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2020-12-14
The Food and Drug Administration authorized Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccine for emergency use on Friday, clearing the way for millions of highly vulnerable people to begin receiving inoculations within days.
The authorization is a turning point in a pandemic that has taken more than 290,000 lives in the United States. With the decision, the United States becomes the sixth country — in addition to Britain, Bahrain, Canada, Saudi Arabia and Mexico — to clear the vaccine. Today, we ask the science and health reporter Donald G. McNeil Jr. what might happen next.
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2021-01-10
Students slowly began to return to campus and in-person classes as we moved into the second full semester during COVID. While policies were still place for things such as masks and attendance, they became more lenient as COVID “lessened.” This goes to show how difficult it could have been for the people in the positions to make these decisions. Their decisions were based on the new information that was being released by public health officials throughout the pandemic.
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2021-07-20
The ARTnews article uses ADAA (Art Dealers Association of America) data from their official survey to consider the far reaching implications of the pandemic on the art world. Examples of staggering job loss in art handlers and contract workers in particular provide a look into possible changes in the artillery model for the short term while in lockdown. Quantitative data on online art fair participation, and percentages of galleries that received the PPP loan are included as well.
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2020-04-23
Many students from the start of the pandemic have had to turn to governmental assistance from the CARES act to help pay for their tuition or college-related expenses. This item showcases one of the most prominent government relief programs that were available to STMu students and college students nationwide. This funding was essential for many college-aged students who may not have qualified for the stimulus package or unemployment but who were facing the negative financial effects of the pandemic.
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2021-04-07
The pandemic was difficult in more ways than one. Health and safety were covered by all news stations, but the deeper hidden pandemic was the struggle of mental health and staying mentally healthy during isolation and lockdown. These screenshots showcase that mental health was an important topic that people were struggling with but the university tried to give help to students and staff that were struggling. This screenshot is important to me because they were resources I utilized that helped me mentally go through the pandemic and I believe deserve more attention.
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2021-11-01
When this series of emails was sent to St. Mary's Faculty and Staff it really hit hard and really touched me. I didn't realize that some students did not have any means of getting back home, students were not prepared for this at all and due to the pandemic all dorms and classes were cancelled, they were worried they would not make it home. So, St. Mary's sent an email out reaching out to everyone that was able to give funds and send students home. When this pandemic hit us no one was prepared for what was to come.
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2021-11-10
Since the pandemic and everyone returning back to work a vaccine has been provided for everyone to take the vaccine if they choose to. The vaccine is to help with Covid, if received it can help with less symptoms if one happens to catch Covid. At my place of employment we have received emails from HR that anyone who has not been vaccinated must take a covid weekly test in order to ensure we do not have covid and make sure the campus is a safe place to be and ensure that everyone stays virus free.
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2020-04-16
All galleries felt the immense economic pressure of shuttering their doors. There was uncertainty and furloughs or imminent possibility of losing ones job was a looming presence especially in the spring of 2020. Even international blue-chip galleries like Gagosian were financially struggling. Those that lost their jobs were
The article discussed job loss - whose jobs - and what this means for the art world in the present and in the future. Other methods of main tenting financially during the pandemic included furloughs and salary cuts where the percentage was determined by how much someone made per year.
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2020-03-20
W Magazine’s “Art Basel Hong Kong Moves Its Art Fair Online in the Wake of Coronavirus” discusses the complete digitization of the 2020 Art Basel Hong Kong edition. The feeling of losing the general energy of art events or the excitement of an art fair booth setting more specifically that I and many of my friends and colleagues had when transitioning to remote work was echoed in the article.
More interestingly, the article touches on the artistic responses to the pandemic - augmented reality or digital works playing with the new virtual lens that constituted our world during the height of Covid.
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2021-02-09
This Wired piece by Lydia Horne starts off with a really interesting point about the viewer relationship with art as social distancing before Covid and the distance in museums and galleries for the artwork’s protection. It is more than just considerations about virtual auctions and virtual viewing - the way that the art itself translates is something that many artists are struggling with. The article also speaks to the ways that artists are redefining themselves and their work. The changing structures and changing methods reaching an audience or sharing work, some artists are using the pandemic to explore possibilities to reshape the art world. For example, non-profits and community-based models instead of the traditional gallery model.
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2021-08
This orientation program shows the different accommodations that have been made to ensure a safe experience during Zaragoza days. Prior to the pandemic, the events scheduled for students would be held in person so that students would have the opportunity to interact face to face and make new connections with other students. However, the Zaragoza days held in August 2021 integrated both in person and online orientation events. This program shows that some of the scheduled events were held on Zoom during different sessions. This was to ensure that students were provided with safe and easy access to learn more about being and undergrad at St. Mary's while not completely limiting their orientation experience by still holding in person events that adhered to Covid-19 guidelines.
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2021-08
For this item, I wanted to highlight the differences in the Zaragoza student orientation for incoming freshmen and transfer students. This is a program that happens at the beginning of every school year. My class, entering St. Mary's in Fall 2019 was the last class to have a normal experience prior to the pandemic. However, since the pandemic, many operations have had to change to ensure the safety of those involved. The Fall 2020 Zaragoza experience was entirely over zoom. With the school now transitioning back to in person teaching, Zaragoza leaders had to the opportunity and challenge to create a Zaragoza experience like never seen before that provided safe interaction among all students and parents. These screenshots specifically showed a rushed project that needed to be approved in a short amount of time that accommodated both to the universities expectations while following the state's guidelines.
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2020-12-31
In an end of the year article, Smithsonian lists the top ten virtual museum exhibitions of 2020:
1. The Smithsonian’s National Picture Gallery, “Every Eye Is Upon Me: First Ladies of the United States”
2. Peabody Essex Museum, “Jacob Lawrence: The American Struggle”
3. The Whitney Museum, “Vida Americana: Mexican Muralists Remake American Art, 1925-1945”
4. The Museum of Modern Art, “Dorothea Lange: Words & Pictures”
5. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, “Writing the Future: Basquiat and the Hip-Hop Generation”
6. Metropolitan Museum of Art, “Making the MET, 1870-2020”
7. The British Museum, “The Museum of the World”
8. The Rijksmuseum, “The Night Watch”
9. Museum of Fine Arts, Ghent, “Van Eyck an Optical Revolution”
10. Instituto Cervantes, “Wise and Valiant: Women and Writing in Gold Age of Spain”
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2021-10-22
This New York Times article from October 22nd, 2021 - updated October 31st - explains the current status of the global supply chain. Global Correspondent, Peter S. Goodman, writes that Covid exacerbated existing problems in the supply chain.
This is relevant to the art industries in ways people often overlook. Coordinating shipments to meet deadlines in international art exhibitions, loaning works or consigning are all things that I used to struggle to plan for in light of covid when there would be unprecedented shipping delays and costs. Additionally, clients always want lower costs for shipping newly acquired works, however, it is now even more difficult to marry sales and client relations with the realities of shipping.
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2020-04-17
“Can You Teach Art Online?”, published on Art in America online, examines the questions artists-instructors are asking amidst a transfer to online learning. Different instructors who teach in various mediums are interviewed and expose difficulties of teaching art virtually as well as the positives and new innovations that have come out of necessity. I found the argument by Carissa Rodriguez, a Harvard professor in the arts, very interesting. She discussed the limitations of platforms like Zoom and how it is difficult to engage others in an artistic subject behind a screen. Rodriguez teaches a screen-based artistic medium and she explains that for her subject matter “the platform seems a notch too self-reflexive, collapsing screenings, critiques, and discussions onto the equalizing plane of her students’ monitors, the same site where they browse social media and binge-watch TV shows”.
The article highlights how instructors are using lockdown to explore ways to make art and complete projects without institutional resources. Therefore, questions of shifting models in academia arise.
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2021-11-03
Through this oral history, Clare Acosta and I develop a conversation about both the Community Engagement office work and the program of Empower: Ecuador. The conversation was specifically focused on the before and after of COVID-19 and also what was learned from the process. It is a very deep conversation that I really enjoyed and know that Clare also did.
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2020-09-14
Pfizer and BioNTech are moving to enlarge the Phase 3 trial of their Covid-19 vaccine by 50%, which could allow the companies to collect more safety and efficacy data and to increase the diversity of the study’s participants.
The companies said in a press release that they would increase the size of the study to 44,000 participants, up from an initial recruitment goal of 30,000 individuals.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration will have to approve the change before it goes into effect.
“The companies continue to expect that a conclusive readout on efficacy is likely by the end of October,” the press release said. The Pfizer and BioNTech study is likely to be among the first in the U.S. to report efficacy data from a Phase 3 trial.
Related: AstraZeneca resumes Covid-19 vaccine trials in the U.K.
Expanding the trial will likely make it easier for the company to demonstrate whether the vaccine is effective against SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19. The companies also said that the change will allow the study to include a more diverse population. The companies said the study will now include adolescents as young as 16, people with stable HIV, and those with hepatitis C or hepatitis B.
The companies said that the trial is expected to reach its initial target of 30,000 patients next week. Moderna, which started its trial on the same day as Pfizer, said on Sept. 4 that it is working to increase the diversity of trial participants in its study, “even if those efforts impact the speed of enrollment.”
Related: Covid-19 Drugs and Vaccines Tracker
The Pfizer/BioNTech study could finish sooner than Moderna’s, even though the two began on the same day, for other reasons, as well. Both vaccines require a second shot; Pfizer’s is given after three weeks, while Moderna’s is given after four. The Pfizer trial also starts to count cases of Covid-19 sooner after participants receive their shots than the Moderna study.
But the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine could also prove to be one of the most difficult of the experimental vaccines to distribute, should they prove effective. The vaccine must be kept at a temperature of -70 degrees Celsius.
There has been political pressure to move a vaccine quickly, with President Trump saying that one could be available before election day. Last week, several drugmakers, including Pfizer, issued a pledge not to move a vaccine forward sooner than was justified by the results of their clinical trials.
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2020-07-14
Moderna Inc’s experimental vaccine for COVID-19 showed it was safe and provoked immune responses in all 45 healthy volunteers in an ongoing early-stage study, U.S. researchers reported on Tuesday.
Volunteers who got two doses of the vaccine had high levels of virus-killing antibodies that exceeded the average levels seen in people who had recovered from COVID-19, the team reported in the New England Journal of Medicine.
No study volunteers experienced a serious side effect, but more than half reported mild or moderate reactions such as fatigue, headache, chills, muscle aches or pain at the injection site. These were more likely to occur after the second dose and in people who got the highest dose.
Experts say a vaccine is needed to put an end to the coronavirus pandemic that has sickened millions and caused nearly 575,000 deaths worldwide.
Moderna was the first to start human testing of a vaccine for the novel coronavirus on March 16, 66 days after the genetic sequence of the virus was released.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, whose researchers developed Moderna’s vaccine candidate, called the results “good news,” noting that the study found no serious adverse events and the vaccine produced “reasonably high” levels of virus-killing or neutralizing antibodies.
“If your vaccine can induce a response comparable with natural infection, that’s a winner,” Fauci said in a telephone interview. “That’s why we’re very pleased by the results.”
Moderna shares jumped more than 15% in after-hours trading on Tuesday.
The U.S. government is supporting Moderna’s vaccine with nearly half a billion dollars and has chosen it as one of the first to enter large-scale human trials. A successful vaccine could be a turning point for Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Moderna, which has never had a licensed product.
Moderna’s shot, mRNA-1273, uses ribonucleic acid (RNA) - a chemical messenger that contains instructions for making proteins. When injected into people, the vaccine instructs cells to make proteins that mimic the outer surface of the coronavirus, which the body recognizes as a foreign invader, and mounts an immune response against.
The results released Tuesday involved three doses of the vaccine, tested in groups of 15 volunteers aged 18-55 who got two shots, 28 days apart. The groups tested 25, 100 or 250 micrograms of the vaccine.
Adverse events after the second dose occurred in seven of the 13 volunteers who got the 25-microgram dose, all 15 participants who received the 100 microgram dose and all 14 who got the 250 microgram dose. In the highest-dose group, three patients had severe reactions such as fever, chills, headache or nausea. One of these had a fever of 103.28 Fahrenheit (39.6 C).
“We didn’t see any events that are characterized as serious adverse events,” said lead author Dr Lisa Jackson of Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute in Seattle, referring to reactions that require hospitalization or result in death.
In June, Moderna said it selected the 100-microgram dose for its late-stage study to minimize adverse reactions.
At that dose, Moderna said the company is on track to deliver about 500 million doses per year, and possibly up to 1 billion doses per year, starting in 2021, from the company’s internal U.S. manufacturing site and strategic collaboration with Swiss drugmaker Lonza.
“It’s a good first step,” said Dr William Schaffner, a vaccine expert at Vanderbilt University Medical Center who was not involved in the study.
“There’s nothing here that would inhibit one from going ahead to the Phase 2/Phase 3 trials,” he said.
In April, Moderna expanded the Phase 1 trial to include adults over 55, who are more at risk of serious disease, with the aim of enrolling 120 volunteers. Moderna said it will follow study volunteers for a year to look for side effects and check how long immunity lasts.
Moderna started its phase 2 trial in May and expects to start a phase 3 trial on July 27.
Phase 1 trials aim to ensure a treatment is safe and help determine an effective dose. Phase 2 trials test a treatment in a larger group and get an early read on effectiveness. Phase 3 trials are conducted in a large group of individuals to confirm efficacy and identify rare side effects. Moderna’s Phase 3 trial will be conducted in 30,000 volunteers.
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2020-05-21
The Trump administration announced early today that HHS and AstraZeneca will collaborate on a coronavirus disease vaccine called AZD1222. A statement released from HHS said the partnership will make “at least 300 million doses” of the vaccine available, “with the first doses delivered as early as October 2020.”
The vaccine is one originally developed at the University of Oxford; the university and AstraZeneca announced a global development agreement for the vaccine on April 30. In its own statement early today, AstraZeneca said a phase 1/2 clinical trial of the vaccine began last month to assess its safety immunogenicity and efficacy in over 1000 healthy volunteers, who are 18 to 55 years of age. These volunteers are all in the United Kingdom. Late-stage trials would begin in several countries based on these results, the statement said.
According to HHS, the agreement between AstraZeneca and the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), an agency within HHS, would essentially kick start manufacturing of the doses while phase 3 clinical studies are under way this summer, involving 30,000 volunteers in the United States. BARDA will spend up to $1.2 billion for research, technology transfer, and scaled-up manufacturing,
Emergency use authorization or licensure from FDA would be needed for the vaccine to reach the public, the statement said. As for the timeline, “Early milestones enable BARDA and AstraZeneca to determine how the program progresses forward.”
“This contract with AstraZeneca is a major milestone in Operation Warp Speed’s work toward a safe, effective, widely available vaccine by 2021,” said HHS Secretary Alex Azar. “Getting a vaccine to the American public as soon as possible is one part of President Trump’s multi-faceted strategy for safely reopening our country and bringing life back to normal, which is essential to Americans’ physical and mental well-being in so many ways.”
“The Trump Administration is making multiple major investments in developing and manufacturing promising vaccines long before they’re approved so that a successful vaccine will reach the American people without a day wasted,” Azar said.
Besides the BARDA agreement, AstraZeneca said it has reached deals with the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), the Vaccine Alliance and the World Health Organisation (WHO), to ensure the fair allocation and distribution of the vaccine around the world. AstraZeneca is also in discussions the Serum Institute of India and other potential partners to boost production and distribution.
AstraZeneca also holds a major stake in Moderna Therapeutics, which announced earlier this week its experimental vaccine had produced antibodies in small group of healthy volunteers.
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2020-01-30
The World Health Organization declared a global health emergency on Thursday as the coronavirus outbreak spread well beyond China, where it emerged last month.
The move reversed the organization’s decision just a week ago to hold off such a declaration. Since then, there have been thousands of new cases in China and clear evidence of human-to-human transmission in several other countries, including the United States.
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2021-08-17
For Fall 2021, some teachers gave the option to zoom into class for students who were not comfortable being present in person. Out of my five classes, only two had this option specifically stated. I planned to attend all classes in person but the day before class was due to start one teacher switched to remote only. Initially, I was okay with it. It was the first class of the day so maybe I wouldn't have to get up so early. Then I realized I would have to wake up early anyway. The class after the remote one was ten minutes after. I would of had to rush even if the class was on campus. Situations like these showed that things were even unexpectedly changing for teachers. While the situation may have slightly inconvenienced me, I'm sure it wasn't ideal for the teacher either.
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2020-07-25
Athletics has always been a big part of bringing together a school's community. It's an important aspect for not just the athletes but also the supporters. The complete cancellation of sporting events can be a jarring disruption to a school's morale and spirit. The rising of popularity of esports and competitive videogames though has been helpful in keeping people connected. Though physical, in person sports have been cancelled, classmates can still keep in touch with each other through their school's team by playing and watching the school's online games. The St. Mary's esports team has provided a way for people for people with similar interests to meet without actually ever seeing each other in person. A placement on the team isn't even necessary. Videogames have been an important outlet for me in the pandemic to keep me mentally happy. The closure of many places and the inability to see certain people in real life has made me rely on them instead.
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2021-04-23
UNCTAD (United Nations Conference on Trade and Development) included an article on their website which examines the shipping container shortage. More broadly,
it comments on the staggering domino effect of the pandemic on industry and consumers and offers future solutions for avoiding current problems. The article concludes with a section that provides insight into how to avoid shipping container shortages in the future.
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2021-01-24
The Washington Post article discusses the disruptions in the supply chain and the repercussions such as inflated prices, failure to meet schedules, and effects on different industries. The domino effect was set off by the pandemic but we continue to see the fallout.
Shipping artwork is a cost that galleries, advisories, collectors, and museums have to factor into their finances. Inflation in the cost of international shipping in particular and unpredictable delays negative effect openings and coordinating with clients and vendors.
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2021-10-26
This poem talks about the failure of our medical field when it came to covid. They focused more on those with Covid than those who were struggling with cancer. My grandfather became one of those victims.
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2020-10-20
Article regarding virtual Indigenous People's Day.
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2021
This is a video on being Indigenous by CBC News.
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2020-03
This is an image included in the article, "Museums, Curators, and Artists Find Innovative Solutions for Showing Art in a Pandemic". Taken from a bird's eye view from within the Musée du Louvre, the image shows an empty museum gallery save for a solitary employee. The image is captioned "An employee walks next to Martin Desjardins’s Quatre Captifs in the Musee du Louvre, Paris, closed to the public indefinitely amid concerns on the COVID-19 outbreak, 2020. "
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2021-10-09
My parents own a small restaurant, and as such, were largely impacted by Melbourne’s various lockdowns. The restaurant is located on the outskirts of the Yarra Valley, in a peri-urban region known for tourism. As such, the location of the restaurant is isolated from major townships and shopping complexes. We were open for takeaway at the start of the pandemic, however when the 5km rule was introduced (in metropolitan Melbourne residents were only allowed to travel a maximum of 5km from home) it meant that only our very near neighbours were permitted to pick up takeaway; remaining open was thus unviable. As we transition into a post-COVID world, my Mum – the manager – in consultation with other local restaurant owners has reflected on common anxieties about the spread of COVID-19 and the process of verifying/mandating that each customer is double vaccinated (as per state government legislation). Will we receive resistance from anti-vaxxers? Will these rules impact how many customers we receive? There are many unknowns. Pictured is the interior of the restaurant – which has been packed up for nearly a year now – and our check-in QR code which customers must scan before entering.
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2020-03-19
This Artsy article written in the beginning of the pandemic discusses the innovative ways that museums and art professionals used technology to maintain relevance and viewership during lockdown.
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2021-06-06
Exercise became a large part of my life in the pre-pandemic world. It assisted me in maintaining good mental and physical health whilst I navigated university life, work life and social life. I signed up to a gym and regularly attended group fitness sessions. Having found this therapeutic outlet, my anxiety flared up when gyms were closed at the start of the pandemic. I think that many people, like me, would have struggled with the inability to undertake their fitness regimens – for social, physical or mental health purposes – during the pandemic. My Dad was also one of these people – he went out and bought a home gym for us to use (which we crammed into our spare room). In 2021, I thought the pandemic was over, however was still very appreciative of the set of dumbbells I received for my birthday. Sure enough, we were back into a lockdown soon after. Thank goodness for those dumbbells – they’ve kept me sane, more than I’d like to admit!
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2021-09-10
Lockdown shifted the nature of community dynamics in our local area. We live in a peri-urban region on the outskirts of the Yarra Ranges; as such, neighbouring properties are separated by large swathes of Australian bush. This can be isolating at times; it’s very different to suburban living. Our street (which spans about 7kms) and adjacent streets have a WhatsApp group chat named ‘Fireguard’, which allows residents to share information about fire safety, planned burn-offs and emergency warnings. However, during lockdown the chat was increasingly used for the purposes of socialisation. Suddenly, distant neighbours began sharing jokes and engaging in conversations about lockdown living, through the chat. The chat became a site of social interaction that the members of our area probably didn’t realise they needed, until they did. We eventually decided to create a separate chat for general/social purposes only, the title ‘WHICHBIN’ constituting a friendly inside joke about one particular chat member who never fails to ask, “which bin?” she needs to put out for collection each week.
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2020-12-18
State-sanctioned restrictions changed the way in which individuals/groups were able to process emotional experiences, such as grief. Our family dog –Bonnie – was a saving grace during lockdown. She was my “quarantine buddy” and made each day a little brighter. My family went through a tough time around Christmas; Bonnie was becoming progressively sicker, and we had to make the decision to put her down. When we arrived at the vet clinic, we discovered that our family who had attended – Dad, Mum, my brother, myself and my grandparents – could not all wish her farewell together; only two of us were allowed in the waiting room with Bonnie at once, due to COVIDSafe density limits. My parents went in together, and then my grandparents, and then my brother and myself. I’m glad that my brother and I got to share the experience of saying goodbye together; Bonnie was a fundamental part of our childhoods, thus we shared a similar type of grief. However, the ability to farewell this member of our family as a family unit was impacted by COVID-19. Pictured is a “Snapchat” of Bonnie that I sent to my friends, and a picture of her at the clinic.
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2021-05-06
Through discussions with my grandmother, I reflected on an interesting intersection between the impact of the lockdown on both older Melburnians and faith communities. My grandmother is a practising Buddhist; a key annual ritual that was unable to be undertaken in 2021 was the commemoration of my grandfather’s death anniversary, typically observed by preparing food and inviting friends and relatives to our home for a ceremony (known in Buddhist ethics as sharing ‘merits’ with the deceased to send them good fortune). As this gathering was not permitted, my grandmother shared ‘merits’ with my grandfather by instead donating to a charity; I think that such as example highlights the mediation between religious practices and natural sciences, in the context of this health crisis. Pictured is the receipt from my grandmother’s donation; sharing her wealth by committing this good deed was important to her during this time.
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2020-03-27
During the height of the pandemic and quarantine, my family and I spent hours a day walking. We would walk through our neighborhood, the Metroparks, and we would find new trails and paths. One day they made an announcement that the country would be in quarantine for another month. my family and I were concerned and didn’t know what to expect. We were thinking how much longer can this be, what is our world coming to, and will everyone stay safe. we were unsure of our future. we decided to take a walk to clear our minds. During the walk, we came up to sidewalk chalk that said be positive with handprints, hearts, and other creative designs. It was a young girl who was designing these patterns and quotes and it made us realize that we need to stay positive during these tough times. It was a day we all remember during quarantine.
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2021-11-03
At the holidays I send a newsletter about whatever I have been thinking that year. This year and last the newsletters were about the epidemic. I was looking for examples in history to help us see today how we could cope with the disruption of our lives.
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2020-09-14
Every year as a tradition Tribes of Native Americans gather to celebrate through song and dance at events known as Pow Wows. These events reinforce long-honored traditions, the most important being unification. The Pow wows allow for the togetherness of the people and the connectedness of the tribes. Covid -19 brought an abrupt halt to that for hundreds of indigenous tribes across the U.S and Canada. As a result, the only way to share some of these meaningful traditions was to offer a virtual option. While not the same it did allow for some of the singing and dancing competitions to take place. The long-term after effect though is that not having the in-person Pow Wow resulted in a significant loss of revenue for those tribes that were hosting the event. Pow Wows bring in significant revenue from vendors and non-indigenous spectators. This loss has had a trickle-down effect on the indigenous communities making it more difficult to endure the pandemic. As a parent of a Northeastern student, not having the ability to have my daughter physically share in the in-person powwows is disappointing. Pow wows are more than just celebrations they are an opportunity to connect with your identity and heritage-which is vital for the younger generations.
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2020-03
I am a Game Art major at Full Sail University, but my sister goes to Northeastern University, so we are a Northeastern family. I am of Mayan descent, so living through COVID-19 was a little scary because we got all the news and updates about how COVID-19 was ravaging Mayan communities in Guatemala. We live in the USA in a rural area, so we were a little "safer," but the fear remained. I am proud of my people and my heritage, and I don't doubt our ability to survive the pandemic. Here is a quick sketch I made.
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2020-06-30
After being sent home during Spring 2020 the Office of Residence Life changed the way it functioned. With that, student staff like resident assistants also had to change how they did their jobs. Creating community, health and safety checks, and engagement opportunities were all completed virtually. As many discovered, going to college via zoom came with many difficulties. What about when campuses were opening back up? What about the uncertainties regarding the growing pandemic after Spring 2020? In preparation for Fall 2020 and anticipation of re-opening residence halls, policy changes were made. Students were also asked to join the "Protect St. Mary's Pledge", a commitment to holding ourselves and our community accountable, ensuring we take the necessary precautions and follow policy. The Office of Residence Life and resident assistants were at the forefront of enforcing these new policies and keeping dorm halls safe. Resident assistants played a significant role in trying to make campus and residence life a bit normal again by creating community and engaging with residents, this time while taking covid-19 precautions. In a time of great transition and uncertainty, resident assistants served as student health ambassadors and vessels for the University's mission and policies.
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2021-04-25
This is an image from the Anzac Day match at the MCG on the 25th of April 2021. Returning to the MCG for AFL matches was one the more ‘normal’ things we could do at the start of the year. When this game was held, it was the largest crowd recorded at a sporting event in the world. The Anzac round is my favourite round of the year and it felt amazing that footy was back and Melbourne was covid free. A couple weeks later the AFL team I support - the Collingwood Magpies - saw its lowest ever recorded attendance at the MCG since 1940, as AFL returned, many of their supporters chose not to attend games, this may be due to how our team was performing or the capacity limits. Just looking back at this photo in lockdown makes me question how we thought we were ‘back to normal’ at the start of the year, when we were so far from it.
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2021-09-09
This is a card my siblings and I wrote for our dad. In September my father was sent into emergency as he had to have a quadruple bypass. It was rather scary as no one could visit him whilst he was recovering. We are extremely lucky that his surgery got pushed forward by his cardiologist as now our public healthcare system is now struggling and surgeries like what my dad had are being postponed. His surgery was even postponed as another cardiology ward in a nearby hospital had a covid outbreak so the nurses and doctors at his hospital had to work over there. My dad came home a couple days after Father’s Day (it was the first Father’s Day we didn’t spend with him in our lives) and is now feeling so much better. The first thing he told me when he came home was that he “never wants to get covid” because he was on a ventilator, and it was “the worst part” of the whole experience. I genuinely thought he was on the ventilator for a day or multiple days as he didn’t stop complaining about how bad it was - turns out he was only conscious with the ventilator in him for just under an hour.
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2021-09-19
This image I took down the St. Kilda pier. Someone had left various stickers that spread misinformation about covid, lockdowns and the vaccine. My friends and I decided it was best to remove these stickers as they are quite harmful. Living in Melbourne it has been so tiring watching ‘freedom protestors’ and people from far-right groups constantly spread misinformation and attend protests during stage 4 lockdowns (where we can only leave the house for the essentials). The fear-mongering these groups do its quite upsetting as I’ve seen my friends and some distant family members share their information on social media. The ‘anti-vaxxers’ and covid deniers even compare wearing a mask, getting vaccinated and being in lockdown to the Holocaust, which is so harmful and upsetting
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2021-10-21
This is an image of my younger siblings on their first day back at school! My sister started her first year of school last year, so her entire schooling experience has been broken up into periods of online learning. Everyone in her grade 1 class is struggling a bit as they haven’t had a proper experience of going to school. It is not mandatory for grades prep to 2 to be wearing face masks in class; however, my brother has been admitted to the hospital a couple of times when he has a bad asthma attack so we’re trying to be as careful as we can. As you can see there are mixed feelings attached to going back to class, both were excited to see their friends and teachers, but will miss spending the whole day at home with dad and me.
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2021-10-22
This is an image I took on the first night out of the last Melbourne lockdown! I went to my favourite pasta place in Melbourne for dinner and this was their way of making sure everyone they served was fully vaccinated and checked in. Once checking in the server gave us this little laminated slip we gave to the waiter in return for the menu, this ensured no one had sat down without checking in. In Melbourne, it is mandatory for all hospitality venues to have their staff and customers fully vaccinated.
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2020-05-01
This photo was taken on my 18th birthday, during my senior year of high school. I should have been in school, however the entire world was in quarantine due to the Coronavirus. I had no way of being able to have a normal birthday, so my parents decided to organize a drive through birthday party for me where my friends and family came through in my driveway and waved to me and left gifts. While very unexpected from what I thought my 18th birthday was going to be, I think it shows that despite the conditions, people were loving and passionate enough to participate in something like this for me.
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2020-03-20
This is a pdf of the resident assistant job description when St. Mary's University decided to go virtual. The described duties of the resident assistant showcase how St. Mary's Residence life was trying to serve students regardless of being off-campus. The job description really shows the sense of community that exists on campus and persevered virtually. As a freshman during Spring 2020, I along with many others, never expected to be sent home. I also never expected an institution to care so much about the well-being of its students especially when the whole world was in chaos at the time. However, as seen here, even student staff like resident assistants reached out and made themselves available to their peers. Resident assistants had 1:1 conversations with residents at home designed to check-in and share resources. Even the resident assistants themselves were required to have one-on-one meetings with their supervisors also to check-in. While student staff was trying to facilitate community and safety virtually, they too were being taken care of by residence life.
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2020-11-14T06:24:00
Time can only tell what the future holds in front of us. Two years into this pandemic and time had drained, some having more in the hour glass than others. Cherish the times where you are able to do your favorite things with family. When the time strikes, the unpredictable occurs without a warning in sight. Never take advantage of items in your possession. Never make complaints. Never compare your life to others. The human body is unpredictable to even the highest honor of physicians, be attentive towards loved ones. Most importantly, cherish your own circumstances; there will be days of sorrow and days of joy. Live life to the fullest before your time has reached the gotten of the hole.
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2021-08-21
Continuing the Heritage is a wonderful event that St. Mary’s puts on for its students and staff. It allows all members of the university to participate in a day of service, offering over 30 volunteer opportunities to join on that day. CTH not only brings the student community together but also connects the students to the city of San Antonio and its community. Even with Covid, when everything went remote, St. Mary’s still found ways to make CTH happen and found opportunities for students to volunteer remotely. This year was my second time participating in CTH and I really enjoyed it. The first time I did it was freshman year and I worked with No Graffiti SA and this year I helped in the library at Locke Hill Elementary School. Both times were very fun and rewarding as I got to not only volunteer with friends but also be able to spend some time giving back to my community even during a pandemic.
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2021-11-02
The text story would be about my feelings toward COVID-19. It is sad that I don't remember much of what life was like before the pandemic hit. The masks, the social distancing, the looks you get when you have a runny nose. There are so many theories in regards to COVID-19 and much like anything else, everyone has their own opinion. Some revolve their lives around it, others don't care about. Personally, I'm not scared of the pandemic, I'm not vaccinated, nor do I get worried when people around me test positive for it. It is important to me because it has significantly changed our lives for the worse. We miss out on extremely important events and experiences. In my opinion, much of this should be a choice. If you want to wear a mask, wear one. If you want to social distance, do it. If you want to get vaccinated, get vaccinated.
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2020-07-28
A blog post from Banner Health about helping children take a Covid-19 test
