This post is by the artist Velvet Bandit of their street art pasted on a pole. The work is a cartoon image of the virus with a text box reading, "Hide Yo Grandma."

This is an Instagram post of street art in Bexhill, East Sussex. The street art is a stencil of US President Trump as a nurse with an oversized syringe and the phrase, "DONT TRY AT HOME." This is a reference to comments made by Trump to try injecting bleach as a remedy for the coronavirus.

This article explores how street art expresses community sentiment in a public arena, as expressions of emotion, desire, creativity, and human rights.

This article quotes several street artists about how the pandemic has impacted their art and their messages. The direct quotes amplify their messages, although the street art speaks volumes in its public arena.

This article talks about street art around the world responding to the pandemic with satire, humor, political commentary, observation and expression. What stands out most with this article is the video interview of a street artist while he is completing a piece of art honoring frontline workers.

This article, written by Jana Fedtke for PopMatters, describes instances of worldwide street art as political critique and social engagement during the pandemic. Examples of street art shown include stencil work. The author explores the ways in which street art relay information about how government agencies have handled spreading information and health care and in turn, how street artists depict social engagement with pandemic procedures.

The year 2020 feels like a never-ending nightmare. January and February of 2020, were just like any other ordinary month. I was getting my life together, planning my year out. I had gotten a new job as a patient care technician, I was going to Japan in the summer, and was hoping to be a resident assistant at one of the abroad programs in the summer as well. I remember being in the student union waiting for Josh Peck to arrive as a guest star at Duquesne. My friend asked me about my trip to Japan and if I was still going. Thinking back to it, I wish I weren’t so naïve. I told my friend how I was not worried and that it should all be fine. I was not expecting the impact it would have to how the world functioned. As Spring Break came along, I began training for my job as a PCT. I was ready to start work but that was when we started to get information about universities around us closing. I thought it would be any day now that Duquesne would also follow. A week after we got back from break is when Duquesne finally decided to close. Once I got home, it took a while for me to adjust to the new teaching style. While doing so however, I also took on some new interest and hobbies. First, my family and I worked on a renovating my room. We built a new bed frame, painted my room, and redid all my furniture. At the same time, I started to cook and bake every single day. In all the craziness of online school and renovations, I found comfort in the kitchen and working out in my basement. I would always find some new recipe to try out and because of my excitement, I would spend most of my time of the day in the kitchen. While doing so, I found time to workout so that I did not gain COVID weight. I was lucky enough that my classes for spring semester was comparably easier than my past semesters. This helped in being able to continue my hobbies and do online school. Starting back Fall semester was another challenge I faced. It was the start of my senior year and it felt depressing. It was supposed to be an exciting year and I was ready to get involved more around campus. However, with the new policies set, I do not get to see my friends often, or ever. Classes are more difficult to follow along because of the hybrid system and while I am supposed to be getting ready to be a nurse in a year, my experience in clinicals are being reduced. In all the darkness that COVID brought however, I am hoping with the new vaccine that we will start moving towards a normal life again. I cannot wait for the day I can be with people without the concern of COVID.

For much of 2020, the thought of having fans at sports games seemed far off in the distance, especially considering the part where professional sports were cancelled altogether. However, thanks to the adjustments made toward the pandemic, in January 2021, I had the opportunity to attend a NFL Divisional Playoff game between the Buffalo Bills and Baltimore Ravens in Buffalo. It took the whole season but for the playoffs, Bills fans were finally going to be let in the stadium, even if it is only at about 10 percent capacity. The process to get tickets was brief, as the game was only confirmed to host fans less than a week beforehand. We got lucky, and my dad and I were able to get tickets. One of the requirements to attend the game, was to get a COVID 19 test on the Wednesday beforehand. The tests were done simply, and quickly with the results being sent to the patient the next day. I would have been more worried to test positive and miss the game however, I had COVID already a few months beforehand and the chances of getting it again are very low. We soon received our negative results, and it was time to prepare for the game. When we arrived at the stadium the day of the game, there were significant differences to the regular pregame scene. There was no one out tailgating, which would otherwise be done all day in preparation for the game. Entering the stadium was a bit different too, on top of presenting your tickets, everyone entering was required to provide their negative COVID-19 test results to security to enter. Once inside the stadium, the most notable changes are the complete lack of seating outside of the stadium bowl. Alongside this, concessions were more limited, walkways were marked for directional flow, and everyone was required to wear a mask at all times. In the bowl, the seats were mostly taped off, with openings where people purchased tickets in small groups of two to four seats. Despite the audience capacity being around only 10 percent, I was surprised at how loud the stadium got throughout the game, it did not get quite as loud as it does at full capacity, but it was a lot louder than you would expect from only seven thousand fans. Overall, the game experience was not ruined by covid, but I hope soon we can go back to not worrying about keeping a mask up while cheering at a sporting event.

We are approaching a year of dealing with COVID-19. Our little Presbyterian congregation has been worshipping by Zoom during this time. Zoom Palm Sunday; Zoom Easter; Zoom Advent and Christmas. We are preparing for Zoom Ash Wednesday as we live through our second COVID Lent. How do you do Ash Wednesday over Zoom? We will impose ashes on our households or by ourselves, as we hear “From dust you came, and to dust you shall return.” The PCUSA sent advice about what kinds of ashes are appropriate. Burned candle wicks, outdoor dirt, or even house dust were all deemed OK. This letter, with ashes from last year’s Palm Sunday palms, came from one of the church elders. It speaks to the longevity of the pandemic and its disruption. It also speaks of all the little things that individuals have done to keep our traditions in some form and keep our community connected to each other and to our communal rituals.

Many are criticizing provinces plan's to continue to open up as Covid-19 variants are springing up throughout the country. Places like Quebec have begun to reopen businesses such as museums, malls, and hair salons while having a curfew in place. Newfoundland is facing a current surge with a variant strain.

poem The world was fine, Because we were all able to physically intertwined. We were able to roam the streets freely, Walk the park carelessly, Praise in church effortlessly, And enter our homes easily. For the past year, Livelihood has been invaded by a monster called covid-19. The WHO has declared a world pandemic. New protocols in place in order to win drastically. We are told to stay indoors, Wash our hands frequently and wear a mask when outdoors. No more social gathering, visiting friends or family. Life has become a solitary If we disobey, The monster virus will lend our life journey. Thousands have been killed and millions affected. It attacks the human lungs, That makes breathing feel like misery. Compared to the flu, It makes one sneeze and cough, With unbearable body pain. We just got to keep praying that God keeps and protects us during this time. Despite the introduction of a weapon vaccine to take control. The frustration, anxiety and fear kicks in daily. Still wondering when will life return to normalcy.

IMPEACHMENT TRIAL, CONSTITUTIONALITY?

COUNTRY DIVIDED

BLACK HISTORY MONTH, QUOTES

San Francisco school board erases school names

BIDEN CANCELS PROGRAMS

REPUBLICAN INTRAPARTY PROBLEMS

Biden as the great unifier?

This Year of the Ox is coming in much differently than the Year of the Rat. Last year, with the smallest shadow cast over the new year with news of a SARS type virus spreading through China, we were still able to celebrate normally, and thought those who had taken to wearing masks were exaggerating the seriousness of the disease. We had new year’s dinner with family, the kids wore their traditional outfits to school and fed red envelopes to the lion dancers, the city held their annual parade, and we even celebrated at Disneyland’s California Adventure, with local community groups coming in to perform and celebrate. Whether you say “新年快乐,” “Chúc Mừng Năm Mới,” or simply “Happy New Year,” Lunar New year is a huge celebration in our community and that celebration certainly isn’t happening in the same way this year. However, even though it’s tempting to focus on the fact that we’re sequestered at home and are physically separated from family, friends, and big celebrations, there is much optimism with the hope of the vaccine. All day, my phone’s been buzzing with new year messages, most of which end with “may the new year bring better tidings” or “may this new year bring much health.” Even talking to my in-laws for the new year today had an extra sense of joy, because they shared they are getting their second dose of the vaccine on Thursday. With light at the end of the tunnel, we are able to talk for the first time about maybe being able to see each other in person by the spring. When my son played piano for them virtually, I imagined it won’t be too long until these FaceTime visits will be replaced by the real thing. So here’s to the new year - may we all see health and peace.

When my daughter's birthday arrived this past summer, we realized any in person party was out of the question. Trying to think of what we could possibly do, we reached out to our friend, a part-time artist, and asked if she would mind hosting a virtual painting party for our daughter and three of her friends to do over Zoom. Our friend was amazing, leading the girls in painting a Captain America shield. She made my daughter's birthday quarantine memorable and fun. Three months later, and desperate for ways to make our virtual Girl Scout meetings exciting, I asked if she would consider leading our girls in earning their "Drawing" badge. Not only was she excited, she went above and beyond. Her husband, who does tech work for films (including the Mandalorian) set her up with various camera angles she could toggle back and forth through. She didn't just have the girls copy a picture, she taught them about all the different tools, how to shade, different techniques. Honestly, I learned a lot myself! Though she did this out of the kindness of her heart, I seriously think she should make a career out of this! She was amazing with the girls, they LOVED the meeting and talked about not only how much they learned, but how helpful and patient our special guest teacher was. She really should start an art for kids YouTube channel. One of the greatest things that has come out of this pandemic is the willingness of people to assist and support one another, and use their talents in ways that they may not have thought of before.

The one thing people seem to know about Girl Scouts is they sell cookies. What people don't know is that the profit from the cookie sales is how troops pay for their activities and service projects. My daughter has loved selling cookies since she started Girl Scouts in kindergarten. For the past three years, she has sold over 1,000 boxes a year, which is a crazy amount of cookies to sell! Of course, having a mom who has an entire high school student body to sell to, and a dad who has an entire college campus to sell to doesn't hurt. This year, both her parents are working virtually, which means her customer pool has shrunk considerably. The Girl Scouts, knowing how important cookie sales are to the girls, moved the sale online. To try and drum up sales, my daughter created an online sales pitch to send to friends and family, and post on our social media along with her personalized link to sell her cookies. We are all completely shocked that she has managed to sell over 500 boxes through this platform. I am so proud of her, and all our girls who have worked to achieve their two profit goals: first, to buy supplies and fund activities for another troop in our area that is run out of a local rescue mission and serves girls experiencing homelessness, and second, to go horseback riding.

When our Girl Scout troop transitioned online in the spring, we never foresaw the entire year being online. When my best friend/co-leader and I made the calendar in the summer, we originally made it through the end of 2020, thinking that by January we’d be back in person. I guess that shows how short sighted humans can be, a virus doesn’t run on a calendar, so it was silly to think things would be dramatically different without widespread access to a vaccine. So here we are in 2021, pushing through every other week. It has been really great to maintain the normalcy of meeting together, though. All the girls are either going to school on a hybrid (half the week in person, half at home) schedule or a full distance learning schedule, so it’s just nice to have the regular interaction with each other just like they did before quarantine. This also was a perfect opportunity to give the girls increased ownership of the troop. Now that they’re in fourth grade, we have made leadership roles, so the girls are responsible for different parts of the meeting. This takes the pressure off me for having to fill two hours on Zoom in a way that is fun and meaningful and doesn’t feel like school! I absolutely love seeing their creativity in making up games, activities, snacks, and issues/problems in our community they want to help fix. There also are some girls who used to be passive who have really loved this platform and have really stepped into being leaders. I am, however, running low on badges they want to earn that are easy to do over Zoom. The one shared here ended up pretty fun. To earn the “Simple Meals” badge, the girls worked in virtual groups to make different breakfast, lunch, and dinner meals. Then they basically did their own cooking show by walking the other girls through making whatever the dish was. Bonus - everyone was nice and full by the end! I miss my girls terribly, but we are so fortunate to be able to have the girls continue to meet, share, and support each other while we patiently wait for the cases to decrease.

This year, my daughter’s Girl Scout troop, like every other troop in the country, has moved their cookie sales online. Even cookie pick up is strange this year. Instead of having families come by and pick up cookies to sell, I leave the cookies on the porch with the receipt and wave through the window. When my best friend (and co-leader) came with her daughter to pick up cookies, we chatted through the window and took a picture to save the bizarre moment. I mentioned that when another family from the troop came to get cookies, I almost didn’t recognize the girl because she had gotten so tall. My best friend then had the genius idea to take a picture of her daughter by my front door. She said I should take a picture of my daughter so we could compare their heights, as they have been the same size their entire lives. And then she said a statement that shocked me: “I mean, it’ll be a year next month since they’ve actually stood next to each other.” I guess since my best friend and I text almost every day, and have seen each other over Zoom, I hadn’t processed how truly long it has been since we’ve all been physically together. I met my best friend when I was 11, we were college roommates, married guys we were all in the same friend group with in college, had our first kids exactly six months apart from each other, our second kids two months apart from each other, and live 15 minutes away from each other. We have been lock step since we were kids, so not seeing each other for almost a year is insane. As the picture shows, our daughters are still basically the same height, so even apart, we're still lock step. Still, hoping we’ll be able to be together again before the girls grow anymore!

An unexpected benefit of quarantining for the past eleven months is my son has become quite the pianist. Since we’re always home, he wanders to the piano often to play his pieces - during recess, lunch, waiting for his sister to be done with whatever she is working on. Honestly, because he has endless practice time he has advanced much quicker than he would have if life were normal. His teacher and he share a dry and quirky sense of humor. My son’s favorite part of the week is when "Mr. Carl" calls for their virtual lesson. Carl noticed early into quarantine that the way the phone sits on the piano makes his picture reflect in painting on the wall. He told my son he is always watching him, and it has become their inside joke. When we put up Christmas decorations, the painting was temporarily replaced. Being a creative and funny guy, Carl photoshopped himself into the decoration and texted it to me to share with my son. Now after every single lesson, Carl texts me a picture of where he is that week. Carl’s positivity, consistency, and continued high expectations have helped my son thrive and I am so thankful for him.

When I first heard of the COVID-19 pandemic, I was entering my third quarter of my senior year at Berks Catholic High School. I initially took this as an extended Easter break, finding what opportunities I could find before my inevitable return to school. Except I didn't return to school, no student did. I actually visited Duquesne University to find out more information on March 13th as students were moving out; nothing could prepare us for what was to come of this pandemic. During the last two weeks of March I did as any teenager would do during an extending break off school- absolute shenanigans. I got extremely into urban exploration (essentially exploring abandoned buildings) and loved finding these forgotten pieces of history around Pennsylvania. My friends and I would often go to the local skatepark and make acquaintance with fourteen-year-old teenage boys, as we hardly knew how to skate. About a week after the beginning of this break, I decided the best course of action would be to visit my friend Parker who lives on the other side of Pennsylvania. After driving four hours across the state, we began our beautiful adventure. From hiking, exploring abandoned places, and almost getting arrested, I thoroughly enjoyed my time in Western Pennsylvania. Following this, I had the opportunity to pick up my now-girlfriend and take her across state lines to Maryland. She had never tried Wawa, which I deemed an indescribable experience and finding out the closest one was in Maryland, of course I decided that going there past midnight was the best decision. It was probably the best decision I had made all year as I am still with her, even through this pandemic. Returning home I had received the news that we were not to return to school. This sent me into a very confused mindset as I was unsure of what was to come. Then came spirals of misinformation and political divide of what this virus truly was. This was no help to the nation, let alone those of us at home who had no control over what was going on. It was April now, online school had begun for my high school- I did not attend a singular zoom class. A little over a month had passed and the nation came under racial turmoil after the killing of George Floyd. I was a supporter of the Black Lives Matter movement and had attending multiple protests. The most notable of these protests came to be the "D.C. Blackout". The night of May 31st, 2020 was that like none-other. I contacted my friend from Harrisburg earlier that day and asked her if she would travel to D.C. with me to participate in the protest; we had no idea what we were going into. We arrived in the D.C. area around 9:30 that evening, what turned to a night of complete anarchy. I have never seen or felt anything like I did that night and do not have the necessary words to describe what truly happened that night, or how some of the protesters that were arrested are still missing to this day. Three days following the blackout, I graduated high school. This was not your typical high school graduation with a huge ceremony filled with friends and relatives; this was a drive through by homeroom. Quite anticlimactic if you ask me. My life continued on after this and I now find myself in the midst of my spring semester at Duquesne University (pandemic still occurring of course). Mere words can not describe the true feelings and experiences I have gone through in the past year, I just ask that eventually this country ties up its loose ends.

On March 13th, the day after my birthday, I had treated myself to finally getting my septum pierced after wanting that piercing for months beforehand. Little did I know then that I would be almost the only one that has seen it in person since then. Two days after that, we had received an email from our university’s administration informing us that we would be allowed to leave school and continue classes online at home if we felt unsafe at school as concerns of the virus got bigger and louder with each passing day. The writing was on the wall; Duquesne University was going to be closing down. That email would come on the car ride back home an hour after me and my sister had already left campus. Once the semester was over and summer began, even with our own specific set of challenges, I actually feel my family was surprisingly equipped to handle the new world we were thrust into. Both of my parents are severely disabled; my mother has not been physically able to work for years and my father recently had to give up his floor cleaning services once his health gave out. As a family, we’ve found that we are much stronger together, and we “make it work” as they say. My mom did have a little fun in responding to our physically healthy friends and family talking about being trapped in their house for months on end with “Welcome to the club, you get used to it.” She was always (mostly) joking, of course, but I do think there is some truth to this joke. I grew up with a mom who rapidly succumbed to multiple debilitating chronic disorders, and that kind of circumstance opens your eyes to different experiences than many of your peers who did not experience the same. Listening to the words of more people than I can count who thought being disabled was all about staying home and collecting a check have now maybe had their opinions changed based on this new perspective, I hope so at least. This all being said, I also have to acknowledge the privilege I have in having a socially stable homelife. I personally know more than a few friends from school who had genuine, serious concerns for their mental or physical wellbeing when we were told everyone had to return home. I try to remember every day not to take what I have for granted. If the plague year has taught me anything, it is that I have a lot to be grateful for.

COVID-19 The Good, The Bad, and The Deadly…. When the COVID-19 pandemic struck I was in the spring semester of my second year of nursing school. Being naïve and not having experienced a pandemic before, I expected COVID-19 to breeze in and out like the flu every year. What I didn’t expect was a deadly virus that would leave behind it a path of death, despair, and devastation. One of the biggest areas in my life that was impacted by COVID was my education. As classes moved to virtual platforms there was a major learning curve for both students and professors. CDC guidelines and social distancing made it difficult to find areas on campus to study and next to impossible to study in groups. My friends and I worried about our lack of clinical experiences and how that was going to impact our future. Since I had virtually no clinical hours during my specialty rotations, not only was I unsure of my skills, I was also unsure of where I wanted to take my nursing career. Returning to work over winter break was also very challenging. I am a patient care assistant and medication technician at an assisted living facility. All throughout the summer I worked with the threat of COVID looming above my head like a dark cloud. It was the first time in my life that I felt people really depended on me. I understood that my actions impacted the health of others. Fortunately, my residents all remained safe. However, I was not prepared for my return a few months later. The residents were no longer allowed to have visitors and they started testing positive for COVID. At one point we started to run low on personal protective equipment, but we were still trying to take all the precautions that we could to keep us and our residents safe. It was heart breaking to be the one holding a residents hand as they passed away due to coronavirus. My job became a lot more difficult having to communicate with families and watching their final moments with their loved ones. The residents that were lucky enough to not contract the virus were lonely and couldn’t understand why they had to quarantine. They felt abandoned and afraid. It was a very trying time for all my coworkers since we were all working overtime due to our staffing shortages. Working overtime was both physically and mentally draining. Even on my days off I was called in because staff members were getting sick and were unable to come in. It was mentally exhausting because every day I would come in to work and be nervous to walk in to report and see who had passed in the hours I was gone. COVID-19 also brought about some remarkable changes. I have spent a lot more time with my family as we have discovered our new passion-hiking. My co-workers and I have a new appreciation for one another and take the time to have meals together and support one another to make sure we are doing okay mentally. I have been part of innovative changes like my COVID-19 remote patient monitoring job and positive experiences at the COVID vaccine clinic. I have seen the medical and scientific communities collaborate on treatment guidelines and the development of a vaccine. It has also been an incredible period for change and innovation.

The way covid has affected me has been through seeing my family in Canada. Each year my family travels from Akron Ohio to Ontario Canada so we can see my mom's family. My dad's side lives in Akron so we see them a lot, but it is hard to travel to see my family in Canada sometimes. Covid just made it that much harder. Clearly traveling up there in the middle of the epidemic in the spring would be a bad idea so that already took away one of our three trips out of the year. Then halfway through the summer before we were thinking about going up to our cottage the borders shut down. That really put a damper on things because now two of our trips were cancelled. At this point it has been a little over a year since I have seen my family and that is unprecedented in my lifetime. Finally, as Christmas was approaching, we had hopes that covid would be handled by then, but the borders remained closed and the cases and deaths kept rising. This was upsetting because I was looking forward to seeing my family at least once in 2020 and those dreams collapsed. When we go up to see my family at Christmas time it normally starts off as the first few days are catching up with each other. I love to tell them my stories and they all love to hear them. We then proceed to relax the next few days by going out to lunches with everyone and then making dinner at someone's house. Things can get pretty wild once the people of age start drinking. We have had many karaoke nights along with pool parties and barbecues during the spring. They may not go smoothly, but everyone ends up having a great time. I miss goofing around with my cousins who are all younger than me by one to 8 years, so I always am the leader of the group and decide what fun we get up to every night. Often times we end up chilling in their basement listening to music and telling stories after everyone starts to go to bed. Then on Christmas we wake up to a big breakfast and start opening up family gifts. After all the gifts are open it's time for lunch and to start partying again. We then proceed to get dinner ready and then after dinner we go right back to partying. We normally stay another two days and then leave. All in all it is a really relaxing experience and a chance to get away from the world. It really sucks that covid ended up taking that away from me.

In March 2020, my life would change drastically, as I was just turning nineteen, but also entering one of the craziest pandemics the world has ever seen. It was not just my life that would change. My family, friends, and millions of people all over the world were affected by the deadly COVID-19. Because it is such a deadly virus, people were forced to go into lockdown and isolate themselves from one another. During this time, it got much lonelier in life as there was not as many people around. Many people were sad by this; however, I took it as an opportunity to look at myself and truly focus on what I needed to do to improve. There was less outside noise, so more of my energy was directed to my schoolwork that needed to be done which boosted my grades over the course of a few months. Also, working out is a great passion of mine and I was able to get more physically fit as I had more free time. However, it was hard because all of the gyms were closed, and I had to find an alternate route to reach my goals. In the basement, I had some rusty dumbbells that I am grateful that I was able to put to great use. It was enough for the chest, back, arms, shoulders, and legs that I was so focused on training at least. This situation was great to prepare for my life because I was faced with a minor inconvenience and set out to overcome it through strategic perseverance. This pandemic taught me that if you want something bad enough, you can attain it through determination and hard work. While I never saw many friends during the first lockdown, I was spending even more time with my immediate family. While I usually would have been at college, the pandemic gave me the opportunity to get closer to my parents and siblings. We made time for evening walks, family game nights, family meals, and also various other movies and activities we would love to participate in. At first, I did not know what to expect when I we were asked to move off of campus due to COVID-19. While there was a great deal of hardship that the pandemic brought upon the world and my family and friends, is gave me the chance to find myself and grow as a person, which I will always be grateful for.

During the pandemic, I have noticed that my local Starbucks drive-thru lines are still long, maybe even longer than before. Even during odd hours, like 5-6pm, when people are usually eating dinner. This has been happening even before companies stopped doing work from home. I wonder if some of the people in the lines are bored teenagers like me who just want something to do, and maybe a little social interaction. It could also have to do with TikTok, where people share their favorite Starbucks orders. It seems like every week there is a new Starbucks trend that people have to try. It is interesting to see how the pandemic has affected consumer behavior.

Coronavirus hit the United States during my senior year, and it made things very difficult. No one was really worried about coronavirus at the beginning of 2020, but when March hit people started to realize that coronavirus was more serious. March 12, 2020 was my last day of in-person high school and I had no idea. I did not get to go to the actual last day of in-person high school because I had a respiratory infection at the time. Halfway through the day on March 13, 2020, is when they decided to close all schools in the U.S. for two weeks. All of the kids in my grade thought it was only going to last two weeks and then we would be back in school to finish the year, but that didn’t happen. After the two weeks off, they gave an extra couple of days off to figure out how to change completely to online learning. We ended up finishing the year online and although my classes got easier, my life got so much harder. I am an essential worker that works for a long-term care facility and when I was not doing school or schoolwork, I would be at my job doing as much as I possibly could to keep my residents fed and safe. I had a lot on my plate at the beginning of the pandemic with balancing school and work and trying to figure out how to still have a social life while staying in my house. I also had to be very careful with whatever I did because I needed to protect my parents who are sixty years old and seventy years old and also protect my residents who are mostly sixty or older. Since I was so busy working and doing school nothing hit me until May when the school decided to cancel prom and graduation. This hit me hard because I worked so hard for twelve years to now get nothing. I worked so hard to have all A’s in middle school and high school and be on the honor roll all of those years to not even get to celebrate my achievement. I had one night when I was thinking about all of it and I ended up having an anxiety attack and crying to my sister all night because I was so upset with how I was ending my senior year. I eventually got over it and starting college was such a weird experience it’s been so hard to make friends with people and we haven’t been able to have normal college experiences. Now that it is almost a year after the schools closed there are now two vaccines out and I have been able to receive both rounds of it because of my work, but there are still so many that need to receive the vaccine and we still have a long time before we return to normal.

My dad was diagnosed with cancer in November of 2019 and it came as a shock to all off us. He started chemotherapy in February of 2020, and a as a result of his treatment his immune system was becoming weak. My dad continued to get better but the issue became about his immune system and covid. Covid-19 became a big issue for the United States in March so my family was very worried about getting sick for my dad since his immune system was getting weaker. As a result of this, my family and I did not go out and see other people CDC guidelines would be violated. This meant none of my siblings and I could ever truly hangout with our friends over the entire summer and Christmas break. Some people were violating Covid restrictions and stay at home orders, however, we could not because my family and I could not take the risk of getting my dad sick. While our friends were all hanging out we could not go because the risk wasn't worth the potential outcome of getting our dad sick. Even after some of the covid restrictions got lifted towards the end of 2020 I could still not go out because my dad could not get sick. This picture represents what me and my family would do since we could not hang out with our friends or extended family. We would play board games and would do trivia with our extended family. This was not ideal for me and my siblings because we wanted to hang out with our friends, but we knew we could not. Many families endured this over the course of this pandemic. Even just seeing your grandparents was hard to do because they are old and cannot get sick with covid. Many families including mine sacrificed seeing their other family because it was too big of a risk to see them and potentially get covid. This picture is an important representation of my covid experience because it brought me and my family closer together during a hard time. We spent a lot more time playing games and just hanging out with each other over the several months we were home from school.

When the world went on the first lockdown on March 12, 2020, it caught everybody by surprise. I woke up that day in New York City and went to practice to prepare for our basketball game later that night. We found out around noon that the whole tournament, along with pretty much every sporting event in the world, was cancelled. We flew back to Pittsburgh a few hours later and from there I drove home to Northwest Ohio, which is the last place I expected to be at that time. It was such a surreal feeling to watch the whole world shut down and know that life as we knew it wouldn’t be the same for a long time. I was really looking forward to the spring semester and spending a lot of time with 3 of my best friends whose last semester it would be at Duquesne. I came to the sad realization that I wouldn’t get to have that time with them and I’ve only gotten to see them once since everything went down. With everybody being on edge because the virus was such a new thing and we didn’t know much about it, I also didn’t get to see my hometown friends for a while. It was just my parents, brother and I at home. It seemed uneventful and monotonous at times but looking back on it, I really enjoyed that time I had with my family because I am at school during the summer semester and usually don’t get to come home much during the school year. The picture attached is from one of the best memories of the quarantine when my dad, brother, and I went on a trip to our family cabin in Michigan. We haven’t had time like that to ourselves since I left for college and it really brought us closer together. I also got to spend a lot of time alone, which is something I don’t usually do and had to learn how to do. This is another reason I am thankful for the lockdown because I learned a lot not only about other people, but about myself as well. I revisited some old passions of mine, like making art and music. It was nice to be able to really relax and come back to the things that I was into as a little kid. This alone time allowed me to do a lot of self-reflection as well and helped me realize what I am doing right and wrong in all aspects of my life. I had always thought about playing professional basketball, but over this time I realized that it is a goal that I want to put all my effort into achieving. I had to reassess my habits, which pushed me to work really hard to get into the best shape of my life over the quarantine. I knew I needed to take advantage of the time because I was just coming off of a serious knee injury that I wasn’t fully recovered from. I ended up accomplishing a lot of the goals I had set over the lockdown and I stayed disciplined with my diet and workouts and this helped me learn a lot about myself. Some of the things that still stick with me might sound cliche, but they are true: be thankful for every day, be better than you were the day before, and stay patient through frustrating times. Overall, I am thankful for the time I was able to spend both alone and with family through this pandemic and those memories and lessons will stick with me forever.

Relief was what I felt when I received my covid vaccine. I felt even more relief when my 21-year-old daughter was able to receive her vaccine since she would not have been able to have gotten vaccinated until early summer. My first vaccine appointment was at 12:30 in the morning, and my daughter rode along with me to keep me company since I had to drive to State Farm Stadium. As we exited the freeway to go to the stadium, the parking lot where the vaccines were being administered could be seen, and I was surprised that it looked relatively vacant of vehicles. When we reached the parking lot, we were directed to follow the signs and pull up to the first checkpoint, where a person verified I had an appointment. At the second checkpoint, a person scanned in my appointment and asked if my passenger had an appointment as well. I told the person “no,” and they said, “we have had a lot of people not show up tonight for their vaccination, so if your passenger would like to get vaccinated, they are welcome to do so.” I immediately accepted the offer for my daughter to get her vaccination, and we were directed to another spot where she could fill out her paperwork for getting a shot. Once my daughter completed her paperwork, we were sent to wait in a line where the vaccines were administered, and after a five-minute wait, we had our first vaccine. After we had our shots, we were directed to wait in a line of cars for fifteen minutes to ensure we did not have any adverse reactions to the vaccination. While waiting for the fifteen minutes, an individual came to our vehicle and scheduled our second vaccination appointment, which was a huge relief since going through the computer system the state had established was cumbersome. What was surprising to my daughter and me was that while we waited during that fifteen-minute time frame, a nurse came by to ask us how we were feeling. We both said we were okay and stated we were surprised that we could get through the vaccine process so quickly and how there were so few cars. The nurse told us that many people were skipping out of their appointsments out of fear of rumored side effects from the vaccine, which was why there was extra serum for individuals like my daughter, who had ridden along. So I had the right schedule for the right night for my daughter to ride along. And now my whole household has been inoculated, which is a relief after three times of being in quarantine. Whew!

Since I can remember, I have always been a very nervous and anxious person. On my first day of second grade, I couldn’t even bring myself to leave my mom, and usually kids grow out of that stage when they go off to kindergarten. Throughout all of grade school, and my freshman and sophomore year of high school, I was always insecure, self-conscience, and very sad. It finally got better my junior year of high school and the only reason it got better is because I was on medicine. I went to a therapist and took my medicine on the regular, but I still was very anxious. I guess anxiety is just a part of who I am, and it is not something I can grow out of. After giving explaining my background with me being a very anxious person, you can probably see where this story is going. Obviously moving away for college was a very scary and anxiety increasing time. I could not sleep, eat, or smile the two weeks leading up to leaving for college. The sad thing is is that I was finally getting better, but then college came. Believe it or not though, I moved to Pittsburgh for college, and my anxiety got better. I was not as insecure and really learned to not let things get to me that used to get to me. It was March 14, 2020 where my life, and my anxiety started to go back to how it used to be in grade school and the beginning of high school. This pandemic has not been easy for anyone, and everyone can attest to that, but having anxiety and then having a world pandemic hit was horrible. I remember getting the email that told us we had to go home, and I had an anxiety attack. Because of my anxiety, I am a big planner and having to leave campus and not knowing when we will return put me in a state that I hope I never go back to. My mom picked me up on Sunday, March 15th, and that day I did not sleep, eat, or talk for about fourteen hours. I did not like how I did not have a scheduled day to go back to school, which made me so anxious because like I said before, I am a planner. We never got to go back to school and let me tell you online classes made me so anxious. I felt so behind, because going from all in person classes to all online classes is not an easy transition for anyone. Being a person with anxiety, I felt as though I was put into a world, I was not meant to be in. It felt so rushed, confusing, and honestly, I was at my lowest in the middle and end of March. I remember crying to my parents about how I didn’t want to do school because it was miserable and going out in public was so scary to me. This pandemic was publicized everywhere, and I thought in my brain, if I go into the grocery store, I will get COVID, and I know that is not true, but that is how my anxiety works. I did not go anywhere for about four months, and if I did, it would be for a drive in my car. I did not see anyone for about five months because I was worried about where they have been, and if they have the virus. This whole virus really made my anxiety worse and put me at my lowest point in my life. I felt like I did not have any friends, and I also felt very dumb because I thought I knew nothing that was going on in my classes. I started seeing a therapist again and it really helped. The fact of being scared to go into the grocery store or mall or even seeing friends seems silly. I wasn’t scared, it was just my anxiety because I wanted to make sure I did not get the virus. I hope this virus comes to an end, because I know how much it took over my mental health, and I believe I am not the only one.

The Corona Virus aka COVID-19 has drastically affected my life as well as the entire world. COVID-19 first affected my life during my second semester sophomore year of college. The beginning of sophomore year was when we first started hearing about COVID-19. At that time, it wasn’t really a big deal. It was more like a myth in a sense; it was happening everywhere else but here. And then, March came. More and more reports of COVID-19 in the United States were being presented. It was starting to become a serious threat. The day after Saint Patrick’s Day, I was with some friends and we were all hanging out and getting lunch. During our lunch, we received an email saying that we had to move off campus within the next week due to the threat and seriousness of COVID-19. We were all so shocked and upset that our sophomore year was cut short. In the blink of an eye, we had to pack up our entire college lives and leave to go home. All of the memories we were supposed to make were gone. For me, all of my friends were at school so going home was very hard for me. Don’t get me wrong, I love my family but, I also want to be able to see my friends. Once I got home, I had to do the rest of school online and had to be quarantined in my house. Online school was such a new and difficult experience. I had never done online school and neither had the professors, so it was a very difficult transition. Something else that was difficult was being trapped in a house from March until May. I am not the type of person to just stay cooped up in a house. I like to be out doing things and socializing with others but, I couldn’t do that. I was confined to my house with only my family. It was hard finding things to keep us all entertained every day while also trying not to kill each other. We tried puzzles, games, family walks and hikes, movie night, and everything in between. These things worked but only for a short period of time. Being quarantined really does affect your mental health. I also had to celebrate my twentieth birthday in quarantine which was not fun at all, but at least I was with my family which made it better. Then came July. July first was when I was moving into my first house in Pittsburgh for college. I thought that it was going to be such a fun and exciting time. But it was difficult with the whole pandemic going on. It was hard to see my friends, go out to eat, and go to the bars. I was still able to have fun, but it was still difficult to adjust to a new lifestyle. Online school full time was also hard, but I got through it and figured out how to do school efficiently. Come end of October, I got COVID-19. I didn’t realize of shitty COVID-19 was and that I could even get it because I was so young. I had all of the symptoms except loss of taste and smell. I was bed ridden for two weeks; it was awful. After that things were as good as they can be during this time. A week before New Year’s Eve, my entire family tested positive for COVID-19 except me since I had already gotten it. They got really sick and I had to take care of them and grocery shop and run errands for them. That was hard for me to watch them all be so sick. But they got better and became healthy. Yes, I haven’t had this extreme story due to COVID-19 but it did affect my life in ways that I didn’t think it could. I had to change my entire way of living because of this virus.

While I have been incredibly fortunate to remain shielded from the harsher effects the pandemic has wrought on so many families and individuals over the course of the past year, I have faced a multitude of inner challenges in the transition from high school to college. Attending college, in the most normal of times, can prove a formidable adversary for those like myself who struggle with anxiety. Navigating a new campus, facing distance from loved ones, and managing an increase in course load all were deeply concerning facets of the experience in my eyes, even when a global pandemic was an inconceivable complication to these already daunting tasks. Most paramount of my worries, perhaps, was the social aspect of college. Though incoming freshmen are often reminded that this is an area of insecurity common to every new student, the restrictions that students were dealt amplified my ever-growing hesitations. Mandatory isolation, lack of social gatherings, and limited opportunities to meet others culminated into the manifestation of my deepest social anxieties. If I couldn’t cope with the pressures of normal interaction, how could I be expected to thrive in an environment barren of the very opportunity? I spent many nights leading up to the looming day of move-in sitting on the couch with my parents, often talking until the early hours of the morning. I was, at first, hesitant to express my feelings and risk sounding ungrateful or ignorant of the great privilege I possessed. So many people yearned to be in the position that I myself wanted any way out of. I was thankful for the opportunities that I had been given, and I felt that squandering them and conceding to my anxious preconceptions would be an insult to all those who weren’t given the same chance under the difficult circumstances the pandemic established. After many hours of deliberation with my family, I felt that letting my increasing social anxiety dictate my future would be disposing of a precious opportunity for personal growth. When the day of move-in arrived, it was impossible to ignore the pit in my stomach and the tightening in my chest once my parents had said their goodbyes and departed. Though I couldn’t have felt more alone in that moment, I quickly learned that this was far from the case. After only a brief period of awkward silence, my roommate and I set about decorating our space with posters representative of our shared taste in music and love of hockey, interests we soon found to be shared among a small group of people in our building. Through our conversations that first night, it was not only clear that good friends are much closer than my anxiety would have liked to admit, but also that we were going to establish a deep bond in experiencing the often challenging, always unique adventure of attending college in a pandemic.

This is an oral history of my mom, Dianna Sundell, sharing that being able to spend a lot more time with her grandkids (my kids) and having time to bake and make crafts have been positives of the pandemic. The picture is of cinnamon rolls she made based off a copycat Disneyland recipe.

It has been weird. A time where the words “pandemic” and “quarantine” are not just being used in a book or video game. Isolation is a weird thing too. It is good in moderation, but what now draws the line between too much and too little? An hour can seem like days and a day can seem to be the same over and over again. I have been delving further into art and music as the days pass. It seems strange that sometimes exploring art and music has the same effect as isolation such that time does not seem to exist in the expected way. I sometimes forget that we are in a pandemic when drawing or alone as if it were already in the past. Art and music have always been in my life, so I expanded on them by trying new genres and mediums. It is not always easy to try new things or to be forced into new things. Often times, I did not appreciate or even like what I attempted in art. It would be quite hard to count the number of drawings I have thrown away or canvases I’ve painted over. Somehow, over the course of quarantine, I have found myself to be more critical of the things that I create. Perhaps it is from being isolated which gives me more opportunities to overthink. Perhaps it is the constant comparison to other people on social media. Perhaps my disgust is not a new development at all, but it seems more pertinent since it is difficult to focus on other things. Of course, this disappointment is crawling into other aspects of my life. The drawing is one that I used to think was decent, but I find myself only critiquing it. It depicts a human floating and wrapped partially in fabric. In October of 2020, I erased most of it and tried it again, but the results stayed the same. Art is interpreted on an individual basis, but I personally found it to be about identity. Everyone wearing a mask made me think about who we really are. I have certainly run into people where I did not recognize them at all with a mask. Part of the identification process is how people look and how they act. If we don’t know who they are, do they act differently? Does this make an individual, a different person?

This past November was the weirdest and hardest time during this pandemic for me. In Early November, I had made new friends with other people on my floor and I had been working as a Nighttime desk aide here at the University. At the start of the month, it was election time and it stressed me out. I was concerned about the election, but I was more concerned with how each candidate would deal with COVID-19. With one candidate promising to make things better, and with the other still not believing science, I became even more worried for the future. To get my mind off the election, my friends and I went out to eat and got Mexican. Little did we know, that within the upcoming weeks that we would get sent home early. Before we got sent home, we discovered a hamster on our floor, after we saw the cage in our communal bathroom. To this day, we never discovered who had a hamster. Other highlights that we had was getting Millie’s ice cream, which for me, was the first time I had ever had Millie’s. On November 14th, my friends and I learned that another one of our friends had contracted COVID-19 and we had all been exposed to it. That same day, all of my friends and I packed up and either went home or went to the Hotel. My first worry was that I was going to be losing my paychecks, as I have bills of my own that I pay, including my credit card, and I did not have a job at home to rely on. My second worry was my family, as I didn’t want to possibly give them COVID-19, as my Dad works in a hospital and is at higher risk. I didn’t want to go home at first, but my Mom wanted me to come home and keep me close. Over the next two weeks, I sat in my bedroom at home, with no human contact and I just had my dog to keep me company. After going home, I had to attend all my classes online, which was a struggle for me, as I have a family of 5 including myself, with 2 younger siblings who are also doing online school. Keeping up with my classes became a lot harder because my Wi-Fi at home didn’t support 3 people being on zoom at the same time almost every day. On Thanksgiving Day, I was finally able to leave my room, as I had shown no signs of COVID-19. I ended up getting tested for COVID-19 and tested negative. I also ended up getting a seasonal job so I didn’t worry about money as much. Overall, the month of November was one of the hardest months for me.

COVID-19 has affected me in a way that seemingly everyone has felt in some way. This pandemic has brought my family closer together, physically and emotionally, than ever before. My family is usually the type to cover up our feelings and hide our thoughts with sarcasm, but this pandemic has unleashed all of those hidden feelings. Being stuck in the same house I have been in for the past 21 years has changed how I view family and the time that is spent together. When the pandemic first occurred, we were all devastated and annoyed, just like the rest of the world, that we were instructed to stay in our homes 24/7 and only leave our homes for certain conditions such as essential work, food, and outdoor activities. During the first few weeks we were all getting antsy and annoyed staying inside all together, but we had to come to terms with the fact that were stuck with each other whether we like it or not. We slowly began to play board games, go on outdoor walks, and spend quality time together because we were all that we had. I used to hate having family dinners, being asked a million questions by my parents, fighting over the bathroom with my siblings, playing family game nights, and much more. Over many months of being cooped up in the same house with my whole family, I started to realize that I cherish those moments more than I thought I did. During the past few holidays that occurred during the pandemic; Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years, and soon to be Easter, it is easy to see that close family should be cherished and held close to our hearts. Not being able to see my cousins and grandparents for these holidays has been a different kind of experience. We always take for granted those times where we get to casually see them or plan gatherings, but now we’re forced to stay distanced to keep everyone safe. My mom has recently said, “We are showing how much we love them by not seeing them”, explaining that we are keeping everyone safe and healthy by not gathering and possibly spreading Covid-19. Looking into the future and the years to come, I hope to keep appreciating the time with family that I will have and look to make the most of situations I am put into. This pandemic has taught me many lessons that I wish to further learn from and value the important thing sin life that we usually take for granted.

It feels like we are entering a new phase of the pandemic, one in which getting as many people vaccinated as quickly as possible in now the most important -- though not the only -- public health priority. Perhaps the biggest problem in getting people vaccinated is the on-going issue of vaccine hesitancy. One issue is that a significant portion of people in certain non-white communities seem hesitant to get the vaccine. On the one hand, this is understandable given the ugly history of scientific experiments being conducted on people of color. On the other hand, many of these communities have been hit disproportionately hard by the pandemic, and gaining herd immunity via vaccine is really the only viable way out. So I think it's imperative that a great effort is made to get these communities vaccinated. This should start with President Biden -- who won the presidency in large part because of support from the Black community -- and Vice-President Harris -- the first African American vice-president. Because both of them have a significant amount of credibility in this community, they really should prioritize a public campaign to convince people that the vaccine is both safe and absolutely necessary, and also that time is of the essence.

Well the pandemic hit my school in the early week of March and we were only sent home for two weeks. As soon as we were ready to go back, we were sent home for two months after the first dismissal. After all that was informed, we actually stayed at home for the rest of our senior year. We missed out on our prom and that is something we looked forward to and something you cannot get back. After prom we normally go to a cabin and just enjoy ourselves after the dance, which is a highlight of any high schoolers life. Our past junior year, we had prom and proceeded to get a cabin on Lake Erie and it was an amazing experience. In the summer of 2019, all of my high school friends took a trip to Ocean City Maryland for about a week and that was our so called senior trip even though we we Juniors, let alone we did not know what would happen in 2020. Once we graduated, we decided we needed to end our horrible senior year with something we would remember. We decided to take a five day trip down to Hilton Head. It was convenient since my one friend moved down there for her college and she already had a place down there. We could not stay there because she just moved in, but we got a house very close to hers and it was right next to the water. This was pretty much our final goodbye before we all went to college so we took it all in and enjoyed our final summer together. When we were down there, it did not even feel like the virus was going around, no one had to wear a mask, families were every where with their kids, and it seemed like everyone got lost in the real world. This image is important to me because they are my boys, everything we do, we do together and that picture will hold memories. It will hold what happened in 2020, the virus that went around, and the last summer we enjoyed together.

I was in class on a Wednesday and my phone kept going off like crazy.it was being so distracting so I just decided to check why it was going off and then turn it off for good. I picked up my phone and there were thousands of text messages saying "you need to get tested", "go get a test". At this point I was completely confused, so I asked them what was going on and they said that one of my friends had tested positive for Covid and that I need to get tested because I'm hanged out with them on that Monday. Once I read this I completely froze, I didn't know how to handle this information. I was scared for my life, and for hers, I wasn't sure if she'd be okay. If I was going to be okay. I wasn't paying attention to class at all and everything my teacher was saying was going completely over my head. School got out and all I could think about was how am I going to tell my parents that I came home possibly with Covid. The thought of just having to tell them the news and how they could possibly react to it scared the life out of me. I didn't think that I could tell them because I was afraid they would be too disappointed in me and to scared. I finally got the courage to tell my mom and she surprisingly took the news well. My parents weren't happy but they definitely weren't angry so that's good. They told me that I had to wash everything that I have touched in the past 2 days. I was so glad to tell my parents because holding that secret in was tearing me apart inside. I checked in with me friend everyday to make sure she was ok. It's scary to see it on the news and to hear it on the radio but once it hits too close to home, it can really change your entire life.

When the Covid-19 Pandemic hit, it was very hard for myself and many other. Having to stay quarantined and not being able to see my friends and even family members was hard. On April 19th, 2020, it was my birthday and my parents knew all i wanted was to see my friends. They planned a drive by and one of my closest friends stayed the night at my house. 4 days I had learned that my friend tested positive for Covid-19, which ultimately led to myself getting the virus. This totally through my body out of balance. I sat around all day, barely ate, and constantly felt tired, but I knew I needed to do something about this. My older brother, who was at our house during quarantine, was an athletic trainer. He began to train me, even while I still had the virus. He set me up with workouts and I began to train in the basement of our house where we had dumbbells, bands, and a pullup/dip bar. I began working out 6 days a week and really noticed a change in my diet and mental state. It got me into a routine of getting good sleep, eating a full breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and kept me active and in better health. I went from being constantly tired, lazy, and not eating enough nor getting any sleep to always wanting to work hard, stay happy, and physically and mentally healthy. Although the pandemic has had many downsides, i learned to stay active in working out and staying in the best shape i possibly can be in.

RFK Jr has been censored for his opinions on vaccines. The secondary factor from this whole pandemic has been the evolution of social media and internet censorship of certain opinions and individuals.

Since its release in 1966, Star Trek has been an inspiring and comforting series to millions of people around the world. It is unapologetically utopian and hopeful, and throughout the pandemic it has been of incredible utility to people suffering from isolation and other stress in their lives. Even though the pandemic has had little real impact on my day to day life, Star Trek has still remained my favorite piece of media to immerse myself in to feel a little better about the future. Set hundreds or even a thousand years in the future, Star Trek is a setting where diseases like Covid-19 have been wiped from the Earth permanently, and even unknown alien diseases can be cured and eliminated in just hours of study and research. No one suffers from homelessness or poverty, as replicators have enabled extremely high quality of life for everyone. For me, in a time when not only is there uncertainty about disease but also high degrees of political and societal stress, Star Trek is a breath of fresh air whenever I sit down to watch it. For a time I no longer have to worry about Q-Anon cultists ransacking the capital or about catching the disease. I have seen Star Trek referred to as "competency porn," and indeed that is exactly one of the things that appeals so much in this time of strife and angst. Unlike most pieces of media, Star Trek doesn't rely on failures of communication and other frustratingly real issues to drive its conflict and stories. Instead, each show is focused on extremely competent and intelligent characters who are able to work together to quickly and efficiently solve issues using their pooled knowledge, despite their differences. Through this I can revel in the utopian ideal of the show and believe even for just a moment that we could reach that point ourselves one day, even if for now our society is plagued by the very issues Star Trek posits we can overcome. One could call it escapism, but I think many people would agree that escapism is exactly what people need and want right now due to the ever-present and overpowering feeling of doom surrounding everything else.

I recorded a mini oral history with my mom about silver linings.

I came across this article about how many people are "hitting the wall" with COVID fatigue, and it helped me realize that my current state is not unique. Lately, I have been feeling the cumulative effects of the isolation that the pandemic has created. I feel less physically healthy, and mentally as well. Frankly, I do not think I am as mentally sharp as I was a year ago. It is at least comforting to know that I am not alone in this. There is also now hope that the pandemic will end and that life will return to some degree of its former normality, but it seems clear that this will take some time.

The grassroots public awareness campaign Take 6! has started an art-focused COVID-19 awareness campaign. Their goal is to raise awareness of COVID-19, the safety measures against it, and the importance of getting vaccinated.