For those who have been on the Internet for longer which is the norm, many will remember what memes were in their early days. This Twitter has been working on showing them off to cause both nostalgia and a tinge of nausea from things that have been sleeping deep in the back of some people's mine, including my own.

This story tells about the experience of one young person during the pandemic, and their perspective on the future. I wanted to include this to highlight the perspective of young people, and especially to highlight how I am not satisfied with just going back to normal.

This is a collage about the pandemic.

The New York Attorney General says that the official number of COVID-19 deaths in nursing homes maybe 50% below the actual number. However, the state's Health Commissioner disputes this claim saying that death statistics are determined by the location of death. Therefore, any nursing home resident that dies in the hospital is counted as a hospital death instead of a nursing home death. There has also been an investigation launched against several nursing homes that are sided to have violated COVID-19 protocols.

When we went into lockdown in Naarm (Melbourne), many Jewish people realised this meant doing their seders solo or over zoom. Restrictions on number of guests meant that a seder with the family wasn't possible. Whilst at most seders you would usually have multiple people who had divided the seder night responsibilities (someone on charoset, matzah ball soup, gefilte fish, kosher wine, boiled eggs and each item for the seder plate), this night was different from all other nights. Our seders suddenly felt bare with the looming responsibility to create an entire seder's worth of food, for one. For those of us who lived away from our families and the bagel belt, there were additional challenges. For the queer jews who left their south-eastern homes for the cramped share houses of the inner north, finding Kosher and seder specific ingredients was near impossible at our local Piedemontes. I called my closest Woolworths and asked if they had ingredients for passover, "You could try the international food aisle?" they suggested, I knew that wouldn't suffice. I was grieving the loss of my most important cultural holiday of the year and the foods that came with it, when I decided I would drive to Southside, and collect ingredients from there. Knowing it would be useless to cook for one (and that I still haven't learnt the skills to do so) I decided to buy enough that I could make up care packages for other Jewish people doing their seders alone. The buba of the northside, giving just enough of everything for a table of one. 3 matzah balls, a jar of broth, enough matzah to break, hide and dip in charoset, etc. Other Jewish people contributed ingredients or made gefilte fish to distribute too. I managed to distribute over 25 packages to people joining their seders via zoom. For me, it was such an important way for me to feel connected to community despite distance, and honour pesach at a challenging time.

With any rushed medical treatment unforeseen consequences can occur. As the vaccine is released in the 10s of millions I pray Tim Zook's story is a completely isolated incident.

During covid, we started remote learning. Each day i wake up, get on my computer, and join class. Remote learning was fun at first but doing the same routine everyday gets repetitive and boring. There are still some perks to doing school remotely though. It is nice to have the freedom of being able to do something fun between classes like playing games or hanging out with family. I also get to sleep in a little later which is crucial. There are also some obsticles with remote learning too. For example, some kids are going back to may school and we are using cameras over head and it is hard to hear and see things. It is also hard to focus when you are at home so the education is probably not as good. Overall, I would like to go back to school but as soon as i go back, I am sure i will want to be online again so i will make the most out of this time.

Back when there was a rumor that COVID-19 couldn't survive in the Arizona heat. This guy is one of the people who got a platform during the Trump COVID era. This is a must-see video for future research into pandemic skeptics.

This Vox article by Sarah Khan is about the phenomenon of "pandemic tourism" to tropical places such as Tulum, Mexico; and Honolulu, Hawaii. According to Khan, these tourists, usually Western, seek to escape quarantine restrictions in their home countries and risk the health of foreigners by bringing COVID-19 with them.

This Atlantic Monthly article, written by Robinson Meyer, details the race to vaccinate millions of Americans in the face of loosening mitigation efforts, new COVID-19 strains, and supply bottlenecks. According to Meyer, with the advent of several COVID-19 vaccines, some states and municipal governments across the country have loosened their quarantine restrictions in the belief that vaccination and lower death rates make lockdowns unnecessary. This is not true, and this loosening of restrictions may precipitate further surges in COVID-19 cases, especially as new strains from the UK and South Africa become endemic. Fewer vaccine doses will be delivered by Pfizer, due to an agreement signed by the Trump administration.

Well, it finally happened. After social distancing for the better part of a year, I caught COVID-19 from a trip to the grocery store (I think). At first, it started off as any other normal cold, but it soon degraded into the worst fever I have ever had in my life. It felt as though my entire body were a blast furnace, and the bodily fatigue I felt made the experience a lot worse. I was barely able to stand up to close my bedroom blinds for most of my illness. Thankfully, my family supplied me with plenty of love, good medicine, water, hot tea, and books to help me recuperate over the course of these last few weeks. As of January 28th, I no longer feel any fatigue or fever, but my sense of smell has yet to return. Hopefully, it returns soon because I miss the smell of my mom's cooking! This experience really put this pandemic into perspective, and I hope everyone stays safe and takes extra precautions to avoid catching this disease. It is no joke and it will knock out young people for the better part of two weeks. Protect yourselves!

There are 2.16M people who. Died from covid world wide out of 100M cases. Almost everyone knows someone who got it. They got a vaccine now which is good to stop covid. In my state alone there are 38,927 deaths. I hope that the end of covid is near although covid is spiking right now but they say it is just because of the holidays. And it is slowly going down. If the vasine works we should be back to normal after sumer. I am not very scared of getting it because mostly only old or unhealthy people die from it.

Back when covid started in spring we really didn’t need to do anything but when it entered the US people started saying that wearing a mask will slow the spread but others said it didn’t work. Then they proved it worked and then everyone needed to wear them they also said staying 6 feet will protect you. Then the closed schools and some work. As covid climed they said large gatherings had to stop and told people to stay at home. They closed restreants for a while and then made it pick up only. The only rules that effected me was the stay at home orders because I couldn’t see my friends although I just quarinteaned in my naborhood and hung with everyone there. The mask effected me only when I left my naborhood. It was very wired with all these rules but it slowed the spread.

Learning virtual was ok. There were good things about it and bad things. a good thing was I didn’t need to drive to school which gave me an extra 25min. also after school a didn’t need to drive home so I could just run out and surf with the kids in my naborhood. A problem withit though it after stairing at the screen all day my head always felt bad. A normal day of online school was I wake up at 7:00 unlike when I used to wake up at 6:00. I didn’t need to pack up my stuff for online school I could get ready faster. Then I would have a bowl of cearea. And then take a shower and hop on zome on zoom I sometimes had a little more food while in class. After class I didn’t usally have home work which was good because I didn’t need to be on the computer any longer. I am glad we are back at school

Many of my friends contracted the virus and were perfectly fine, no symptoms or even pains. My siblings got it and even I got it. We felt sick for a tiny bit but it eventually wore off. We had to quarantine in our rooms for a week or so but nothing too extreme.

During Covid-19 we had many rules and regulations. We couldn't go out to eat or shop anywhere! Nobody was allowed to stay open which affected their businesses. Places slowly adapted and stated opening up outside. To go anywhere it was mandatory to wear a mask at all times unless eating or drinking at a table. We were forced to stay home and school was online. Now school is open and we're wearing masks. The rules seems pretty dramatic since the virus isn't as bad as they say it is. Elderly people are affected by it the most since they usually have pre-existing diseases or just problems.

The Pacific Institute Article is here (in the document this was the link but ill just give the actual URL below)!! “As many people have put together a water shortage is happening because of COVID. This is because so many more people are using longer showers and stuff while they stay home as they are uncomfortable doing their business outside of home. In Portsmouth, England water demand increased by 15% throughout the past 10 months. Here in SF water demand for residential blocks gained 10% whilst decreasing by over 30% everywhere else. There are also many other facts given other than Portsmouth and SF.” Is the main info the article is given through a very stately manner. This article also likes using numbers which I like about it giving facts instead of something they think. The article keeps circling back to utilities and is clearly meant for DIY workers instead of giving other info. It also heads sections unlike many other articles on other subtopics. This is actually quite useful if you need certain information like using the article much more as a source than most other articles. Even with all this I still think it is an article, not a list of instructions or facts.

this is a clay mask with we are fighting two pandemics coronavirus & stupidity

I drew this to show how spotlighted and how dramatic the BLM protests were, not out of want, but out of the need to bring attention to this issue. In the photo, the subject is shying away from the spotlight, not because they will be hurt in the same way as others, but because having a singular, white face as the flag would undermine the entire thing, and the subject knows that. They are wearing a mask, both to obscure their face and let them be known as part of the protests and not just an innocent bystander; and also to show how harmful covid was and that they are protecting others in different ways.

I broke my arm again yayy!

At first it was nothing, Then something for all. I wrote and I drew, I played ball. The wind blew outside, strong and loud, But I was inside, away from the crowd, today was no day, for something out loud. And when my notebook fell to the floor, I cried. When my mask shifted on my face, “They could die” But at the end of the day, I picked up my pages for the sake of my time. Author's (Explanatory) Note: I stitched this together through scraps in my notebook that I had written over the year. Some of them on simple topics, others on grave events. This is important to me because it's some of my writing that didn't come planned and pre-packed, but an experience and struggle put together through snippets of my life and genuine, if simple, emotions that are coursing through every single one of us, only to be amplified in times like these.

This is a poem about how it's hard to know where your news is coming from, and what to believe.

you will see inside of it.

The scene begins on december 31st 2019. Amanda: This year has been a wonderful year and I am ready to greet the next year 2020 with a few new year’s resolutions. My first new years resolution is- Mysterious time traveling Alien: I'm going to stop you right there. Amanda: who are you????!!!! Mysterious time traveling Alien: You aren’t going to get to do any of your new year's resolutions this year. Amanda: Yes I am. Why do you say that? Mysterious time traveling Alien: You’ll see. In fact, you’ll see right now. All of a sudden with a flash of blinding white-green light, Amanda is zapped 3 months into the future. Amanda: what happened? What day is it? She looks at her computer. Oh no! I’m late for a meeting! She then sees another email. It’s my boss. “Here is a zoom link” what is this? I guess I’ll click it. She enters the zoom meeting. Boss: alright. Hello, Amanda! So glad you arrived! So we have a problem. Amanda: No, I have a problem. What’s going on? Why are we on this call? Why am I not at work? Boss: are you serious? You don’t know? Yesterday you knew fine. You were saying you wished this pandemic would be over with. Amanda: But what’s going on? Boss: a virus has traveled around the world and has resulted in us having to stay at home, wear masks when we go outside, and do everything online. That’s why you’re here. Are you ok? Do you have amnesia? Amanda: i have to leave for a few minutes. Boss: the most i can give you is 20. Be sure to mute your mic and stop your video. Amanda: How do I do that? Boss: you do so like usual. Amanda: oh my god. What is going on? When i was making my new year's resolutions 10 minutes ago i had no idea this was what it was going to be like. How am I going to survive? I am never going to survive a day like this. Boss: um, Amanda? You’re not on mute. Amanda: How do i mute myself? Boss: you click on the bottom left hand corner of your screen and you have the option to mute and stop video. Amanda: ok. She does so, with much difficulty. Oh wait, Tiffany's calling. Maybe she can tell me what’s going on here. Tiffany: hey! How are you? What are you going to do today? Amanda: i was thinking about going to the grocery store, filing reports, and visiting you this afternoon. Tiffany: hold on, going to the grocery store? You have to order online. The only way you’re going to visit me is if you wear a mask. And the only thing you’ll get to do at home is the filling out reports thing. Amanda: how long is this going to last? Tiffany: what? Amanda: the whole “pandemic” thing. Tiffany: I think 2 weeks to a month. Amanda: thank god. Tiffany: I know, right? It’s terrible already! All of a sudden, Amanda’s Boss’s voice comes into her computer. Boss: Amanda? Are you ready to make your statement? Amanda: yes boss. Boss: i can’t hear you. You’re still on mute. Just as she finds the unmute and start video buttons, her 5 year-old daughter Vivian calls her saying she has been kicked out of her meeting. Amanda struggles for a few seconds, but then, with another blinding flash of white-green light, she is zapped into december 31st again. Mysterious time traveling Alien: Now do you see why you can’t do any of your new year's resolutions? Amanda: no, Tiffany said that the quarantining will only last 2 weeks to a month. I’ll have plenty of time to finish my new year's resolutions. Mysterious time traveling Alien: It’s going to be much longer than that. Amanda: *faints*

This was made for a group project that a group of 6th graders did when they interviewed the middle school.

Early in the pandemic, a man I knew died of Covid-19 in an overwhelmed hospital. I kept thinking he might not have died if the hospital had been better funded. Then I remembered he had once insisted to me that he lived outside society. I saw a sad connection: hospitals and public health in general were underfunded because too many people felt they did not share a common society with others. More thoughts about Covid and community started flooding my mind. Eventually I pulled these thoughts together in a short essay.

This pandemic has affected each and everyone of us in a different way. Although this pandemic seems to be a lot about the negative, I try and look at the positive aspect to it. When this pandemic first started and we had to go under lockdown and were under a stay at home order, the idea of it seemed pretty fun at first. The thought of staying at home and not having any responsibilities seemed like a pretty good thing. Once this lockdown continued for longer than we expected, things easily got annoying and was easily frustrated with the little things in life. Everyone got on everyones nerves. All I could think about was when this was going to end. Looking back, I've realized how much closer me and my family have gotten. Even though my family and I were already very close, we realized how much this pandemic made us appreciate the time we do have together and how other families may not have it like us. All in all, looking back, I've realized that we need to be thankful and grateful for things things we have in life rather than wanting more.

I’d like to talk about potential “silences” in the Journal of the Plague Year. Although the journal is shaping up to be a fantastic archive that future historians will surely make use of, it is not a perfect representation of life during the pandemic. In my view, the journal has certain assumptions built into it that tend to produce certain silences. The journal likely encourages contributions that show change rather than continuity. We tend to focus on what is different -- online school, perhaps not participating in large gatherings during the holidays, etc. -- rather than what is basically the same, and there is a lot about our pandemic world that is strikingly similar to the pre-pandemic world. For example, capitalism, and consumer capitalism in particular, has largely continued in its pre-pandemic mode with a few minor tweaks (masks, for example). Stores like Target, Wal-Mart, and Costco have not only been open but have been open for indoor shopping throughout the entire pandemic. Also, people have a tendency to believe that they are spending more time at home and online. While this may be true for some, the fact is that American life had been trending this way for a long time, with more and more people spending more time isolated at home and engaging in less face-to-face social interactions, being less involved in community groups and associations, etc. Lastly, in order to make a contribution to the journal, one needs to have access to the internet; of course, there is a percentage of the American public that lacks internet access and likely an even larger percentage of people worldwide that lack access to the internet.

Living during the time of a pandemic has inevitably changed my own surroundings, but what I find most striking is the fact that many of these changes are almost invisible to me, considering I stay home as much as possible. Sure, I hear the fire engines and ambulances working around the clock every day, their sirens blaring, but since I am inside, I never see them. Even more concerning is the fact that people in my area have almost certainly been infected, but again, I have never seen any. Similarly, chances are if you have not caught COVID yet, all the knowledge you have about how to combat it does not com from ones own personal experience, but from instruction from a third party. As a result, I feel like I both have some sort of an idea of whats going on around me and how to deal with it, and also no idea. For me the silence that I hear is just as alarming, if not more so, than the sound of an ambulance tearing down the street.

Going through the pandemic, I always knew how serious the situation was especially considering how large the number of cases were in Arizona. However, despite all of the people that were getting sick, I never had anyone that I knew who contracted the virus through most of the Pandemic. That was until late 2020. Now due to the precautions I knew I had to take, the only two places that I ever really visited apart from staying at my own home were my parents' houses. My mom and step-dad were extremely cautious when it came to the Pandemic and so too were my dad and step-mom however, I knew because my dad was an essential worker he would be exposed a bit more. One October day, my heart sank when I got a call from my Father telling me that he tested positive for the virus. This sparked a number of fears throughout my head like: "Is my father going to be okay, especially considering he has pre-existing conditions that would make it worse?", " When was the last that I was exposed to my father in timing when he tested positive for the virus?", "Who else could have gotten sick from my father... my step-mom or worse my 6-year-old sister?". The first thing I did, despite remembering that luckily it had been about two weeks from seeing my father, was get tested. I ended up testing negative, but I was extremely worried for my father and my step-mother who I later learned also contracted it. This was the first time I ever dealt with knowing that someone I knew that was close to me got the Virus. I truly feared for my family member's lives. I remember constantly calling my father to see how he was doing and hearing the struggle with the virus in his voice. Luckily, both my parents would make it through the sickness okay. My sister also was able to be taken care of by my step-aunt which was also a relief. As time passed and as my family tested negative for COVID-19, I would be able to visit them again. But, now I truly understood the severity of the pandemic and that the virus held no bias in who it targeted.

Earlier this year, during my winter break, my brother was sent home two days before his high school finals. Someone in his class that he sat next/near to had contracted COVID, so as a precaution, he was sent home to quarantine. My brother was less worried about possibly having COVID himself, and more angry about having to make up his finals the next quarter (speaks a lot about our education system). I asked him who was the person that got COVID, and he said it was probably the girl behind him, but she said she didn't have it, and her friend that sat next to her backed it up. We drew out the seating chart and concluded that it HAD to be that girl, because everyone who was sent to quarantine was sitting around her. I told him that she probably just lied about not having COVID, because people would probably get mad at her. I personally would get angry myself if I was prevented from taking my finals, but I understand the girl's reasoning. No want wants to be bullied for getting sick, or called "COVID-girl," or whatever.

This picture shows what I get when I try to schedule a COVID-19 vaccination through the Arizona Department of Health Services website. I'm basically out of luck for the time being. It is good that a vaccine is available now and the end of the pandemic is in sight, but the process is frustrating. While I understand that our state agency had to develop their website in a short time, they've known for months that vaccines were on the way. Their site is needlessly complex, buggy, and non-informative. I initially got hung up on a page that required me to enter my health insurance information; it took several tries and a few phone calls to figure out exactly what I needed to enter in each of the fields. Once I get through, I can't find an open appointment. There is no indication on the webpage, but it seems that the system returns no open appointments for me because I am not yet eligible. My mother who is more than 75 years old has managed to get an appointment and get her first shot. I'm concerned that many other people, particularly the elderly who need the vaccination more than others, will not get access to them because they will not be able to navigate through the website. I have read a number of media reports about this. It seems like poor planning to set up a process that relies on individuals to use the internet without offering an alternative.

I needed to submit a negative COVID test in order to go back to my apartment, so I went to a free drive-thru COVID test at my local community college. The lines were long, but surprisingly quick. However, I was surprised that I was not given a straw to spit my saliva into the tube with. In my previous COVID tests at my college, a straw was given. I had a bunch of saliva saved up in my mouth in anticipation, but I when I got my tube, I spit saliva on everything but the tube. My pants were drenched in my own spit, it was nasty. It was also kind of hard and awkward to drive through the line and spit at the same time. However, I was really impressed at how fast and efficient the testing process was. I ran into another issue later, when I got my test results via text but not through my official patient portal. I had to wait on call for around 20 minutes to request that my results be uploaded so that I could send proof of a PCR COVID test to my university. Despite these mild hiccups, I encourage people to get tested regularly if they think they have been in contact, or have symptoms.

As of today, 1/28/2021, many people have already had their second dose of the Pfizer vaccine. Many of my friends and family members work in healthcare, so they are either on their first or second dosages. I myself have not had the vaccine, as I do not work in healthcare. I was surprised to see that this vaccine has more side effects than typical vaccines. After their shot, many feel their arm may be sore, or get exceptionally tired. My family member, after their second dose, felt slightly feverish. Luckily, these are the expected side effects, and they don't last more than around 1-2 days! I believe that they are now extending vaccines to front-line workers such as police, firefighters, etc in Arizona. Arizona has not been very good at social distancing, and I know many people personally who have gotten COVID (who luckily have recovered), so I hope that the general public can have access to the vaccine soon.

As I've been reading through the archive and seeing the stories shown, I have been struck by one important missing group from the narratives of Covid-19: Those who haven't taken it seriously. There are countless stories of people who see the wilful ignorance and even maliciousness of those who either don't believe Covid is important or is simply a hoax, there is little to no input from those kinds of people themselves. This cannot be blamed entirely on the archive, to be sure. Every contribution here is voluntary, and if you are someone who is already disinclined to believe that Covid is important then you are less likely to attempt to talk about it in this space. Moreover, as this archive was created by and shared among academics, it is less likely to reach people who largely only use sites like Facebook on the internet and exist in their own bubbles. There is also the point that giving a space and platform to toxic conspiracies is not exactly a great idea. We live in an age of alternative facts and wildly different sources of news and entertainment. Future historians using this archive will need to keep in mind that most of what is presented here is just one of the many realities people have been dealing with this past year.

With the emergence of new COVID-19 mutations, people have been worried about the effectiveness of the new vaccine. Studies have been conducted to see how effective the vaccines are against the mutations with Pfizer's vaccine showing to be effective against both new strains.

about the representativeness of entries to the Journal

The symptoms of Covid 19 varied wildly from person to person. Some people's symptoms were so bad that they had to be put on a breathing machine or were fatal, while others had no symptoms or had a mild fever or cough. The virus attacks the lungs and respiratory system. People died because the virus made it so they couldn't breath. To most people, the virus isn't such a huge danger, but for a small number of people such as the elderly or people with underlying health conditions, it can be very deadly.

A week and a half ago was my grandmother's 90th birthday. I shared here about our family's disappointment at not getting to have a big party and instead visiting her at her window. Now she's in the ER, awaiting a transfer to hospice. It doesn't seem to be COVID, although the tests aren't back yet. No one knows what happened or why. There are no ICU beds available and resources in general are limited to investigate why a 90 year old woman who was fine 12 hours earlier is now unresponsive and on a ventilator. No one can go visit her. We're not sure if we will be able to visit her at the hospice. Grandma has had health scares before but nothing like this. Before we would be coordinating visitors and making sure someone was by to see her everyday, even if she was unconscious. Now we’re limited to the family group text as my aunt follows up with doctors by phone and relays information to the rest of us. She’s pulled through before but this time feels different. The doctors are all stretched so thin and resources are so limited that all the odds are against her. I used to take Grandma out at least once or twice a month. We’d go to a movie or just lunch. Maybe run some errands. I haven’t seen her without a window between us in nearly a year. I’m probably never going to get to hug her again.

I chose to make a computer because computers have been a huge part of lots of people's lives during the pandemic. Computers have been one of the only methods of communication for some people, and a lot of students are using them for school. I know that it may not be the most creative thing I could've made out of clay, but I think it represents a big chunk of the pandemic.

I think that someone ate something and that caused the pandemic. For example animals carry a variety of diseases that can spread to other people when in food contact. If someone ate a animal that may have had a disease, than that person could get it and spread causing a pandemic.

This years Christmas was very different. Because of the pandemic, my family and I could not travel we stayed at home and had a small family Christmas. We went to the beach because we live somewhere were it is always warm. I got to go surfing. We then had a family zoom with our family who lives in New York who we would regularly have been with. Overall I like change and had a great 2020 Christmas!

I've been afraid to ask this question. Can you get a vaccine if you're not a U.S. resident? My mother-in-law has been more or less stuck here since last February. She came from Peru to help watch our 2 year old and planned to stay 6 months, per her visa allowance. WIth COVID, we applied for an extension, and we haven't had an update on her application yet. I do want her to get vaccinated before she goes home, and this information on the Maricopa County website is reassuring that she'll be allowed to get one before she goes home.

This is the table outside my moms work. She is a manager at a special practice medical facility called Arizona Oncology. Her staff check everyone that walks into the building, making sure they don't have a fever and wear their mask properly. There are arguments and disagreements at this desk everyday. Either patients don't believe the virus is real, refuse to wear a mask or flat out want to be an issue. They've recently hired a security guard to help handle those causing issues.

COVID 19 has taken many lives that should not of been taken. all were very sad but we have to move on the death toll of covid will just keep going until the vaccine is spread out to the world. you can't stop it for now it has to run its corse but to prevent it wear a mask and social distance!

Covid is a terrible way to not go on a trip that you have been waiting to go on. if you wanted to go. what if you were going to visit family and than your flight is canceled due to COVID 19.

I have read many statistics and learned much about this virus and I have come to a conclusion that it is dangerous and what doctors have been saying since the start is totally correct, I heard that it won't stop until almost everyone on earth has gotten it, and that is slowly becoming a reality, but i also heard that the mortality rate will remain at 1% no matter what which has also shown to be true. The one thing that bothers me though is that scientists said it could last up to 2 years, which is starting to sound realistic and not extremely exaggerated. My final thoughts in this virus are that we should all do our best to stay safe and listen to doctors.

This is a simple meme I created using the scroll of truth template in order to convey how I feel about those who seek to end the pandemic but refuse to wear masks.

The numbers of Covid-19 really have no affect on me or most of my family. The lies of these numbers is tremendous, people reporting deaths without considering any other influences that have been previously harming or at least not helping the patient. I would pay for an accurate death poll of people who had died from just Covid-19 and only Covid. Then would we know the real 'numbers.' I am blessed however to say that I am aware of no close family member or friend that has had Covid, and that is something I will continue to thank God for. I still can't believe the fear pressed upon by the media and how stupidly successful it has been. People acting as if the Black Plague is running about and how the worst is always yet to come. For the better part of us, Covid has truthfully helped me get a step ahead of life. To get extra training in, doing things others weren't willing to do, it's given me a step ahead of a good amount of my peers. This virus will make of you what you make of it. Some people just choose to respond differently than others.

At first it was nothing, Then something or all. I wrote and I drew, I played ball. The wind blew outside, strong and loud, But I was inside, away from the crowd, today was no day, for something out loud. And when my notebook fell to the floor, I cried. When my mask shifted on my face, “They could die” But at the end of the day, I picked up my pages for the sake of my time. Author's (Explanatory) Note: I stitched this together through scraps in my notebook that I had written over the year. Some of them on simple topics, others on grave events. This is important to me because it's some of my writing that didn't come planned and pre-packed, but an experience and struggle put together through snippets of my life and genuine, if simple, emotions that are coursing through every single one of us, only to be amplified in times like these.