On March 10, 2020 I heard of a virus. It was called COVID-19 or coronavirus. I heard many conspiracies on how this virus started. The one who standed out the most was that the virus started in China and someone ate a bat that had a bad virus. The person who ate the bat then spread it to people around china. It just kept getting worse and spread to the entire world. The next one is more political. People in China wanted revenge on president trump because he closed borders and industries with them. Since China wasn't getting any money from selling stuff to America they created a virus. They started spreading the virus to America. People started to blame president Trump and wanted to impeach him. The last one is also very political. Democrat's did not like Trump being in office and they wanted to get rid of him. They teamed up with China to start a virus so they could get Trump impeached. Since that didn't work when the election came they added more votes to Biden so he would win. Personally I believe the second conspiracy. All in all, I do not think we will ever find out what actually created Covid-19 but it still caused harm to many people.

I first learned that the cause of this virus was that people stored coffee beans that made a bad smell witch caused a disease that was deadly and there could have been someone who got sick from somewhere else and brought it to everyone then and that's how everyone got sick all because of people traveled by ships they probably picked up diseases then. I think it was trying to kill people so they lower the population of the people there. No, my opinion did not change. My experiences with discovering this disease were kinda relevant right now we're kinda similar to each other because we are going through the disease.

COVID-19 has been a topic on everyone's head for quite a while now. At least a week or so has passed since COVID-19 started getting attention. I have not been up to date with COVID-19 until I started to hear of what it can do, and how fast it was spreading through China, the official origin country of the virus. Many theories were spreading, but I specifically believed that China attempted to make a virus which is able to kill off the old, but keep the young, since 1, China had a stupidly large population (about 3-4 BILLION), 2, a good amount of that population consisted of elders, and 3, the virus does next to nothing to people 30 years old and below, but almost completely decimates those 60 years old and above, and everyone in the middle just feels that they have a small fever. Of course, my theory may not be correct, but you never know...

I originally heard that the virus originated in China. I had hear that it came from people selling/buying bats as consumables on the Chinese market. Im not sure that the bat thing is true but I am sure it originated in China. I am honestly not sure about the origin of the Coronavirus.

I first heard of this back in January, on the news when people were saying that Wuhan China was being quarantined. Originally, I didn't think much of it, as I thought that China was taking the necessary precautions to minimize infection. However, it got worse, and I was hearing about cruise ships becoming infected and having to dock at ports. Then the time came where Americans were getting it and President Trump issued military planes to bring the people back. In my opinion, we should have left people until the two weeks were over, due to the fact people could be asymptomatic and bring it back without feeling ill. I'm also rather resentful of China's government, as I feel they were trying to hide it from the rest of the world to keep their economy and business going. I still wasn't nervous, as I didn't think it would spread as rapidly as it did to pretty much the whole world being infected with Covid. On March 7th, my school said it would be our last day of in person school for some time. I still wasn't nervous, as I just thought it would be a brief period of time and then we would come back. For the next few months I was inside, and thinking that I would be fine no matter what happened. But when researchers said that it targeted people with underlying health conditions, I got nervous. I have half a right lung and diabetes, so it would not be good if I contracted it. The last few months I have been super precautios, only spending time with people outside or in a safe environment. Overall, I think it will pass with time, but for the moment I need to keep myself alive and not take any massive risks.

I think The cause of the virus is definitely because of people interacting with animals, because a virus needs a creature with a cell to live with, an animal is the best choice, because most of them live with humans. The cause is probably someone kissing an animal or eating animals. The virus is able to get through the blood and make the first person sick, when the virus is in the human body, it changes, and becomes easier to spread, then there’s more and more people getting infected.

Corona Virus started around the beginning of 2020, people have many arguments about the cause of the virus. Some said it’s originated from a bacteria on bats, and some said it’s a virus that accidentally released from a lab. From my observation through the year of 2020, COVID 19 MERS and SARS which they all started from bats, camels, cats, or cattle.

The story that got around about Covid-19 is that it came from bats. Bats would carry the virus around naturally but one day, someone in China decided that it would be a good idea to eat one of these bats. I think that a handful of people ate these bats that carried the virus and it was very contagious. Once a couple people had it everyone got it and people were dying left and right. Everyone tried to get out of China and they gave the virus to the whole world.

I was first told that COVID-19 was started because of bat soup that was commonly sold in Asia. Bats are known to carry many diseases and I was originally not surprised by the cause of this virus. However, I now know it was a man-made virus and was developed and let loose in a lab. With this information, I thought it was a lot different than bat soup. I was a little surprised at hearing this information, but it was starting to make more sense over time. The origin of this virus is now known to me and I now know that we need to be more careful when experimenting. I also know that we need to prepare for other pandemics in the future.

At first, when COVID started, I thought it came from mosquitos, but later I found out it was from bats. I thought this was interesting. My opinion has not changed from the beginning until now. Once I discovered the origin, I was amazed.

January of 2020 is when I started learning about COVID-19 and its origins. I first heard about the Coronavirus from my parents and news channels which stated there is a new virus around foreign countries that is spreading quickly and cannot be identified with any existing sicknesses. Rumors became of a bat that was carrying the virus and either had been consumed by humans or had transmitted the virus to man. The virus originated in Wuhan, China, but was also existing in Europe and the rest of Asia, at the time. I personally had no concern or worries with it when first hearing this news early on, but it was quite interesting hearing updates about it. My reasoning for this was it had not yet reached America or anywhere near the country. The thought of having to shut down stores, schools, restaurants, and cities did not even cross my mind because of the insanity that sounded of. Today, it seems completely normal hearing and thinking about quarantined, isolated societies because of how we've been living the past year. Speaking of today, I currently know a lot more about COVID. The symptoms, testing, origins, and biology of it are more clear now, a year after its discovery. I feel comfortable with the idea of the Coronavirus and am not scared of it. That opinion hasn't changed since the start of quarantine and COVID. There is still plenty more to learn about the Coronavirus, especially now that vaccines are out, but my adequate understanding of it and its origins is acceptable.

At the first thought of the virus, I wasn't sure what to think. I heard many things like "Covid came from China" and "Covid has always been around but it just got worse now" and other things like, "Covid is fake". I thought that Covid wouldn't be as bad. and that it would be something like the flu. when more and more people started dying, I realized how bad it actually was. I believe that Covid has always been around in the world. That maybe its been in our air forever and something happened for it to get to this point. Covid is not fake. it is very much here, and in the air. I also believe that Covid started in a certain point of the world and was brought to a heavily populated area and spread from there.

The Beginning Of Covid-19 The origin of Covid-19 had many rumores but the one that was most prominent to me during the beginning of the pandemic was bad meat from chinese markets. It all started when me and my family had a conversation about the pandemic and our thoughts and plans about it when my parents told me that it is speculated to be from these meat markets from the streets of china and since they are not preserved properly the meat carries the virus. The next day I got to school nothing was on lockdown yet so I did something that is almost just a dream to me. An actual conversation without worrying about masks, staying 6 feet away from them and having to sanitize if high five them. We talked about what they have been told about the origin and we all landed around the same point of the chinese market. Things have definitely changed, especially beliefs on the origin but this is how it all was first received.

A conversation I had probably back in February was with my dad. We had talked about what would happen if the virus came over here to America. He said that the stock market would crash, people would panic and go to mass hysteria, we would obviously have to quarantine too along with not letting people into stores and such. It did worry me at first but I had my doubts of much happening, although there still was a part of me that believed it would happen. But now that we're here I'm surprised he was able to accurately guess what would happen if the virus did come over here. When it first arrived, everyone panicked and stock piled on toilet paper or whatever, the stock market has been doing bad but I think it's gotten better, we were in quarantine for a while and those of us who are sick are still doing self quarantine. The stores and restaurants now have opened back up, some maybe just for pick up and stuff. The self quarantine has changed me a lot though, it really affected me negatively along with a lot of my friends and people I know. The stress and anxiety of just everything going on has worsened my mental state by a lot.

During the Genesis of this Pandemic, I heard that this pandemic came from bats. I was a little skeptical when people told me this. So I had the urge to look it up. After looking it up I stumbled upon that the cause of this Pandemic is "That they all came from bats." After Asia, it soon navigated to Europe and across the world, coming to our home, America. I also learned that this virus attacks the respiratory system. Whether it be the upper respiratory tract (sinuses, nose, or throat), or the lower respiratory tract (lungs, windpipes), this virus would barrage both.

when the Covid 19 virus hit, everyone was concerned. Apparently the virus broke out in China and was released to the whole world. There was even talk about shutting down the schools. We watched the news as the virus was spreading from Europe to America. as things got worse they eventually did shut down everything, schools, restaurants, ect. My family even thought of moving to another state. Then when Covid was in its groove, we realized its not as deadly as they portrayed. we all thought that this would be a killer virus as the news was saying. To some people it was very deadly, to some it is not. it was especially deadly to old people. to kids like us, it was as if we got a cold. eventually the news and CDC came out with their lies and said that the virus had a 99.9% survival rate to people with no underlining health conditions. thats when my family knew that there was no point in having everything shut down for a long time. The moral is that it wasn't as deadly or crazy as they said it is, sure, thousands of people died, but is wasn't really and grater that the deaths from the flu.

This virus, known in early March simply as "the coronavirus", was shrouded in mystery. We were told that it originated in China, which inspired many jokes. A parody of the song "Break my Stride" was the most memorable. In the earliest days of the pandemic, not much was known about COVID besides it's symptoms and things that we were being told could prevent it. That and that it was impossible to find paper products, cleaning products, and eggs. We knew that the symptoms were similar to the flu and that we were supposed to stay six feet away from other people and not high five. We were also told to sanitize everything frequently (hence the shortage of cleaning products) and wear masks. Not much of that has changed since then. We still do all the same things to prevent it, but somehow, it feels that my knowledge has filled out. There is less fear now (the teacher's unions are certainly using that fear to their advantage). Though I know that there is much that I did not understand in March and April, I feel that my opinions and knowledge of COVID have not changed much.

When I first heard about Covid-19, I knew that it came from Wuhan, China. I didn't know how it suddenly appeared, but many people think it had to do with bats. I didn't want to believe it, but there was no other theory that seemed somewhat normal other than bats. After a few weeks, when people were determined to find out why this virus came into our lives, I heard a bizarre thought that people made it in labs. I feel like people are getting so eager to know where it came from, they decided to make crazy ideas. The more the virus spread, the more theories came about the origins of the virus.

I first heard about the coronavirus around February. I heard of it mainly from my mom and friends. In the beginning, I was told it started from someone eating a bat in Wuhan China. Then it spread super fast. I was never too afraid of Covid and I never imagined that my school would get shut down from it. We were still going to school until around March 16th when my school got shut down. We did online school for the rest of the year and we also went into quarantine in March. My family still wasn't too afraid of the virus but for the most part, we quarantined and kept our distance from friends. we are still not too afraid of the virus and my family and my opinions have changed too much.

When I first heard of Covid I didn't really think much because I was in school. It was March 13th 2020, and it was a normal Friday. I was in school and there was an announcement. COVID 19 is now in the U.S. i had no clue what it was. I just thought it was a normal flu that was carried from somewhere else. There wasn't much to explain when we heard this. The teachers wouldn't explain so I had to figure where it came from. But thats the thing. I didn't It was no where on the internet on that Friday. But, when I got home, the T.Vs starting blowing up with all the news about the new COVID 19 strand.

I came back from Christmas break and I heard rumors of a virus in China. At first I did not believe it, but after I asked my dad, and he said that it was an actual thing. I was not afraid of it and I still am not, but there are many people who are terrified of it. After about a month, people started saying it was in California. This was confirmed when we went to online school. I did not enjoy it. It was the first year that I needed to work on my computer to do assignments, and having to do everything on my computer was a challenge, but I was able to figure it out and learned a lot more about computer usage.

It was around January 2020 , when I heard of what COVID-19 was. When I first found out that it was in China, in the markets, I have to admit that I was a little relieved that it wasn't near us in Ventura County California. I also remember wanting to learn more about it. I had two main question. How and when? I wanted to know how did this virus come to be. And when did it happen, how long has it been happening. I didn't find complete answers for either. I just found rumors about how it came to be because no one knew. The two most popular reasons were, that it was created in a lab to reduce the population in China/ and experiment went wrong. The other was that the bats in the water markets were dirty and gave the food a virus that the people then ate, which injected them with the virus. I didn't really know which to believe so I started looking into the other question. What I saw for that one was November 2019 but know really knew because China doesn't release information to the public. Over all, none of my question we answered, which made me fear what was going to happen in the future.

This is the way I learned my parents were scheduled to get their COVID vaccine. I don’t know what one they’ll get - and it doesn’t matter to me or them. They are 65 (66 in February 2021). My dad has a heart condition. I am deeply relieved that they were able to be scheduled to get one!! I am so grateful!

During Christmas break, cases in corona have been higher than they have ever been in the United States. I was only allowed to hang out with my cousins, (who live coincidently down the street) mostly the entire break. During Christmas my mom has to get creative and plan new things for Christmas Eve. She came up with a little holiday party and had so many fun games! We had secret santa and then went to bed! Even though no other holidays, this one felt real. The happiness and joy inside of me was really there to spread along to my family and I had a very little joyful covid Christmas with my family.

Christmas of 2020 is approaching fast. Faster than usually, as this year has seemingly sped by quicker than any year before. Perhaps the first sign of the coming Christmas season is when I open the fridge to find a bottle of Califia brand eggnog. Just as I think that Christmas will be perfectly normal this year, I hear some disappointing news. My cousin Michael is coming home from the Marines... With COVID. This means that I will not be going to my cousins house in Burbank like always, but that I will be spending Christmas at my own house. I don't like the idea of Christmas away from my cousins at all. I have been going to Burbank for Christmas for as long as I can remember. That being said, I can't do anything about my cousin getting COVID. On Christmas Eve, my mom grilled some steaks for dinner that she had gotten from Gelsons market, and we watched Four Christmases and Die Hard. In the morning, I woke up without the usual anticipation and excitement that comes with a typical Christmas morning. I walked down the stairs to discover the presents my parents had ordered online. I opened them, thanked my parents for the wonderful gifts, and started playing the new game I had got: Call of Duty Cold War. The rest of the day seemed like any other, and so did the rest of the week, and rest of the month, and the rest of the year at that. Now it's 2021. Everyone is filled with hope that this year will be far greater than the last, but I seriously doubt it. Especially with the news we all got on Tuesday, January 5th. That said, all we can do is stay positive and keep our heads up. As Winston Churchill once said, "If you're going through hell, keep going."

I live relatively close to the home where I grew up in Belmont, Massachusetts which is about 10 minutes outside of Boston. It’s a simple home where six of us shared a bathroom and thought nothing of it! My parents, one of whom just hit ninety years old, still reside in our home and never plan to leave with my mother asserting that she will only leave on a gurney. My parents now feel essentially locked in due to the pandemic which makes visiting, which I did this weekend, both more important but unnatural in some ways. We are Italian, for the most part, and Italians are a touchy group, always hugging, which in my family is our non-verbal communication of love. With the risks involved with close contact there is no more hugging, and it’s hard to even want to express ourselves to these 90 year old's with a tacky elbow tap or fist bump. Verbal expression has been temporarily substituted but it is an inadequate alternative and will never replace the connection one feels from a sincere and long held hug.

Home cooked meals have always been the norm for us, but in our pre-COVID lives of working full time, gymnastics competitions, church commitments, piano lessons, Kumon, trips to Disneyland and on and on, eating out definitely factored into to our lives at least once a week. In March, that came to a grinding halt. With COVID cases in our area high, and being fortunate to work from home, we quit restaurant food cold turkey when quarantine began in hopes that the numbers would decrease. Ten months later, with daily case rates of COVID in our county now reaching into the 1000s, restaurant food is a distant memory. It was a bit shocking to realize we’ve only had restaurant food five times since March, and each time it was dropped off on our porch for a special occasion. With the kids begging for McDonald’s, we almost caved in December when the McRib commercials started. Instead of giving in, we spent December tackling the challenge of making McDonald’s at home. Big Macs, Egg McMuffins, McDonald’s pies, and yes, even the McRib made it to our homemade menu. It’s been a really fun challenge to try and get the taste just right. Also, a very odd and strange Christmas Eve to attend Christmas Eve service online and then to eat homemade Big Macs. But then, there was something perfect about it, too. What can I say? It’s a good time for a great taste in quarantine.

Halloween is usually a month long celebration at our house. We plan our costumes months in advance. We go to Disneyland at least a dozen times to enjoy the special Halloween treats, decorations, and to wear the insane amount of Disney Halloween shirts we own. On Halloween night, we serve at our church running game booths for the community and come home just in time to trick or treat (and usually get A LOT of candy because we’re some of the last trick or treaters). This year, of course, every single thing listed above was cancelled. With so many disappointments this year, we committed to making Halloween a celebration from morning until night. Making our own backyard carnival, the kids bobbed for apples, carved pumpkins and played Halloween soccer (okay, it was just soccer but we were in costumes!) My daughter was over the moon to have us all dress as Hogwarts students, except for her little brother who dressed as her owl. Lunch included ghost shaped chips, jack-o-lantern quesadillas, grape “eye balls,” and guacamole in a jack-o-lantern pepper. To make dinner extra special, we brought out the fondue set we registered for when we got married over 15 years ago and never opened. The kids loved a dinner of dipping into cheese and chocolate. The one thing my son repeated all of October was he wanted to “trick or treat to all the doors in the house.” Undaunted, we turned off most of the lights, put a bowl of candy inside every door in the house, and put either an adult or a dressed up stuffed animal (there’s only three adults here and way more doors) at each door. The kids were genuinely excited to trick or treat and actually knocked at every single door, and gleefully filled their bags with candy. It’s easy to focus on all that has been lost this year, but this simple, stress free, at home Halloween may have ended up their favorite one ever.

WHY SKIING WON"T WORK Dear Director Silver Thread Public Health (Mineral County, Colorado), I've had a few days to mull over the response made to my comments to the commissioners earlier in the-week regarding the ranking of Mineral County on the Colorado COVID 19 Dial and dashboard. Though I am not a resident of Mineral County I do spend the better part of my day in the county some 150 days a year, forgive me for commenting again, but I feel duty bound that someone goes on the record in hopes that a different viewpoint might have influence, even if in the back of the mind of the county's decision making as the pandemic progresses. I see some flaws in the reasoning given for gerrymandering Dial levels, rather than using them as they are described: Nowhere on the state’s Dial web pages is the decision process STH is using described or encouraged as its proper use. To say it is for guidelines mostly and not necessarily classification misrepresents the public’s perception and use of the dial. Changing classification to a county’s preferred level interferes with individual and the public’s crucial health options and choices. There is an assumption in the explanation that because Mineral County is a small town that somehow the numbers of incidents per 100,000 would be treated differently. Is the known math of the virus and its tendency for spread somehow fortuitously different here than the rest of the planet? I think not. 1.7 deaths per 100 cases works for COVID whether there are 700 people present or 7,000 people present. Rates per 100, 000 are employed exactly to gauge the seriousness of outbreaks regardless of the size of communities. Dangerous spread in sparsely populated states made up of mostly small towns disapproves Creede’s desire for s special dispensation from the disease. The explanation of ad hoc policies and improvised rankings and guidelines fall on the premise of a Public Health expert’s interpretation of “social responsibility,” an expert completely without the means to accurately monitor or enforce “social responsibility.” Social Responsibility, by the way, is also the governor’s preferred preventative and even his office has acknowledged that it has not worked. As illogical as it is that the smallness Mineral County somehow protects it from the realities of a deadly virus that obeys its own rules (and we know its rules well) no matter where it is transmitting, the wishful thinking that a small town knows best how to make its own rules defies even the remnants of reason when the policies disregard that the county includes a resort where thousands of people have and are gathering. Even if ranking and guidelines (at the time of my comment or now) were helpful per the improvised policies of STH relative to Creede, if that logic holds, the ranking and policies for small Creede certainly could not logically also be applied to Wolf Creek Ski Area, which was and is gets visited by thousands of people per day packed into parking lots in an area about the same area as Creede and at much higher density of people per square foot. Many of the ski areas visitors have come from far flung states with high infection rates, and most are from cities where small town “social responsibility” is often something very different than enjoyed in Creede. (I’ve seen plates from over 20 different states and from literally every corner of the county.) Small town or other norms of “social responsibility” also does not describe the atmosphere or the intent of a ski resort. It’s a vacationland where, in part, people travel a long way to take a break from their normal “social responsibility.” Indeed there is a strong element of maverick independence associated with the sports of snowboarding and skiing--including the apres socializing associated; It’s a place where, expectedly, we are allowed to break the rules a little, or a lot. Even within the community, if the Dial is not accurate, it can be intentionally or unintentionally misused by leadership in organizations and businesses that have to make decisions about gathering. Not everyone understands the elaborate process described in the thinking of STH; even a reader of it might not be helped by its crafting. Some individuals and leaders predisposed to attitudes resistant to the realities of COVID 19 will inevitably use lower ranking to justify their own personal and organizational loopholes. Employers of that bent may use the misinformed ranking or juggled guidelines as leverage over employees who would otherwise be best protected by accurate “Level” and guidelines that adhere to the Dial’s published parameters. Fiddling with the COVID Dial on a county level also ignores what public health experts are saying about the current dangers of the disease and models (which have, so far turned out to be pretty darn true) forecasting a debacle this winter, for everyone, including small towns. Fatalists and skeptics of the virus are using today to deny what we know is going to happen in a near tomorrow. Those tomorrows could be better or worse depending on what is done now. Fiddling for little windows of “freedom” will enable the most likely to spread among us to spread, and delays or manipulations of accuracy will cost lives, lives that in a small town count very, very much to all of us. The danger of taking liberties with vital Public Health information by debating the application and inventively blending the facets of a Dial Level leans towards a see-saw of levels, downgrading too soon too much and upgrading too late too little. I sincerely hope that Mineral County will make more effort to educate the public and leadership how to understand and use the dial instead of explaining (or not publicly explaining) the reasons for toying with and complicating it. It might also cut down on your mail, and relieve Mineral County’s health decision makers from the burden of taking on extra potentially egregious extra-personal responsibilities, pressures and culpability for public health outcomes. Used properly, the Dial is a tool that uniformly makes those responsibilities a matter of conferred, collaborative public policy and record rather than an ever shifting discussion inviting undue blame (or undue congratulation) for decisions that might be identified as personal. My prayers are with you as you make these excruciating decisions, and I pledge my personal social responsibility to your efforts. No need to reply. I know you are busy. Sincerely, Wayne Sheldrake South Fork, CO PS I don’t put this all on STH or Mineral. I know adjoining counties are also picking and choosing from the Dial. All the better reason to keep it descriptive rather than interpretive. W. K. Sheldrake (Wayne) is the author of Instant Karma: The Heart and Soul of a Ski Bum, #1 on Outside Magazine Online’s list of “6 Adventure Books We’d Read Again and Again,” and Foreword Magazine’s ‘Gold Medal’ Adventure Book of the Year (2007). He is recording his pandemic experience in a memoir THE19: Confessions of a Mad (American) COVIDodger. He lives in Southern Colorado with his “high risk” wife where there is plenty of wide open space. They do not currently have a dog.

Imagine a hurricane approaches your beachfront community, a beautiful place of both cottages and mansions on heavenly stretching strands of sand and coconut trees. The storm started far out in the ocean as a tropical storm, an abstraction a week or more away. Then it developed into a category 2 as it approached the continent and crossed Cuba, still days away but becoming a concern. Before long, forecasts by experts confidently showed exactly where landfall would occur, the strength of the winds, the height of the surge, the flooding that would accompany it, the millions it would impact, the estimates of the extent of damage and disruption (and death tolls) predictable. You do the right thing and with your family and neighbors evacuate and move inland and find safe shelter. It’s inconvenient and uncomfortable at times, sharing and aiding your fellow refugees. They don’t have the brand of cereal and chocolate milk your kids like. They run out of Coke. But pitching in until it’s safe to go home seems the best and only course. And soon you’re glad you did because by the time the hurricane makes landfall the news come in that it is a Cat 5, indeed, “the second most intense tropical cyclone on record to strike the United States.” Imagine as you watch the pummeling rain and listen to the ominous wind and wait, you already know this story: “In 1969, Hurricane Camille claimed 259 victims along the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Most were guilty of only being on the wrong place at the wrong time, unlike twenty who perished while attending a beachfront “hurricane party” beer bash and barbecue. Despite evacuation warnings delivered by vehement emergency teams [experts], their festivities continued unabated. The partygoers definitely declared that the concrete foundations and the second floor location of their party provided plenty of protection from the impending hurricane. Their confidence proved to be tragically misplaced when a twenty-four-foot wave slammed into the apartment, destroying the building and subjecting the partiers to gale-force winds and violent ocean surges. Most of these hurricane worshippers were killed. A few survivors were swept miles away, ….” (The Darwin Awards, 1999) Imagine you know there are old folks in your very own town who chose to stay. Folks who just couldn’t imagine leaving the idyllic homes in their idyllic locations where they have lived in for decades, and who have weathered previous storms and thinking this one too “isn’t that bad,” or thinking. “Unless it has my name on it, it won’t get me.” You pray for them. But you also know some who stayed defiantly, the young and strong, and the middle-aged but “free” who resented being told by anyone what to do--especially by “experts.” And some of those protestors (an alarming number of whom you know) raised the bar, rebelled blithely, partying practically on the beach, posting selfies and videos on Facebook as the storm intensifies--to prove it was safe. As final proof, a video is posted of an engorging wave, a wave as large as any building you could hide in, a dark seething mountain of water. The video records shrill, exhilarating, victorious whoops of glee of the partiers it approaches. Then nothing. Now imagine, immediately you are asked by experts to stay in your shelter a little while longer, not forever, but much longer than you had ever expected to stay. Why? you ask. We’ve been so good. We did everything we were asked. We deserve to go home. We’ve run out of Lucky Charms and Quick and Coke. Despite your pleas and imploring, the experts are firm. Because, they say, a second hurricane is already coming, practically on top of the first. It’s not a Cat 5, yet, but…. This is unimaginable. This wasn’t forecast before. But, it’s here now, the experts nod somberly. Enough is enough. Enough is enough. Enough is enough, you hear yourself say, but…. Finally, imagine, dozens and dozens of your neighbors, even members of your own family, saying, I can’t take it anymore. This is not my life. I haven’t had a beer or a Buffalo Wings in days. You watch them, so impatient and tired of waiting and angry for the fun they miss. You watch them rush back to the beach. W. K. Sheldrake (Wayne) is the author of Instant Karma: The Heart and Soul of a Ski Bum, #1 on Outside Magazine Online’s list of “6 Adventure Books We’d Read Again and Again,” and Foreword Magazine’s ‘Gold Medal’ Adventure Book of the Year (2007). He is recording his pandemic experience of Pandemic Disability in a memoir The19: Confessions of a Mad (American) COVIDodger. He lives in Southern Colorado with his “high risk” wife where there is plenty of wide open space. They do not currently have a dog.

My christmas this year is same as those before, probably because I’m not a native american, my family don’t care much about christmas, but covid still made this year a lot harder for me personally, because of covid I Couldn’t get back to china during break, my dad and my grandmother were in china, I used to go back every year, but not this year. My daily life is also very inconvenient, because my family lives on the hill and we rarely go out. Covid restricts many opportunities for me to get out and have fun.

Over Winter Break my family and I drove in our Black SUV Ford Explorer Sedan 1200 miles or 18 hours to Cheyenne, Wyoming to visit my Grandparents. Along the way we stopped at the local Starbucks' to pick up a coffee for my coffee obsessed mother and we were on our way. When driving through Los Angeles, California you should always expect to be caught in traffic which was a minor setback, but we still made it through. The rest of California is very ugly being that its just Desert for 200 miles. During this time my sister spends her time spreading her nasty feet across the seat onto my body and refuses to move them for at least an hour. When I attempt to do this I am immediately yelled at and pushed off within 3 minutes. My dog which is completely lazy lays his little butt down between my sister and I and sleeps 3 quarters of the trip. My dad drives the whole time because my mom throughs a fit and refuses to drive even a single mile. And I sit down under my sister's legs under her super hot grey blanket in a cramped SUV in the desert and despite all that the car ride was pretty nice. When we finely arrived at our hotel in Grand Junction, Colorado we went out to Applebee's which I got to say is pretty good. I got the rib plate and a kiwi lemonade which I got to say is really good. At around 7:00 we arrived back at our hotel where we all collapsed and went to bed. At 5:00 we got back up, got dressed, brushed our teeth, and walked out of our hotel in to 20 degrees ferenheit. I made a mistake and decided to do it in sweat pants and a T-shirt. The rest of the drive was much shorter and a lot more scenic with the beautiful Colorado mountains and snow on the ground. we stopped at a local Maverick Gas Station to fill up and we all got out and used the facilities, even the dog. and the rest of the trip was nice. When we finally arrived we hugged our Grandparents and went inside. They have a enormous beefy Black Labrador named Hatti that for some reason liked to lick my dogs ears. Around 5:00 my aunt, uncle, and cousins came over and once again we hugged and visited for the rest of the night. over the next few days we went over to our cousins house to hang out and have a ping pong tournament, I lost badly. Over that time we went to my cousin's friend house to look through a telescope and witness something that only happens once every 400 years. Jupiter and Saturn join together in the sky and and create a bright light known as the Christmas Star. After that we went back to our Grandparents house to spend the night. the next day we went ice scating at the local arena and I swear I spent more time hitting and bruising my body parts on the ice then on my scates. The next day we spent most of the time playing pingpong with our cousin's. The next day we went to an escape room which we successfully completed and the next day it was Christmas Eve. That day was absolutely amazing. It started with launching a potato with a potato cannon across the ranch my grandparents own. After that we went to the shop and we did our own scavenger hunt which is our tradition. And then we went back to our Grandparents house to have our Christmas dinner with our great Grandma who is 92 and had our annual lemon cake. We went to bed and woke up and it was christmas. I got a lot of good stuff. like clothes a new football and a new build your own remote control rock crawler jeep. and then it was time to leave and go to our other Grandparents in Colorado Springs, Colorado. There we had a second Christmas Where I got New Airpods and a lego set. we hung around the house for mostof the days but we went to our other aunt and uncle's house and visited them for 2 days. And then it was time to leave to go back home the way we came marking the end of our trip.

How COVID impacted a family's traditional Christmas celebration

My first memory of Covid-19 was in late December of 2019. I was sitting on my couch watching TV when I heard my dad in the other room talking to my mom about how the new "coronavirus" desiese was getting worse in China. I was shocked at first about what he was talking about, so I went into the next room to ask him what was going on. He explained to me how there was an epidemic going on in China, and how some people have died. It all seemed very new and since it was all the way in China I wasn't very concerned with it other than thinking that it must be scary for residents of China. Fast forward a few weeks when we get back to school, lots of kids in the hallways were making jokes about the disease that was spreading, and were saying things like, "Don't forget to use hand sanitizer cuz of corona." Up until mid march the jokes kept on running, and the epidemic in China became more and more of a big deal. Until the night before march 14, 2020 everything was still a joke, and the rumor of us doing online school from home was still a running joke. But on the night of march 13 we all got an email telling us that we'd be doing virtual school from home for the next two weeks. The following Monday we started online school, and we all thought it would just be for two weeks. I was up in my room all day, and we only got short breaks in between classes. The first week everyone seemed to enjoy it was we had to use zoom calls for our class periods. The second week of school everyone including myself started not liking the idea of virtual school as much. Even though we got to sleep in later, people were sick of sitting at a desk almost all day long. Soon enough they extended our time we would be doing school from home because of a pandemic for longer. The coronavirus had spread to the U.S. and most people rarely left the house except to go to the grocery store because everything was closed. Whenever my mom or dad would go to the store they would wear a mask and gloves to make sure they didn't catch any germs. Lots of other people did the same. By this time almost the entire country was in lockdown. It had grown into a full-blown pandemic; other countries like Italy we also bombarded with the panic of Covid-19. Everything was a complete disaster just by mid-april. I had no idea when we would be going back to school, or when things would return to normal. I still don't as a matter of fact. by this time I thought we'd go back in may, but we didn't. In the first couple weeks of may, just a few days before my 13th birthday, everyone at this point hated online school, it was dreaded by children across the country. This gradually got worse and worse, teenagers' mental heath was tanking by a landslide. Quarantine was now taking over my life completely. Most days I would sit in my room the entire day even on weekends since we couldn't go anywhere. Throughout June was probably the worst moth for my metal heath, and I think many others would agree. Saying we were bored would be an understatement; I wasn't depressed much like a quite a few of my other friends ,as far as I'm concerned, but it felt like all of our happiness and livelihood had been taken from us since what we started lockdown. Soon after, in July things started to open up again, the cases for covid-19 were getting lower(which was good), and people basically assumed quarantine was over. The nest month since things were opening up previously we all thought we would go back to school, but a few days before school was supposed to start we were informed that we wouldn't be going back, and we had to continue with online school. I was extremely disappointed, and I thought hopefully we'd go back by at least October. The following months through Christmas break we stayed in online school, and almost nothing happened. I spent my days the exact same as the day before I would sit in my room do school and then look on my phone or listen to music(mostly One Direction, The Beatles, and 80's music). My life became dark, boring, and quiet. By this time everyone was so fed up with quarantine, since we had been in lockdown for the past 9 months. Even Christmas felt different this year; usually I'm super excited and this year I almost didn't even care about the holiday's and I can't explain why. I'm currently writing this on January 7, 2021 at 9:05 pm. We've luckily gone back to school yesterday for the first time in ten months. There are plenty of safety precautions to make sure none of us get sick like: wearing a mask, social distancing( staying 6 feet away from people), and there are even certain ways to we have to walk around hallways and the campus to keep us in order. I can already feel a change in myself since we went back yesterday. It already feels like things are getting better now that we don't have to do virtual school with zoom calls for classes. I'm also really glad I get to see my friends, and hopefully make some new ones. If there's anything I've learned from being a part of the current pandemic it's that you can't give up or give in to other things going on with the world or even within your own life. No matter how tuff things you have to remember who you are and what you want to be. If anyone in the distant future is reading this I want them to know that, and how lucky they are to be apart of something as wonderful as life can be. I found myself more often than never longing for the past hoping for answers, only to find out the past is inside all of us, and even when the hardships of reality kick in you have to remember how amazing it is to get to experience something as rare and beautiful as life is. So don't take things for granted and appreciate every moment because you'll never know when something as mind-boggling as a world-wide pandemic will happen to you. Long story short never give up on your hopes and fantasies; it might just be the thing you'll need the most.

This Christmas was very different for me due to the pandemic, it started out normal, I was with my friends and family exchanging gifts and having a good time, but the next day, I had learned that people at my house were exposed to someone with Covid-19, this led to us quarantining and being scared that we caught it, but everyone was negative for the virus in the end thankfully. It doesn't stop there though, my trip to Mammoth Mountain got cancelled so instead I took my Can-Am out to the desert, the reason this is so strange is because it has been a yearly tradition of my family's to go to Mammoth for Christmas for over 10 years, and this was shocking to me. Now that it's the new year, things are already going downhill, I've had to postpone my birthday because there are no places to go, this is a summary of all the things different about my Christmas, I'm just thankful my families okay.

Before Covid, this is how I spent my holiday. On Christmas Eve, my cousins, my aunts, and my uncles come to my house to celebrate. In the late morning, we have brunch and in the evening, we would play board games and card games while waiting for our dinner to cook. When the food is ready, we eat and do a White Elephant gift exchange with everyone. On Christmas morning, we open our presents and we eat breakfast. After we go to my best friend's house and exchange presents and have lunch, once we leave my friend’s house, we go home and mess around with our gifts until dinner, and then we would eat and be done. Since Covid, we didn’t have anyone come over on Christmas Eve and did not do a white elephant gift exchange. We tried to keep some of the tradition by playing cards and other games with my mom and sister. Instead of doing a gift exchange on Christmas with my best friend, we dropped off their Christmas gifts a couple of days early. The one thing that stayed the same was that I spent the holidays with my mom, sister, and grandpa.

This year with Covid-19 going on my Christmas was a little different. Every year on Christmas day we go to my grandparent's house and all of my cousins that live in town go to my grandparent's house but my other cousins that live in Virginia cannot come down to spend Christmas with us this year because of Covid-19. We all go over and exchange gifts and eat dinner as a family. I feel if covid-19 wasn't around I fell like all holidays would be extra good just because we get to see our close family members.

Unlike other Christmases, this year was different. I'm Avi Sobel, and I am an 8th-grade student sharing my Christmas expire during the COVID 19 pandemic. What greatly made this different was the amount of family and friends. For example, it was only the people I lived with. But, even though it was different it didn't lack meaning. We still celebrated our father Jesus birth and gave thanks for one another. We also did a tradition of giving presents. by, Avi sobel

For christmas my sisters and I normally sleep downstairs by the tree then we wake up. After a while we wake up our parents and they get their coffee. We open our stockings first then we open our presents. At around lunch time we get dressed in nice clothes and go to my aunt's and uncle's house. This year was way different. On christmas my sisters and I woke up by the tree and then we woke up my parents after. We opened our stocking mine had pistachios, trail mix, chocolate, earbuds, earrings, an amazon gift card, and cashews. Then we all opened our cards from my grandma. Then we opened our presents. I am not a huge present person but I am so grateful for what I got. I got a comfy Nutella sweatshirt and 2 super cool cookbooks. Then we watched A Christmas Story and Elf. The whole day we read our books that we got and we watched Hallmark movies. For dinner we had tamales and apple cider.

This year was way different than normal. I normally love Christmas/winter and I tried to enjoy it but it was very difficult. After Christmas day my Aunt, Uncle and grandparents (on my mom's side) would come stay at our house or we would go to my grandparents. This year we did not see then. On Christmas Eve my Aunt, Uncle and two younger cousins (on my dads side) would come over all evening/night. They decided not to come over this year so we briefly exchanged gifts and talked. 8:00am on Christmas morning my mom woke me up. My parents and grandparents (on my dads side live with us) where already up. My older brother woke up shortly after. We opened our stockings at the fire place then went to the living room with the Christmas tree. We opened the other present there and talked for a few after. We all went to our rooms to use the new stuff we got. I was kind of sad that Christmas was over because it barley felt like Christmas. Later that night we had Christmas dinner. As much as I tried to enjoy Christmas and the long break from school the vibe wasn't the same and was slighting disappointing.

This says that as time has went on, people have made more inventions and adaptations to help secure the safety, convenience, and success of as many people as possible. The photo shows a doctor during a plague in the 1700’s with the type of masks that most doctors wore at the time. The survival rate of the epidemic then was much lower than it is now. Now we wear masks that are easy to use in our every day life and are generally very convenient. This is important to me because it displays how our society has learned to adapt to new challenged and that if we can get through this pandemic we can get through anything.

This picture of a mask is one I wore throughout the holiday season. I wore it seeing family, going in public, and going to establishments. While I have been wearing them throughout the pandemic I wore them a lot more during the holiday season. This made my christmas different because I had to distance and wear a mask the entire time around the people I’ve known the longest for the first time ever.

Every year at Christmas time we have family over to celebrate. We would have skied at Mammoth Mountain California this year. However, due to Covid-19 restrictions my family was neither able to ski at Mammoth nor have family over. This made the holidays very different. We did not travel over the Christmas break, rather we spent the holidays, hiking and going to the beach. On Christmas Day my family hiked the Sandstone Peak trail. The peak is the highest point in the Santa Monica Mountains this made for a great view, especially of the ocean. Another hike that my family went on was a hike up a mountain called Mt. Boney. We went to various beaches during the break, where I surfed a little. Overall, it was a different Christmas due to Covid-19 and we could not do some of the things we usually do in order to protect ourselves and our family members.

This year's Christmas was a bit different, but it was pretty much the same as normal. We never travel over Christmas break so staying home wasn't too unusual. My uncle and grandfather ended up coming over for dinner because we see them pretty often, but we still stayed socially distanced. We were extremely blessed this Christmas with an amazing meal and lots of presents to open, but it was really nice to just sit down and catch up with everyone. I realized that even though we were all in the same place at the same time we hardly knew what was going on in each other's lives, in detail I mean. It was also probably the longest I had gone without looking at my phone or computer in the last year or so. Despite not being able to see all of my friends like I normally would, I think this has been one of the best Christmas' ever.

This Christmas we had to change some of our traditions. Although it could not all be the same we ended up still having a wonderful Christmas. On Christmas eve we wanted to do something special but everything is closed so we just hang out with each other and then at night we went to a church service. Christmas morning, we really didn't have much planned for Christmas so we decided to head to Mammoth. In the morning we opened up all of our presents and packed our bags and got in the car to go off to Mammoth. Once we got to Mammoth we had a lot of fun skiing. The second night we were there our family friends came up to so we got to have dinner with them and play games. A few days later we went home and that's were our break ended. In all we had a wonderful break but I was also very excited to come back to school.

The coronavirus or covid-19 is what I had to live with and continue to live with. During the Christmas season covid hit hard and it prevented me from seeing family and friends. It was quite devastating that I was unable to visit my grandmother because it may be one of my last Christmas's with her. By the time covid is solved we will have arteficial hearts.

On March 13, 2020, America went into lockdown because of the virus of Covid-19. People lost jobs, and people in they're family, things became a lot different. Eight months later, it's Christmas time yet again. This year, it was a lot different for a lot of families, including mine. Lots of people weren't in the Christmas spirit since it was such a rough year, but even more people decided to embrace being at home and go all out with decorations, and anything 'Christmas' they could get their hands on. If I'm being honest here, kids all over the world look forward to gifts under the tree on Christmas morning. This year, since people where unemployed, and struggled to get things for their children. A lot of kids didn't get many or even anything this year. My family was very fortunate this year to even be able to celebrate Christmas since they both lost they're jobs back in March. Every Christmas, we do the same thing, stay at home so this year wasn't much different from the rest. This year really impacted a lot of people, but we all got through!

This Christmas, everything was normal we all meet up and had our normal feast. I'm happy to say that there's nothing wrong with having a small Christmas party, but we just have a huge family. I also made our made Christmas card.

This Christmas was kinda different than any other christmas for me. Covid did not really effect my family but what happened was that my cousins got covid on Christmas Eve Eve. So that effected a lot of our Christmas plans. We were supposed to go to my Nana and Papas but we could not because of our cousins and we did not want to risk giving covid to my papa. Then Christmas morning was normal because my Nana came over and we opened up gifts and i got a new gaming microphone. They my sister had her friend over at night and we played What Do you Meme and watched Christmas Vacation. That is what my Christmas looked like.

Christmas wasn’t much different this year. We aren’t big believers in shutting down for COVID. So, we didn’t change anything. Christmas Eve we had our family dinner only one relative didn’t come because his wife is a believer in shutting down if it was up to him he would have come. Other than that we woke up in the morning and had a great Christmas