20 seconds, especially after you have been in a public place, or after blowing your nose, coughing, or sneezing.
• Before eating or preparing food
• Before touching your face
• After using the restroom
• After leaving a public place
• After blowing your nose, coughing, or sneezing
• After handling your mask
• After changing a diaper
• After caring for someone who’s sick
• After touching animals or pets
• If soap and water are not readily available, use a hand sanitizer that contains at least 60% alcohol. Cover all surfaces of your hands with the sanitizer and rub them together until they feel dry.
• Avoid touching your eyes, nose, and mouth with unwashed hands.

Visit the CDC website for guidelines on how to properly  wash your hands  and  use hand sanitizer . And see our video below on how soap kills the coronavirus. There’s plenty of  science  behind this basic habit. “Soap molecules disrupt the fatty layer or coat surrounding the virus, ” says Dr. Goldberg. “Once the viral coat is broken down, the virus is no longer able to function.”

In addition to hand-washing, disinfect frequently touched surfaces daily. This includes tables, doorknobs, light switches, countertops, handles, desks, phones, keyboards, toilets, faucets, and sinks.

Wear a mask

Face masks have become essential accessories in protecting yourself and others from contracting COVID-19. The CDC recommends that people wear face coverings in public settings, especially since studies have shown that individuals with the novel coronavirus could be asymptomatic or presymptomatic. (Face masks, however, do not replace  social distancing  recommendations.)

“Face masks are designed to provide a barrier between your airway and the outside world,” says  Dr. Ole Vielemeyer , medical director of Weill Cornell ID Associates and Travel Medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center and Weill Cornell Medicine. “By wearing a mask that covers your mouth and nose, you will reduce the risk of serving as the source of disease spread by trapping your own droplets in the mask, and also reduce the risk of getting sick via droplets that contain the coronavirus by blocking access to your own airways.”

Restrict your travel

Traveling can increase the spread of COVID-19 and put you at risk for contracting the disease. The CDC recommends avoiding non-essential travel to many international destinations  during the pandemic. It also advises people to  weigh the risks when it comes to domestic travel: “Travel increases your chance of getting and spreading COVID-19,” states the CDC. “Staying home is the best way to protect yourself and others from COVID-19.”

“For people at risk for the complications of COVID-19, such as those with underlying medical conditions or those who are older, it’s prudent to avoid travel,” says Dr. Goldberg.

If you must travel, take safety measures,  consider your mode of transportation, and stay up to date on the  restrictions that are in place at your destination. Adhering to your state’s quarantine rules after traveling will help prevent the spread of COVID-19.

Watch for symptoms

The symptoms of infection for the coronavirus are often similar to those of other respiratory virus infections, such as influenza. Symptoms can include:

• Fever or chills
• Shortness of breath or difficulty breathing
• Muscle or body aches
• New loss of taste or smell
• Sore throat
• Congestion or runny nose
• Nausea or vomiting

With the COVID-19 pandemic now coinciding with flu season, it’s important to recognize the differences in symptoms — as well as get a flu shot. “The medical community is concerned that if we have an increased number of influenza cases, it will strain the hospital system on top of what’s already going on with the COVID-19 pandemic,” says  Dr. Ting Ting Wong , an attending physician and infectious disease specialist at NewYork-Presbyterian Brooklyn Methodist Hospital.

If you think you may have been  exposed to a person with COVID-19  and have symptoms, call ahead to a doctor’s office to see if you can get tested. You can also use a virtual care platform, such as NewYork-Presbyterian’s  NYP OnDemand,  to meet with a healthcare professional by videoconference. Avoid contact with others and wear a face mask if you need to leave your home when you are sick.

How NewYork-Presbyterian is prepared

NewYork-Presbyterian continues to follow the situation closely and implement the recommendations provided by our local and state departments of health and the CDC. Our medical staff is trained to recognize patients who may have the virus and will help prevent COVID-19 from spreading.

We understand how important the support of loved ones and friends is to patients during their hospital stay. Stay up to date with NewYork-Presbyterian’s  visitor guidelines . It’s our priority to keep patients and visitors safe from infection.

For more information on the evolving situation and how to protect yourself from coronavirus, visit the  CDC  and check  NewYork-Presbyterian  for more updates.

View all of our COVID-19 outbreak articles  here .

Additional Resources

If you have concerns regarding COVID-19, please call NewYork-Presbyterian’s hotline at 646-697-4000. This hotline is available as a public service to provide information only and not diagnose, treat, or render a medical opinion.

If you are not feeling well, consider using NewYork-Presbyterian’s Virtual Urgent Care for non-life-threatening symptoms such as fever, cough, upset stomach, or nausea. Learn more by visiting nyp.org/urgentcare .

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Application Advice: How to Approach the Booth Essay

Starting your application here are five questions to ask yourself before drafting your essay..

• By EW Admissions FT Admissions
• July 16, 2024
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Alumni and students routinely describe applying to Chicago Booth as a life-changing decision. This is why we encourage candidates to use our application not only as a means of gaining admission, but also as an opportunity for self-reflection and to prepare for this exciting next step. One of the best ways to communicate your MBA motivations and connection to Booth is through the essay portion of the application. The essay prompts for this cycle are as follows:

Part-Time MBA Program:

• Why are you seeking an MBA from Chicago Booth, and why is Chicago Booth's Evening MBA or Weekend MBA your program of choice? (maximum 400 words)
• Optional Essay: If there is any important information relevant to your candidacy you were unable to address elsewhere in the application, please share that information here. (maximum 500 words)

Full-Time MBA Program:

• How will the Booth MBA help you achieve your immediate and long-term post-MBA career goals? (250-word minimum)
• An MBA is as much about personal growth as it is about professional development. In addition to sharing your experience and goals in terms of career, we’d like to learn more about you outside of work. Use this opportunity to tell us something about who you are. (250-word minimum)

Before starting your application and writing your essay, here are five questions we suggest you ask yourself:

• What inspired me to pursue an MBA? Take time to reflect on your personal and professional experiences, relationships, and goals. Did you know you wanted to pursue an MBA during your prior educational training? Is there a family member, friend, mentor, or professional colleague who influenced you to pursue an MBA? Are you looking to better understand your industry, develop leadership skills, or improve your career? There is no right or wrong answer, we just want to understand why an MBA is important to you at this stage in your life.
• What do I hope to accomplish professionally? There are innumerable ways our students and graduates use an MBA to transform their careers. Whether it's a job promotion or a career pivot, a Chicago Booth MBA will open doors that can change the trajectory of your career and influence your professional goals. Have a clear plan for what immediate and future success might look like for you. Take time to assess where you’ve been, where you are now, and where you want to be. Think deeply about how a Booth MBA can fill any gaps and help get you there.
• How will I apply what I learn in and out of the classroom to my current or future role? The Chicago Booth MBA experience will provide you with the space to learn frameworks you can directly apply to your current role (for Part-Time students) or future role (for Full-Time students). The skills you develop at Booth continue to be one of the biggest returns on investment Booth students rave about. With the instant impact a Booth MBA can have on your career, we encourage you to be clear about the MBA experiences, resources, and relationships that will help you meet your desired career goals.
• How will the collaborative culture at Booth be a part of my experience? Boothies are well-known to help one another. Whether it's through referrals for new opportunities, collaboration on group projects, or providing the confidence to embrace new challenges, support is at the heart of our culture. Consider how you can give back to the community by leveraging your unique strengths and skills to contribute and help others, ultimately creating a cycle of support that extends well beyond graduation. Let us know how these values resonate with the MBA experience you seek.
• How can I show my true self? Be honest. Share your experiences, thoughts, and emotions truthfully. Admissions directors appreciate authenticity and value your unique perspective. The optional essay provides a great platform to reflect on your personal experiences, challenges you've faced, and how they've influenced your growth.

Whenever you decide to apply, we wish you the best of luck! Looking for more application tips? Check out more application advice  from Boothies and Admissions. We’re also hosting events ( Full-Time ; Part-Time ) throughout the summer, where you can get your questions answered in real time. We wish you the best of luck with your application!

Start Your Application Journey Today

Related Topics

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• Full-Time MBA Blog

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