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How is the coronavirus pandemic affecting your life right now? Tell us about your experiences, feelings, and thoughts.
This past weekend, my husband, daughter and I met my brother, his boyfriend and our niece in Cold Spring, NY. It was a perfect day to walk around, picnic on the Hudson and just be together after too many months apart. As we sat, ate and laughed, I looked at the water and noticed these three posts. I felt like they represented myself, my husband and our daughter. Since the pandemic began and our lives changed in ways we could never imagine, we've kept our heads above water because we have been in it together. We each have our own space, but not too much to keep us separated at such a scary time. This photo makes me feel happy. This photo reminds me that life is about family and anyone you feel close to, that you're all in it together in one way or another.
October 6, 2020
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What do you think history books will say about this time? In your view, what's most important for them to include?
I am curious about how history will treat this time. I only learned about the 1918 Flu epidemic sometime in the 1990's through watching old video tapes of Upstairs Downstairs. It was only when this pandemic really descended that the 1918 Flu seemed to become more commonly written and spoken about. I hope that this pandemic is more commonly known in the future, especially the lessons that I hope we learn from it. First of all, the number of deaths we have experienced during this pandemic should be known, and emphasized, especially the suffering that people experienced. I also hope that the heroics of frontline workers is written about, and how many of them also lost their lives treating people who were sick. The economic suffering should be written about - the loss of jobs and homes, the increased number of people who experienced food insecurity, and how people of color and poor people were most adversely impacted. I hope that included in that writing is the fact that in the US, Congress acted initially to lessen the blow to people who lost their jobs and then were unable to come to an agreement, and the suffering that this caused. Any studies about the impact of social distancing and lockdowns on society, particularly children, should be included in historical perspectives of this pandemic. I hope that comparative studies about children's learning and socialization are included. If the pandemic permanently alters the behaviors of people within each society, that should also be known. Last but not least, I hope that historians of the future compare and contrast how different countries responded to the impact, and how these responses determined how much the population of each country were impacted by the pandemic. In looking at this, they should also explore the amount of false information that was present during the pandemic and how this shaped how people responded to restrictions and recommendations put in place. I certainly hope that another pandemic like this one does not occur any time in the future, but if it does, I do hope that the hard lessons learned during this pandemic shape the decisions of the future.
December 11, 2020