coronavirus essay with quotes

SWe will keep you updated on our activities and scientific studies.

A Pandemic Year in 10 Quotes

This year has certainly not been a normal one. But then again, as science journalist Ed Yong elegantly put it, “Normal led to this”.

Stay informed on the COVID-19 scientific updates and other global health issues. Click here to sign up for email updates from ISGlobal.

When trying to write this end-of-the-year post, I realised my words were not enough to describe the COVID-19 pandemic or its impact. So I borrowed an idea from science journalist Kai Kupferschmidt, who asked his twitter followers which were the “pandemic quotes” they most remembered .

Many things have been said during these (painfully long) 12 months. But I have selected 10 statements that struck me- for better or for worse- and which may help illustrate how the pandemic has unfolded and what may await us next .

1. “Normal led to this”, wrote Ed Yong, science journalist for The Atlantic , in August.

Our current model of economic growth has led to increasing deforestation and loss of biodiversity , accelerated urbanization, intensive animal farming, global travel - all factors known to increase the risk of zoonotic viruses jumping to human hosts and spreading with alarming ease. Scientists and public health experts around the world have been warning us for many years that a pandemic caused by an unknown virus was not a matter of “if” but of “when”, and that we needed to prepare. But, as German virologist Christian Dorsten pointed out, “there is no glory in prevention”, and pandemic preparedness has not received the necessary resources or attention. Hopefully, this will change. Ultimately, the best way to reduce the risk of future pandemics is by avoiding a return to “business as usual”. As economist Mariana Mazzucato and others have been saying, it is time to rethink capitalism .

We long to return to normal, but **normal led to this**. To avert the future pandemics we know are coming, we MUST grapple with all the ways normal failed us. We have to build something better. I hope this piece, in showing what went wrong, helps. 6/ https://t.co/568JBktc7M — Ed Yong (@edyong209) August 3, 2020

2. “Not liking the look of this”, tweeted Helen Branswell, science journalist for statnews, on January 2.

Unfortunately, she was right, even if at that time many of us believed unlikely that the handful of reported cases in Wuhan would become a full-blown pandemic of such magnitude. Alas, unlike SARS, which was successfully contained by isolating sick people, it turned out that this “new” coronavirus is highly transmissible (even by people who present no or few symptoms) and can remain airborne longer than thought. Although its lethality varies greatly across settings and ages, in average it kills almost 1 out of every 100 infected people  and may leave long-lasting sequelae in up to 1 out of 20 infected people . With over 75 million confirmed cases and 1.7 million deaths to date worldwide, there is no questioning its health impact.

Not liking the look of this. https://t.co/uqmeQ8if06 — Helen Branswell (@HelenBranswell) January 2, 2020

3. "Be fast, have no regrets... If you need to be right before you move, you will never win”, said Mike Ryan, epidemiologist at WHO, in March.

Without any doubt, the countries that best succeeded in curbing the spread of the virus (and even eliminating it from their territory) were not necessarily those with more resources, but rather those who did not hesitate to implement aggressive measures to contain the virus (testing, contact tracing, isolating) or eventually control its spread (restricting mobility or closing businesses) as early as possible. Asian countries, building on their previous experience with SARS or other infectious diseases, were quick to react and implement contact-tracing procedures, while Western countries often “ floundered with this basic public health procedure ”. And, as New Zealand’s government has so brilliantly demonstrated, the adoption of early and aggressive measures is much more successful when leaders show empathy and inspire trust.

"Be fast, have no regrets." Dr Michael J Ryan says "the greatest error is not to move" and "speed trumps perfection" when it comes to dealing with an outbreak such as #coronavirus . Get the latest on COVID-19 �� https://t.co/HMPNwaVk37 pic.twitter.com/wDa7XOMw8Q — Sky News (@SkyNews) March 13, 2020

4. “It’s going to disappear. One day, it’s like a miracle, it will disappear” repeated Donald Trump, President of the US, many times throughout this year.

Yes, well, it obviously didn’t. The United States has had one single wave with three major surges, each worse than the previous one, and some of its states have recently broken world records for number of new daily infections or deaths per capita. From the beginning, the Trump administration’s COVID-19 response has been guided by politics instead of by science.

Timeline: President Trump’s comments on the coronavirus https://t.co/1jxmzzvNdW pic.twitter.com/vT08JNmhym — Al Jazeera News (@AJENews) October 3, 2020

5. “With COVID-19, we’ve made it to the life raft. Dry land is far away” said Marc Lipsitch, epidemiologist, in March.

The speed at which the virus spread took most of Europe by surprise. The first total lockdowns were like jumping from a sinking boat to the life raft. That was the “easy part”. Reaching land safely was trickier. Much time and energy were spent on discussing the best exit strategies. At the end, Europe’s second wave shows that it may be necessary to aim for more than simply keeping the virus in check. New Zealand and other Asian countries have shown that a Zero-COVID strategy  is possible. We are better prepared now to achieve this- we have faster tests for detecting infections and more knowledge on the settings that favour transmission. In addition, specific treatments and vaccines are not far away. As Wellcome Director Jeremy Farrar rightly summed it up: “Science is our exit strategy”.

Navigating the Covid-19 pandemic: We’re just clambering into a life raft. Dry land is far away A new short article I wrote with @yhgrad https://t.co/J4zXwUuCbz via @statnews — Marc Lipsitch (@mlipsitch) April 1, 2020

6. “We, the poor, are immune to the coronavirus,” said Miguel Ángel Barbosa, governor of Puebla, Mexico, in March.

Few statements have been so outstandingly false and misleading. The pandemic has taken a disproportionate toll on the underprivileged.  Not only they are highly exposed to the virus (many are essential workers, do not have sick leave, and/or cannot telework), but they are also more likely to get severely sick (many do not have access to quality health care and have higher rates of chronic diseases that increase the risk of severe disease). In addition, they have suffered the most from the economic and social consequences of the lockdowns (children who cannot follow online schooling and a rise in domestic violence and teenage pregnancies, among others). A recent survey  shows that three in four households suffered a decline in income, with 82% of poorer households affected. And this takes us to the next quote:

7. “This pandemic has magnified every existing inequality in our society – like systemic racism, gender inequality, and poverty,” said Melinda Gates in an interview in September.

In fact, every type of inequality – gender inequality , racial inequality, income inequality- has been exposed and amplified during this pandemic. To cite some examples: In the US and the UK, Black, Asian, Latinx and other minority ethnic groups were two-four times more likely to die from COVID-19 . People who live in deprived areas had higher diagnosis rates and death rates than those living in less deprived areas. In Spain, recent seroprevalence  results show that women who work as cleaners or carers, as well as migrants, were more exposed to the virus than the general population. Borrowing a line by British writer Damian Barr: “We may be in the same storm, but we are in different boats”.

'Covid has magnified every existing inequality' – Melinda Gates https://t.co/zVvbLguWYS — The Guardian (@guardian) September 15, 2020

8. “Without equity, we cannot end COVID-19, HIV or any other pandemic”, wrote Peter Sands, from the Global Fund.

Inequity per se is a pandemic, and tackling it should become a priority at the national and global level. The question is whether we are ready to take the measures (including tax reforms and investment in public goods) that are required.

"On this #WorldAIDSDay , let us learn from what we got wrong in the fight against #HIV to guide the way we fight COVID-19. And let us leverage the political energy, science and resources mobilized to fight #COVID19 to step up the fight against HIV." @PeterASands & @MarkVermeulenAF https://t.co/9AEnQKtfW7 — The Global Fund (@GlobalFund) December 1, 2020

9. “This is evolving science. You are seeing sausages being made — in front of the world’s eyes,” said Yale vaccine researcher Saad Omer in December.

This recent comment referring to vaccine development clearly illustrates the speed at which science has progressed during the pandemic and the level of attention it has received. Six months ago, there were a handful of vaccine candidates in clinical trials. Today , there are over 70, of which 15 are in phase 3 and two have been approved and deployed. Despite the incredible feat of going from a viral sequence to an approved vaccine in 11 months, the most difficult challenge still lies ahead : producing enough doses to vaccinate the world’s population, and distributing them – from the beginning - in a fair and equitable manner . The vaccine alone will not get us out of this crisis. We need solidarity (within and between countries) and we need trust (in the vaccine, in science, in institutions).

Best quote of the day: "This is evolving science. You are seeing sausages being made — in front of the world's eyes." — @SaadOmer3 on the #Covid19 vaccine news. — Helen Branswell (@HelenBranswell) December 8, 2020

10. “Be safe, be smart, be kind”, said Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director General, in the first months of the pandemic.

This is the best take-home message I can think of for the coming holidays.

. @WHO launched 'Be Ready' campaign because everyone can prepare for #COVID19 . Individuals, governments & businesses can help fight the new #coronavirus to save lives. Hospitals, airports & schools are just some of the places that can put preventive measures in place. pic.twitter.com/nWG7afU9xy — Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (@DrTedros) March 8, 2020

May next year bring an end to this pandemic and the beginning of a “not-so-normal” lifestyle in which we finally decide it is time to build a fairer, more inclusive and sustainable society .

Cookies and privacy

Cookies policy.

Our website www.isglobal.org (the "Website") uses cookies to collect information on how the Website is used .

A cookie is a file downloaded onto your machine (computer or mobile device) for storing data that may be updated and retrieved by the entity that installed it.

The information collected via cookies may include the date and time you visited the website, the pages you viewed, the time you spent on our website and the websites you visited before and after visiting our site.

We use cookies to facilitate your browsing of our Website, distinguish you from other users, provide you a better use experience and identify problems with our Website. If you provide your consent, we will use cookies to obtain information on your preferences and tailor our Website to your interests.

The purpose of this cookies policy is to provide you with clear and precise information on the cookies used on our Website (the "Cookies Policy"). For more information on the cookies used on our Website, please email your questions to the Data Protection Officer: [email protected] .

Type of cookies used on the Website

Our Website uses the cookies described below.

First-party cookies

These cookies are sent to your computer and handled only by us to improve the operation of the Website. Information collected is used to improve the quality of our service and your user experience. These cookies remain in your browser for longer. This allows us to recognise you when you return to the Website and tailor the content offered to your preferences.

Third-party analytics cookies

Interacting with the content of our Website can also cause the installation of third-party cookies (e.g., when you click on social network buttons or watch videos hosted on our Website). Third-party cookies are installed by other domains; not ours. We cannot access the data stored in the cookies of other websites when you browse those websites.

Our Website uses Google Analytics audience measurement system, Facebook, First Party, Twitter, Vimeo, YouTube, Instagram, Issuu and Opinion Stage. These tools allow us to know how users interact with our Website. We use "persistent" cookies. Persistent cookies store data on your terminal that can be accessed and processed during a defined time period by the owner of the cookie. This time period could be anything from a few minutes to several years.

Below is a list of cookies according to the purpose for which the data obtained is processed:

• Technical cookies . These cookies allow you to browse a webpage, platform or application and use the options of the services you find there. For instance, they are used for monitoring web traffic and data communication, identifying the session, providing access to restricted areas, remembering elements in an order, carrying out the purchasing process of an order, performing a request for enrolment or participation in an event, using security elements during browsing, storing content for the playing of audiovisuals, and sharing content via social networks.
• Personalisation cookies . These allow you to access the service and have some general characteristics predefined based on a series of criteria found in your terminal, such as language, browser type with which you are accessing the service, regional configuration from where you are accessing the service, etc.
• Analytics cookies . These cookies allow monitoring and analysing user behaviour on a website. Information collected via this type of cookie is used to measure the activity of websites, applications or platforms and for creating the browsing profiles of users of these sites, applications and platforms. This allows introducing improvements based on the analysis of user usage of the service.
• Advertising cookies . These allow managing, in the most effective manner possible, advertising spaces.
• Behavioural advertising cookies . These cookies store information on user behaviour obtained via the continual monitoring of their browsing habits, which allows creating a specific profile for displaying targeted advertising based on this information.
• External social network cookies . These cookies are used so visitors to websites can interact with the content of social networks (Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.). They are generated only for the users of these social networks. The conditions of use of these cookies and the information collected is governed by the privacy policy of the social network platform in question.

Along with our server's log files, these cookies tell us the total number of visitors to our Website and which parts of our site are the most popular. Thanks to them, we obtain information that helps us improve browsing and provide a better service to our users and clients.

Visit the following link to Google's website to read about the type of cookies used by Google Analytics and their expiry time .

By browsing and remaining on our Website, you provide consent for our use of the cookies described for the time periods specified under the conditions of this Cookies Policy.

Disabling and blocking cookies

Cookies are not required for using our Website. You can block and disable cookies by configuring your browser to block the installation of all or some cookies. Most browsers can be set to warn you of the presence of cookies or block them automatically. If you block cookies, you may continue using our Website. However, the use of some of its services may be limited, and your user experience may be diminished.

Withdrawing your consent

If at any time you want to withdraw the consent you gave under this Cookies Policy, delete the cookies stored on your machine (computer or mobile device) via the settings and configuration of your web browser.

For more information on deleting, disabling or blocking cookies, visit this page .

Changing your browser's cookie configuration and settings

Unless you have adjusted your browser's configuration, our system creates cookies when you visit our Website. All web browsers allow changing this configuration.

Click on the links below for how to adjust the cookie configuration of the following browsers:

Internet Explorer:

• IE 6, 7, 8 and 9

Safari (and for iOS )

Changes to the cookies policy.

We may update the Cookies Policy of our Website from time to time. We recommend that you review this policy each time you visit our Website so that you are adequately informed on how and for what we use cookies. The Cookies Policy was last updated on March 11, 2020 .

For any query, comment or suggestion regarding our Cookies Policy, please email the Data Protection Officer: [email protected] .

[Updated on March 11, 2020 · Photo: Christopher Burns / Unsplash]

Privacy Policy

In accordance with the current data protection regulations, ISGlobal informs you of the following:

When you are requested to provide personal data for the provision of services, you will be informed of what data you must provide.

If you do not provide this required data, we will not be able to provide you with the services. The personal data you provide or that ISGlobal obtains as a result of your browsing, queries or requests via our webpage at www.isglobal.org (the “ website ”) will be included in a file owned by ISGlobal for managing, storing and tracking your requests for information and/or contracting of goods or services offered via the website. The information obtained from you by ISGlobal from the website when you sign up for a promotional event or send a form is processed with the utmost confidentiality for helping you to take part in the event in question or, in the second case, sending you the information you requested. The information obtained is not used for any other purpose. The personal data provided will not be disclosed or transferred to third parties without your consent.

When the completion of a form is requested, the user will be informed of the identity and data of the data controller and the Data Protection Officer, the purposes and legal basis of the treatment, the recipients of the data as well as, where appropriate, the international data transfers, the data retention periods and the user's ability to exercise their rights of access, rectification, deletion, portability, limitation and / or opposition to treatment, the right complaint to the control authority and the existence of automated decisions. The personal data collected will only be processed and / or transferred for the express purpose, and always with the consent of the user.

Information is only sent via the form(s) of the website after you have expressed your acceptance by selecting an "ACCEPT/SEND" (or similar) button, via which ISGlobal has proof that you gave your consent for it to process your personal data.

In all cases, you guarantee that the data you provide is true, exact, complete and up-to-date. ISGlobal may decline to provide the information or services requested to any user providing false data without prejudice to any other legal action open to it.

In virtue of Article 22 of Spanish Law 34/2002, of July 11, on the Information Society Services and Electronic Commerce, ISGlobal may store and retrieve "cookies" (data in a text file) from your machine, provided you have given consent and after we have provided you with clear and complete information on the use of these cookies. You may obtain complete information on the purpose for installing these cookies and what they are used for in ISGlobal's Cookies Policy .

This does not prevent any technical storage or access for the sole purpose of carrying out or facilitating the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network, or as strictly necessary to provide an information society service expressly requested by you.

You may exercise your rights of access, rectification, erasure, objection, portability and restriction of the processing by sending a request to the Data Protection Officer via email ( [email protected] ) or the ISGlobal postal address: c/ Rosselló, 132, 08036 Barcelona, Spain. The request must include your full name, address for notices, a photocopy of your ID document or passport and an indication of the right you want to exercise.

If you are unhappy with the processing done by ISGlobal or believe that your rights have been violated, you may file a claim with the Spanish Data Protection Agency at any time (www.aepd.es – C/ Jorge Juan, 6, Madrid).

ISGlobal has implemented the necessary technical and organizational security measures in order to guarantee the security of your personal data and prevent its alteration, loss, treatment and / or unauthorized access, considering the state of technology, the nature of the stored data and the risks to which they are exposed, whether they come from human action or the physical or natural environment, all in accordance with the provisions of current regulations.

In accordance with Law 34/2002, of 11 July, on the Services of the Information Society and Electronic Commerce, if you do not wish to receive electronic commercial notices from ISGlobal in the future, you may inform us of this preference by sending an email to the Data Protection Officer ( [email protected] ).

[Updated on March 11, 2020 · Photo: Gilles Lambert / Unsplash]

When you visit any website, it may store or retrieve information on your browser, mostly in the form of cookies. This information might be about you, your preferences or your device and is mostly used to make the site work as you expect it to. The information does not usually directly identify you, but it can give you a more personalized web experience. Because we respect your right to privacy, you can choose not to allow some types of cookies. Click on the different category headings to find out more and change our default settings. However, blocking some types of cookies may impact your experience of the site and the services we are able to offer.

Functional Strictly Necessary Cookies

These cookies are necessary for the website to function and cannot be switched off in our systems. They are usually only set in response to actions made by you which amount to a request for services, such as setting your privacy preferences, logging in or filling in forms. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not then work. These cookies do not store any personally identifiable information.

Cookies Details

Statistic / Analytical Cookies

These cookies allow us to count visits and traffic sources so we can measure and improve the performance of our site. They help us to know which pages are the most and least popular and see how visitors move around the site. All information these cookies collect is aggregated and therefore anonymous. If you do not allow these cookies we will not know when you have visited our site, and will not be able to monitor its performance.

Targeting (3rd Party) / Advertising Cookies

Some of these cookies are set by a range of social media services that we have added to the site to enable you to share our content with your friends and networks. They are capable of tracking your browser across other sites and building up a profile of your interests. This may impact the content and messages you see on other websites you visit. If you do not allow these cookies you may not be able to use or see these sharing tools. Some other of these cookies may be set through our site by our advertising partners. They may be used by those companies to build a profile of your interests and show you relevant adverts on other sites. They do not store directly personal information but are based on uniquely identifying your browser and internet device. If you do not allow these cookies, you will experience less targeted advertising.

• Login / Sign Up

With 15 days left, we need your help

The US presidential campaign is in its final weeks and we’re dedicated to helping you understand the stakes. In this election cycle, it’s more important than ever to provide context beyond the headlines. But in-depth reporting is costly, so to continue this vital work, we have an ambitious goal to add 5,000 new members.

We rely on readers like you to fund our journalism. Will you support our work and become a Vox Member today?

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.

• Recommendations

Most Popular

• Has Trump gained ground? The latest 2024 polling, explained.
• If Harris loses, expect Democrats to move right
• The big political shift that explains the 2024 election Member Exclusive
• What if cities finally legalized adult dorms? Member Exclusive
• Elon Musk says he’s giving away $1 million a day to voters. Is that legal?

Today, Explained

Understand the world with a daily explainer plus the most compelling stories of the day.

This is the title for the native ad

More in Culture

Everything we (actually) know about Liam Payne’s death.

Grind culture has come for the teens.

In the new movie, Sebastian Stan’s Trump is built of grievance and gilding.

They didn’t listen to Hurricane Milton evacuation orders. Then they posted through it.

Laraaji — ambient musician and onetime actor and comic — on laughter, surrender, and transcending the thinking mind.

Everybody’s in LA’s week-long stint is over. It still might point toward the streamer’s future — and the comedian’s.

Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World

Read our research on:

Full Topic List

Regions & Countries

• Publications
• Our Methods
• Short Reads
• Tools & Resources

Read Our Research On:

In Their Own Words, Americans Describe the Struggles and Silver Linings of the COVID-19 Pandemic

The outbreak has dramatically changed americans’ lives and relationships over the past year. we asked people to tell us about their experiences – good and bad – in living through this moment in history..

Pew Research Center has been asking survey questions over the past year about Americans’ views and reactions to the COVID-19 pandemic. In August, we gave the public a chance to tell us in their own words how the pandemic has affected them in their personal lives. We wanted to let them tell us how their lives have become more difficult or challenging, and we also asked about any unexpectedly positive events that might have happened during that time.

The vast majority of Americans (89%) mentioned at least one negative change in their own lives, while a smaller share (though still a 73% majority) mentioned at least one unexpected upside. Most have experienced these negative impacts and silver linings simultaneously: Two-thirds (67%) of Americans mentioned at least one negative and at least one positive change since the pandemic began.

For this analysis, we surveyed 9,220 U.S. adults between Aug. 31-Sept. 7, 2020. Everyone who completed the survey is a member of Pew Research Center’s American Trends Panel (ATP), an online survey panel that is recruited through national, random sampling of residential addresses. This way nearly all U.S. adults have a chance of selection. The survey is weighted to be representative of the U.S. adult population by gender, race, ethnicity, partisan affiliation, education and other categories.  Read more about the ATP’s methodology . 

Respondents to the survey were asked to describe in their own words how their lives have been difficult or challenging since the beginning of the coronavirus outbreak, and to describe any positive aspects of the situation they have personally experienced as well. Overall, 84% of respondents provided an answer to one or both of the questions. The Center then categorized a random sample of 4,071 of their answers using a combination of in-house human coders, Amazon’s Mechanical Turk service and keyword-based pattern matching. The full methodology  and questions used in this analysis can be found here.

In many ways, the negatives clearly outweigh the positives – an unsurprising reaction to a pandemic that had killed  more than 180,000 Americans  at the time the survey was conducted. Across every major aspect of life mentioned in these responses, a larger share mentioned a negative impact than mentioned an unexpected upside. Americans also described the negative aspects of the pandemic in greater detail: On average, negative responses were longer than positive ones (27 vs. 19 words). But for all the difficulties and challenges of the pandemic, a majority of Americans were able to think of at least one silver lining. 

Both the negative and positive impacts described in these responses cover many aspects of life, none of which were mentioned by a majority of Americans. Instead, the responses reveal a pandemic that has affected Americans’ lives in a variety of ways, of which there is no “typical” experience. Indeed, not all groups seem to have experienced the pandemic equally. For instance, younger and more educated Americans were more likely to mention silver linings, while women were more likely than men to mention challenges or difficulties.

Here are some direct quotes that reveal how Americans are processing the new reality that has upended life across the country.

901 E St. NW, Suite 300 Washington, DC 20004 USA (+1) 202-419-4300 | Main (+1) 202-857-8562 | Fax (+1) 202-419-4372 |  Media Inquiries

Research Topics

• Email Newsletters

ABOUT PEW RESEARCH CENTER  Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan, nonadvocacy fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping the world. It does not take policy positions. The Center conducts public opinion polling, demographic research, computational social science research and other data-driven research. Pew Research Center is a subsidiary of The Pew Charitable Trusts , its primary funder.

© 2024 Pew Research Center

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

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

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

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

More from TIME

Read More: The Family Time the Pandemic Stole

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

More Must-Reads from TIME

• Nicola Coughlan Bet on Herself—And Won
• What Kind of President Would Kamala Harris Be?
• Is Adrenal Fatigue Real?
• Why It's So Hard to Quit Vaping
• Our Guide to Voting in the 2024 Election
• The 10 Races That Will Determine Control of the Senate
• Column: How My Shame Became My Strength
• Meet TIME's Newest Class of Next Generation Leaders

Contact us at [email protected]

Greater Good Science Center • Magazine • In Action • In Education

What Are We Grateful for During COVID-19?

In many places around the world, the COVID-19 pandemic means perpetually living under the gun. When we walk out of our doors, we can’t let our guard down. Even grocery shopping can feel fraught with danger. Moreover, many people fear for their jobs and futures. This has also been a period of intense political conflict in the United States and of fires up and down the West Coast. Seeing threats everywhere triggers stress and anxiety.

At the same time, the pandemic has profoundly limited the scope of many lives. It’s cut many of us off from variety. It means our home-cooking, day after day, instead of restaurants or potlucks. It means being alone in our apartments—or seeing the same people every day, in the same house, and not meeting new ones in other places. There might be a lot of good in our homes, but at a certain point, through sheer repetition, we might stop seeing how others enhance our daily lives. Humans already tend to take the good things for granted—a psychological phenomenon called “ hedonic adaptation ”—and the groundhog-day nature of lockdown only exacerbates that tendency.

Threatening or just mundane, pandemic conditions do not make fertile ground for thankfulness. But gratitude is one of the tools we can use in both of these circumstances. When we give thanks for everyday things, we make them visible again. When we’re able to do that, numerous studies suggest , we give our happiness a little boost and train our brains to see the good , even amid so much bad .

Gratitude is a tool that many people are using right now on Thnx4.org , the Greater Good Science Center’s online journal. There, people can sign up for a gratitude challenge that prompts them to document and share “thanks” on a regular basis. They can also record times when they were thanked by someone else, and how that made them feel. We survey participants about their well-being before they start the Challenge, and again after it’s complete, in order to understand the impact of Thnx4.

When we analyzed data from the past six months, a couple of patterns stood out. We found that journaling your gratitude during the pandemic on Thnx4 is beneficial—after a challenge, people tend to be more resilient, more satisfied with life, and less lonely. However, these same effects were greater in the period before the lockdown began.

In other words, people aren’t doing as well as they were before the pandemic—but even at that lower baseline, giving thanks still helps. The data also suggest that the people using Thnx4 have been on an emotional rollercoaster: They were sadder, but felt more affection and less anger than they did before the pandemic. We also saw a significant increase in people hearing gratitude from others, which we take to be a very good sign—it suggests that we’re taking care of each other. In reviewing public gratitudes during the pandemic period, we discovered a vivid progression from shock to acceptance—and a growing appreciation for the good things we get from other beings, including our pets, and from nature and society. A journey through expressions of gratitude during the pandemic reveals how we’re helping each other through it. And so, here, we thought we’d share examples of gratitude during COVID-19, grouped by major categories.

Romantic partners

Family, children, and pets

Friends and neighbors

Cooperation, help, and solidarity from strangers

Technology that enables connection

Jobs and coworkers

Frontline workers

Exercise and fresh air

The opportunity to help others

Thnx4 also allows users to share times when they were thanked by someone.

Time with yourself

About the Authors

Emiliana R. Simon-Thomas

Emiliana R. Simon-Thomas, Ph.D. , is the science director of the Greater Good Science Center, where she directs the GGSC’s research fellowship program and serves as a co-instructor of its Science of Happiness and Science of Happiness at Work online courses.

Jeremy Adam Smith

Uc berkeley.

Jeremy Adam Smith edits the GGSC’s online magazine, Greater Good . He is also the author or coeditor of five books, including The Daddy Shift , Are We Born Racist? , and (most recently) The Gratitude Project: How the Science of Thankfulness Can Rewire Our Brains for Resilience, Optimism, and the Greater Good . Before joining the GGSC, Jeremy was a John S. Knight Journalism Fellow at Stanford University.

You May Also Enjoy

Eight Acts of Goodness Amid the COVID-19 Outbreak

How I’m Finding Purpose and Connection in a Pandemic

How Can We Cooperate When the Pandemic Is Driving Us Apart?

Six Habits of Highly Grateful People

How Does COVID-19 Affect Trust in Government?

How Gratitude Can Help You Through Hard Times

• Share full article

Advertisement

Supported by

‘When Normal Life Stopped’: College Essays Reflect a Turbulent Year

This year’s admissions essays became a platform for high school seniors to reflect on the pandemic, race and loss.

By Anemona Hartocollis

This year perhaps more than ever before, the college essay has served as a canvas for high school seniors to reflect on a turbulent and, for many, sorrowful year. It has been a psychiatrist’s couch, a road map to a more hopeful future, a chance to pour out intimate feelings about loneliness and injustice.

In response to a request from The New York Times, more than 900 seniors submitted the personal essays they wrote for their college applications. Reading them is like a trip through two of the biggest news events of recent decades: the devastation wrought by the coronavirus, and the rise of a new civil rights movement.

In the wake of the high-profile deaths of Black people like George Floyd and Breonna Taylor at the hands of police officers, students shared how they had wrestled with racism in their own lives. Many dipped their feet into the politics of protest, finding themselves strengthened by their activism, yet sometimes conflicted.

And in the midst of the most far-reaching pandemic in a century, they described the isolation and loss that have pervaded every aspect of their lives since schools suddenly shut down a year ago. They sought to articulate how they have managed while cut off from friends and activities they had cultivated for years.

To some degree, the students were responding to prompts on the applications, with their essays taking on even more weight in a year when many colleges waived standardized test scores and when extracurricular activities were wiped out.

We are having trouble retrieving the article content.

Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.

Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and  log into  your Times account, or  subscribe  for all of The Times.

Thank you for your patience while we verify access.

Already a subscriber?  Log in .

Want all of The Times?  Subscribe .