life after corona pandemic essay

Elizabeth Lesser Shares How She Lifted Herself Out of Pandemic Despair

The cofounder of the Omega Institute admits that even as a teacher of mindfulness, sometimes, she is her own worst student.

When it became apparent that a virus was spreading around the globe, my first reaction was one of disbelief: We’ll surely eradicate this before it turns into a pandemic! Soon enough my disbelief morphed into fear, and then horror and grief for those who were sick and dying in Asia, Europe, and slowly, steadily...everywhere. Along with those feelings came a strange kind of optimism, a faith that we all might learn something important. Like when I watched videos of people in Italy under lockdown standing on their balconies holding candles and singing songs of hope into the darkened streets. Or as travel ceased and traffic stood still and the world got a little quieter, the air a little cleaner—I could almost hear the trees breathing sighs of relief.

In the early spring of 2020, when the pandemic took hold here in the United States and life as we knew it ground to a halt, I wondered, even with the trauma and loss, could this be the Great Slowdown we needed? People retweeted the quote “Mother Nature has sent us to our rooms.” Could that message portend a teachable moment? Maybe doing less, and doing with less, would reveal the value of enough instead of chasing after more, more, more. Maybe now we’d start to truly appreciate the people whose work keeps us alive and well: the farmers, truckers, grocery baggers; the staff who work in our hospitals; the home health aides who care for our parents; the daycare instructors and school teachers who safeguard our children’s future. And maybe, just maybe, the pandemic would finally confirm for us thick-headed humans this plain truth: What happens to even just one of us affects all of us.

My grand optimism began to waver as the weeks of isolation became months and Covid-19 cases doubled, then tripled. Schools closed. Hospitals ran out of masks and ventilators; millions of people got sick, and hundreds of thousands died. People lost their jobs, their homes, their loved ones, their mental health, their way of life. Almost no individual, community, or business was untouched by fear or pain or loss, including my own nonprofit center, which for 40 years had been teaching people to meditate, to heal, to spin trauma into the gold of growth.

.css-meat1u:before{margin-bottom:1.2rem;height:2.25rem;content:'“';display:block;font-size:4.375rem;line-height:1.1;font-family:Juana,Juana-weight300-roboto,Juana-weight300-local,Georgia,Times,Serif;font-weight:300;} .css-mn32pc{font-family:Juana,Juana-weight300-upcase-roboto,Juana-weight300-upcase-local,Georgia,Times,Serif;font-size:1.625rem;font-weight:300;letter-spacing:0.0075rem;line-height:1.2;margin:0rem;text-transform:uppercase;}@media(max-width: 64rem){.css-mn32pc{font-size:2.25rem;line-height:1;}}@media(min-width: 48rem){.css-mn32pc{font-size:2.375rem;line-height:1;}}@media(min-width: 64rem){.css-mn32pc{font-size:2.75rem;line-height:1;}}.css-mn32pc b,.css-mn32pc strong{font-family:inherit;font-weight:bold;}.css-mn32pc em,.css-mn32pc i{font-style:italic;font-family:inherit;} “What happens to even just one of us affects all of us.”

As 2020 came to a close, I began to wonder if my dream of the Great Slowdown was becoming a sorrowful nightmare: the Great Meltdown. As a teacher of mindfulness, sometimes I am my own worst student; life during lockdown tested me greatly, and watching the news or doom-scrolling through social media didn’t help. I began to flunk out of inner-peace school, started reacting to stress in decidedly unenlightened ways, yelling at the TV or exploding in anger during interminable Zoom meetings.

I gave in to despair when we had to let go of another staff member at work, or when I couldn’t see my kids, who live in far-flung places. I had stopped accessing my “balcony brain”—that part of myself that can calmly observe any situation, pause before reacting, and make wise, compassionate decisions. I was spending more time in my “basement brain,” heeding the vigilant, volatile caveman within. Eventually, my burnout caught up with me, and I landed in the emergency room with a gastrointestinal issue. It was then that my darling husband suggested I try some of my own medicine—the stuff I have written several books about. “You know,” he said gently, “things like meditation and exercise. Things for your trauma and grief. Things for your soul.” Duh!

So here’s what I did. I turned to the words of some of my greatest teachers. I keep a basket of their quotes on my desk. I’m always adding to it—beautiful lines from poets, mind-blowing bits from scientists, motivation from activists, quiet wisdom from spiritual leaders. I often choose one to guide me through the day. This time, I decided that whatever quote my hand touched first would serve as my GPS back into what I call the four landscapes of the human journey: mind, body, heart, and soul.

The first words I picked gave me goosebumps: “Today’s mighty oak is yesterday’s nut that held its ground.” The phrase is attributed to Rosa Parks, and I felt as though she had reached down from the heavens to remind me that everything I needed was already within me. I could be that little acorn again and reroot and rise strong. I knew how to do that. I had done so before in other difficult times. I had held my ground in the shattered aftermath of divorce and come out the other side a stronger and more empathetic person. I had rooted myself in my inner strength when I was my sister’s bone marrow donor. And when we lost her, I found in those ashes the true heart of friendship. Here I was again, trying, like so many of us, to reemerge from the pandemic with lessons learned, inner strength, and something of value to offer.

I followed Mrs. Parks’ guidance and went back to the tools that never fail me: Meditation to activate my “balcony brain” and lift the veil from my clouded mind. Exercise to reclaim my body and physical vitality. The simple prayer of putting my hand on my heart and feeling flooded with forgiveness and tenderness, hope and gratitude. Walks in nature and dips back into my favorite spiritual texts to reconnect with my all-knowing soul. As I felt my strength returning, I was reminded how despair and negativity can spread like a virus, too. When they do, taking the soul’s vaster view and being an agent of uplift feels almost revolutionary. Doing so is an act of sanity and an offering of healing.

Historically, pandemics have jump-started innovation or they have slid humanity backwards into oppression. This is our era; we get to choose. Life after Covid-19 does not have to be a Great Meltdown, or a Great Slowdown. Maybe, just maybe, it will be a Great Wake-up—a global event that breaks us open and waters the seeds of our best selves. Because each one of us can be that acorn, holding our ground, lifting our sights, and, together, becoming a forest of mighty oaks.

Elizabeth Lesser is the author of Cassandra Speaks: When Women Are the Storytellers, The Human Story Changes as well as the bestselling Broken Open: How Difficult Times Can Help Us Grow and Marrow: Love, Loss & What Matters Most . She is the cofounder of Omega Institute, has given two popular TED talks, and is a member of Oprah Winfrey’s Super Soul 100.

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Life after Covid: will our world ever be the same?

From cities, to science, to politics, six Observer writers assess how a post-pandemic world will emerge into a new normal

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Here are some things that the pandemic changed. It accustomed some people – those whose jobs allowed it – to remote working . It highlighted the importance of adequate living space and access to the outdoors. It renewed, through their absence, an appreciation of social contact and large gatherings. It showed up mass daily commuting for the dehumanising drain on energy and resources that it is.

These changes do not add up to the abandonment of big cities and offices predicted by more excitable commentaries, not a future of rural bubbles and of tumbleweed blowing through the City of London, but a welcome shift in priorities. There will always be millions who want to live in cities and millions who want to live in towns and villages, but there are also those for whom these are borderline decisions, with pros and cons on each side.

These decisions might be based on life changes, such as having children. If you no longer have to go to an office daily, you can live further from the city in which it is placed. If the magic spell of the big city, which kept people in the tiny and expensive flats that now look so inadequate, is broken, then you might consider living in cheaper, more relaxed locations that hadn’t occurred to you before. Those ex-urbanites, still valuing social contact and public life, might seek towns and small cities rather than a lonely cottage in a field.

Such changes could help to address, without the pouring of any concrete or the laying of a brick, the imbalance in the nation’s housing that was at breaking point before Covid. On the one hand there are overheated residential markets in London, Bristol, Manchester, Edinburgh and elsewhere. On the other there are towns and small cities with good housing stock, an inherited infrastructure of parks and civic buildings and easy access to beautiful countryside, which through their location suffer from underinvestment and depopulation.

This is not to say that no new homes should be built, nor that there won’t be problems with such a shift. It could simply be gentrification, if done wrong, at a national scale. And this vision assumes that Covid passes, and that it is not one of a future series of equally vicious viruses. But there is at least a chance that the travails of 2020 could lead to a saner approach to the places where we live and work. Rowan Moore, Observer architecture critic

Interaction

The first kiss my baby niece blew me was bittersweet, because like so many pandemic interactions it happened not in person but on camera. Covid means that big chunks of her life have only been seen on a phone screen as she grows into a toddler. And I’m one of the lucky ones: I haven’t had to say goodbye to someone on FaceTime or break the worst news to someone over the phone.

If you live by yourself, you’ve made do without human touch for months on end; if you’re crammed into a small space with your partner, kids and your parents, you may have spent weeks craving time and space not encroached upon by other human beings. Totally different experiences of the same social earthquake: surely they cannot but profoundly change us for the long term?

I’m not so sure. Lockdown, then not-lockdown, then lockdown again have served as a reminder of just how adaptable we are as human beings. I was amazed at how quickly the idea of socialising with friends indoors became a fuzzy memory, then the norm, then distant again. The emotions I felt so acutely back in March – the sharp fear Covid could steal my parents, the communal endeavour of clapping for our carers every Thursday night – soon faded into a new normal, impossible to sustain even though many of the realities have barely changed.

The pandemic has underlined the extent to which digital interaction is no substitute for the real thing. In some ways, I’m more in touch with people than ever thanks to the numerous WhatsApp groups that revived themselves into a constant source of company. But tapping away in a couple of group chats while absent-mindedly watching the latest Netflix offering doesn’t come close to the wonderful feeling of hugging a friend, or spending three hours giving someone you haven’t seen for ages your undivided attention over a meal, or of having a conversation based not just on words but physical cues. I doubt the pandemic will seed a long-term distaste for crowds; if anything, I suspect that, if all goes well with the vaccine rollout, summer 2021 will see a crop of riotous street parties and carnivals.

But a return to life as usual will not mask the emotional toll Covid will have had on so many people. People who suffer from anxiety and depression; women in abusive relationships ; children experiencing abuse or neglect at the hands of their parents: they have had it the worst, and their experiences of isolation and loneliness during lockdown could have consequences for their personal relationships that will not magically disappear with a vaccine.

And that is before you factor in the added strain of the intense financial hardship so many are being forced to endure. As a society, recovering from Covid is about much more than antibodies: it cannot happen without support for those who have experienced its worst financial and mental health impacts. Sonia Sodha, the Observer’s chief leader writer

Britain has had an uncomfortable year in its battle to contain Covid. Failures to test, trace and isolate infected individuals allowed grim numbers of deaths to accumulate while deficiencies in the acquisition of stocks of Personal Protection Equipment (PPE) left countless health workers exposed to danger and illness. However, these deficiencies have been balanced by the manner and striking speed with which our scientists have turned away from existing projects in order to focus their attentions on ridding us of Covid. Their work has earned global praise for its swiftness and precision.

“The Brits are on course to save the world,” wrote leading US economist Tyler Cowen in Bloomberg Opinion about our scientists efforts last summer while the journal Science quoted leading international researchers who have heaped praise on British anti-Covid work. Science in the UK is perceived, correctly, to have done well in facing up to the pandemic.

A perfect example is provided by the UK’s Recovery trial, a drug-testing programme involving more than 3,000 doctors and nurses who worked with more than 12,000 Covid patients in hundreds of hospitals across the nation – from the Western Isles to Truro and from Derry to King’s Lynn. Set up within a few days of the pandemic reaching the UK, and carried out in intensive care units crammed with seriously ill people, Recovery revealed that one cheap inflammation treatment could save the lives of seriously ill Covid patients while two much-touted therapies were shown to be useless at tackling the disease.

No other country has come close to matching these achievements. “We had the people with the right skills and a willingness to drop everything else and contribute to the effort,” says one of Recovery’s founders, Martin Landray of Oxford University. “That made all the difference.” In a nation which had only recently reviled, openly, the concept of expertise, scientists like Landray have restored the reputation of the wise and the informed.

Fiona Fox, director of the Science Media Centre, also points to the willingness of our scientists to communicate. “Time after time, we have asked for comments from leading researchers, epidemiologists and vaccine experts on breaking Covid stories, and despite being inundated with work, they have taken the time to provide clear analyses that have helped to make sense of rapidly changing developments,” she says. “It has been extraordinary.”

And of course, the arrival of three effective vaccines against a disease that was unknown less than a year ago has only further enhanced the image of the scientist. Yes, they may be a bit geeky sometimes, but they have done a lot to help us win the battle against Covid. Robin McKie, Observer Science Editor

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

It may not feel like it at the moment, admittedly. But if this pandemic echoes other defining events in our recent history, from the 9/11 terror attacks to the 2008-09 banking crash, it will leave the political landscape utterly transformed in some respects yet wearily familiar in others.

Last week’s spending review , spelling out how the cost of battling Covid will shape national life for years to come, was a classic example. A public sector pay freeze, plus benefit cuts next April? Well, we’ve been there before; to many families it will feel like austerity all over again.

What’s different this time, however, is that Boris Johnson insists there’ll be no return to austerity-style spending cuts. Instead, taxes will rise. If he actually goes through with threats to target second-home owners or higher earners’ pensions, expect some mutiny in Tory ranks. (The bitter joke among Tory MPs is that they’re implementing more of Jeremy Corbyn’s manifesto than Corbyn ever will.) But the door to a long overdue debate about taxing wealth, as well as income, is at least now open.

The pandemic also seems to be changing what people look for in a leader. The last recession pushed angry, despairing voters towards populists with easy answers; make America great again, take back control. But Covid has been a brutal reminder that in life-and-death situations, competence is everything. Joe Biden isn’t wildly exciting but at least he doesn’t speculate aloud about the merits of drinking bleach. From New Zealand’s Jacinda Ardern to Germany’s Angela Merkel and Scotland’s Nicola Sturgeon, the leaders whose reputations have been enhanced by this crisis tend to be pragmatists and consensus-seekers, not excitable culture warriors. Keir Starmer’s rising poll ratings suggest a hunger for steady-as-she-goes leadership in Britain too.

Optimists will hope that this collective near-death experience brings a renewed political focus on what actually makes life worth living, from supportive communities to the beauty of a natural world that sustained many through lockdown. Pessimists, however, will worry that calls to “build back better”, or reset society along fairer and greener lines, could be an early casualty of a hard recession that leaves people focussed purely on economic survival.

For it would be naive not to expect a backlash against all of this. Nigel Farage is already trying to whip one up via his new anti-lockdown party , targeting voters angry at having freedoms curtailed. But if the last crash unleashed an era of radicalism and revolt, it’s not impossible this one will leave people craving a quiet life. After such turmoil, don’t underestimate the longing to get back to normal, even if the normal we once knew is gone. Gaby Hinsliff, Guardian columnist

We know that the spaces from which “culture” emerges won’t look the same after 2020 as they did before. Many theatres, bookshops, music venues and galleries won’t survive the catastrophe of shutdown, and if they do emerge it will be with diminished resources. But what about the attitude and the focus of creativity. Will it be shadowed by the pandemic post-vaccine or will it celebrate liberation?

History suggests both. The terrible mortality, social distancing and economic hardship resulting from the 1918-19 Spanish flu epidemic that followed the war were shaping forces in both the doom-laden experiments of modernism and the high hedonism of the jazz age. The Waste Land and the Charleston emerged within months of each other. TS Eliot wrote much of the former while suffering from the after-effects of the influenza, haunted, as his wife Vivienne noted, by the fear that as a result of the virus, “his mind is not acting as it used to do”. Certainly, that poem’s most memorable lines, with their stress on the mass gathering, read more pointedly from our current vantage point: “Under the brown fog of a winter dawn,/ A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many,/ I had not thought death had undone so many./ Sighs, short and infrequent, were exhaled,/ And each man fixed his eyes before his feet.”

But, contrarily, the spirit of the post-pandemic age was equally alive in the bathtub-gin excitement of the Cotton Club, and the rarefied decadence of the Bright Young Things: raucous celebrations of seize-the-day freedoms after the misery of war and virus.

Not much literature or music that directly responds to the current pandemic has yet emerged. Zadie Smith’s brief book of essays , Intimations , hazarded something of what that response might look and sound like. In a memorable phrase, she described the events of this year as “the global humbling”. That moment when we collectively realised that the confident certainties of what we used to call “normal life” were only ever a heartbeat away from unknown threats – and that the US, Smith’s adopted home, having led the world in many things, was now leading the world in death.

Will such experience engender a new and deepening age of anxiety in the books we read and the films we watch? No doubt that apprehension of apocalypse, of environmental emergency, that draws us to The Road or to Chernobyl will become more insistent. But as Eliot also noted, humankind “cannot bear very much reality”. After this year in which the young have been denied so many of their rites of passage – chances to sing, dance, drink or love – we can surely hope for a post-viral creative outpouring of all those things that make us most happy to be alive. Tim Adams, Observer writer

”Imagine there’s no commuting, it’s easy if you try”, is a popular refrain in discussions of the post-Covid world of work predicting the imminent demise of the office. Sometimes it’s combined with the claim that low-earning hospitality and leisure jobs that have dried up mid-pandemic won’t be coming back and so shouldn’t get support now.

These different predictions are likely to be wrong for the same reason: they pay too much attention to crystal balls, and not enough to rear-view mirrors. Yes, the pandemic itself has meant big changes to the world of work. It has changed where some people (generally higher earners) work while hitting the ability of many lower earners to work at all. But imagining a world without lockdowns is best done by focusing on those pandemic-driven trends that reinforce, rather than run against, patterns visible pre-crisis .

So, expect the pandemic’s turbo-charging of retail’s online shift (with Arcadia’s likely administration the latest example) to continue – there will be fewer cashiers and more delivery drivers. But don’t believe the hype on the decline of hospitality and leisure. Workers in those sectors are twice as likely to have lost their jobs or been furloughed as the pandemic has left us spending more on buying things than going out, but the long-term trend is the opposite: hotels and restaurants accounted for a fifth of the pre-pandemic employment surge.

Working from home (or living in the office, as it can feel like) has been the big change for professional Britain. But history warns against the idea that the office is finished. Only one in 20 of us worked entirely remotely pre-crisis. But three times that number worked at home at least one day a week, a trend that was rapidly growing. Hybrid home/office working is the future. But be careful about assuming this transforms Britain’s disgracefully big economic gaps: some will benefit from more choice about where to live but offices in poorer areas, rather than those in central London, may be the ones that end up empty. And remember, we’re only talking about a fraction of the workforce here. Post-Covid, waiters and cleaners won’t be doing their jobs from their spare room or kitchen table.

As well as predicting the future, we should be trying to shape it. Higher pay and more security for the low paid workers who faced the biggest health and economic risks from this crisis would be a good place to start. Torsten Bell, chief executive of the Resolution Foundation

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How life could get better (or worse) after covid, fifty-seven scientists make predictions about potential positive and negative consequences of the pandemic..

How do pandemics change our societies? It is tempting to believe that there will not be a single sector of society untouched by the COVID-19 pandemic . However, a quick look at previous pandemics in the 20th century reveals that such negative forecasts may be vastly exaggerated.

Prior pandemics have corresponded to changes in architecture and urban planning, and a greater awareness of public health . Yet the psychological and societal effects of the Spanish flu, the worst pandemic of the 20th century, were later perceived as less dramatic than anticipated, perhaps because it originated in the shadow of WWI. Austrian psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud described Spanish flu as a “ Nebenschauplatz ”—a sideshow in his life of that time, even though he eventually lost one of his daughters to the disease. Neither do we recall much more recent pandemics: the Asian flu of 1957 and the Hong Kong flu from 1968.

Imagining and planning for the future can be a powerful coping mechanism to gain some sense of control in an increasingly unpredictable pandemic life. Over the past year, some experts proclaimed that the world after COVID would be a completely different place , with changed values and a new map of international relations. The opinions of oracles who were not downplaying the virus were mostly negative . Societal unrest and the rise of totalitarian regimes, stunted child social development, mental health crises, exacerbated inequality, and the worst economic recession since the Great Depression were just a few worries discussed by pundits and on the news.

Other predictions were brighter—the disruptive force of the pandemic would provide an opportunity to reshape the world for the better, some said. To complement the voices of journalists, pundits, and policymakers, one of us (Igor Grossmann) embarked on a quest to gather opinions from the world’s leading scholars on behavioral and social science, founding the World after COVID project.

The World after COVID project is a multimedia collection of expert visions for the post-pandemic world, including scientists’ hopes, worries, and recommendations. In a series of 57 interviews, we invited scientists, along with futurists, to reflect on the positive and negative societal or psychological change that might occur after the pandemic, and the type of wisdom we need right now. Our team used a range of methodological techniques to quantify general sentiment, along with common and unique themes in scientists’ responses.

The results of this interview series were surprising, both in terms of the variability and ambivalence in expert predictions. Though the pandemic has and will continue to create adverse effects for many aspects of our society, the experts observed, there are also opportunities for positive change, if we are deliberate about learning from this experience.

Three opportunities after COVID-19

Scientists’ opinions about positive consequences were highly diverse. As the graph shows, we identified 20 distinct themes in their predictions. These predictions ranged from better care for elders, to improved critical thinking about misinformation, to greater appreciation of nature. But the three most common categories concerned social and societal issues.

1. Solidarity. Experts predicted that the shared struggles and experiences that we face due to the pandemic could foster solidarity and bring us closer together, both within our communities and globally. As clinical psychologist Katie A. McLaughlin from Harvard University pointed out, the pandemic could be “an opportunity for us to become more committed to supporting and helping one another.”

Similarly, sociologist Monika Ardelt from the University of Florida noted the possibility that “we realize these kinds of global events can only be solved if we work together as a world community.” Social identities—such as group memberships, nationality, or those that form in response to significant events such as pandemics or natural disasters—play an important role in fostering collective action. The shared experience of the pandemic could help foster a more global, inclusive identity that could promote international solidarity.

2. Structural and political changes. Early in the pandemic, experts also believed that we might also see proactive efforts and societal will to bring about structural and political changes toward a more just and diversity-inclusive society. Experts observed that the pandemic had exposed inequalities and injustices in our societies and hoped that their visibility might encourage societies to address them.

Philosopher Valerie Tiberius from the University of Minnesota suggested that the pandemic might bring about an “increased awareness of our vulnerability and mutual dependence.”

Fellow of the Royal Institute for International Affairs in the U.K. Anand Menon proposed that the pandemic might lead to growing awareness of economic inequality, which could lead to “greater sustained public and political attention paid to that issue.” Cultural psychologist Ayse Uskul from Kent University in the U.K. shared this sentiment and predicted that this awareness “will motivate us to pick up a stronger fight against the unfair distribution of resources and rights not just where we live, but much more globally.”

3. Renewed social connections. Finally, the most common positive consequence discussed was that we might see an increased awareness of the importance of our social connections. The pandemic has limited our ability to connect face to face with friends and families, and it has highlighted just how vulnerable some of our family members and neighbors might be. Greater Good Science Center founding director and UC Berkeley professor Dacher Keltner suggested that the pandemic might teach us “how absolutely sacred our best relationships are” and that the value of these relationships would be much higher in the post-pandemic world. Past president of the Society of Evolution and Human Behavior Douglas Kenrick echoed this sentiment by predicting that “tighter family relationships would be the most positive outcome of this [pandemic].”

Similarly, Jennifer Lerner—professor of decision-making from Harvard University—discussed how the pandemic had led people to “learn who their neighbors are, even though they didn’t know their neighbors before, because we’ve discovered that we need them.” These kinds of social relationships have been tied to a range of benefits, such as increased well-being and health , and could provide lasting benefits to individuals.

Post-pandemic risks

How about predictions for negative consequences of the pandemic? Again, opinions were variable, with more than half of the themes were mentioned by less than 10% of our interviewees. Only two predictions were mentioned by at least ten experts: the potential for political unrest and increased prejudice or racism. These predictions highlight a tension in expert predictions: Whereas some scholars viewed the future bright and “diversity-inclusive,” others fear the rise in racism and prejudice. Before we discuss this tension, let us examine what exactly scholars meant by these two worries.

1. Increased prejudice or racism. Many experts discussed how the conditions brought about by the pandemic could lead us to focus on our in-group and become more dismissive of those outside our circles. Incheol Choi, professor of cultural and positive psychology from Seoul National University, discussed that his main area of concern was that “stereotypes, prejudices against other group members might arise.” Lisa Feldman Barrett, fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences and the Royal Society of Canada, echoed this sentiment, noting that previous epidemics saw “people become more entrenched in their in-group and out-group beliefs.”

2. Political unrest. Similarly, many experts discussed how a greater focus on our in-groups might also exacerbate existing political divisions. Past president of the Society for Philosophy and Psychology Paul Bloom discussed how a greater dismissiveness toward out-groups was visible both within countries and internationally, where “countries are blaming other countries and not working together enough.” Dilip Jeste, past president of the American Psychiatric Association, discussed his concerns that the tendency to view both candidates and supporters as winners and losers in elections could mean that the “political polarization that we are observing today in the U.S. and the world will only increase.”

These predictions were not surprising— pundits and other public figures have been discussing these topics, too. However, as we analyzed and compared predictions for positive and negative consequences, we found something unexpected.

The yin and yang of COVID’s effects

Almost half of the interviewees spontaneously mentioned that the same change could be a force for good and for bad . In other words, they were dialectical , recognizing the multidetermined nature of predictions and acknowledging that context matters—context that determines who may be the winners and losers in the years to come. For example, experts predicted that we may see greater acceptance of digital technologies at home and at work. But besides the benefits of this—flexible work schedules, reduced commutes—they also mentioned likely costs, such as missing social information in virtual communication and disadvantages for people who cannot afford high-speed internet or digital devices.

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Amid this complexity, experts weighed in on what type of wisdom we need to help bring about more positive changes ahead. Not only do we need the will to sustain political and structural change, many argued, but also a certain set of psychological strategies promoting sound judgment: perspective taking, critical thinking, recognizing the limits of our knowledge, and sympathy and compassion.

In other words, experts’ recommended wisdom focuses on meta-cognition, which underlies successful emotion regulation, mindfulness, and wiser judgment about complex social issues. The good news is that these psychological strategies are malleable and trainable ; one way we can cultivate wisdom and perspective, for example, is by adopting a third-person, observer perspective on our challenges.

On the surface, the “it depends” attitude of many experts about the world after COVID may be dissatisfying. However, as research on forecasting shows, such a dialectical attitude is exactly what distinguishes more accurate forecasters from the rest of the population. Forecasting is hard and predictions are often uncertain and likely wrong. In fact, despite some hopes for the future, it is equally possible that the change after the pandemic will not even be noticeable. Not because changes will not happen, but because people quickly adjust to their immediate circumstances.

The future will tell whether and how the current pandemic has altered our societies. In the meantime, the World after COVID project provides a time-stamped window into experts’ apartments and their minds. As we embrace another pandemic spring, these insights can serve as a reminder that the pandemic may lead not only to worries but also to hopes for the years ahead.

About the Authors

Igor Grossmann

Igor Grossmann, Ph.D. , studies people and cultures, sometimes together, and often across time. He is an associate professor of psychology at the University of Waterloo, where he directs the Wisdom and Culture Lab.

Oliver Twardus

Oliver Twardus is the lab manager for the Wisdom and Culture lab and an aspiring researcher. He will be starting his master’s in neuroscience and applied cognitive science in September 2021.

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Read these 12 moving essays about life during coronavirus

Artists, novelists, critics, and essayists are writing the first draft of history.

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The world is grappling with an invisible, deadly enemy, trying to understand how to live with the threat posed by a virus . For some writers, the only way forward is to put pen to paper, trying to conceptualize and document what it feels like to continue living as countries are under lockdown and regular life seems to have ground to a halt.

So as the coronavirus pandemic has stretched around the world, it’s sparked a crop of diary entries and essays that describe how life has changed. Novelists, critics, artists, and journalists have put words to the feelings many are experiencing. The result is a first draft of how we’ll someday remember this time, filled with uncertainty and pain and fear as well as small moments of hope and humanity.

At the New York Review of Books, Ali Bhutto writes that in Karachi, Pakistan, the government-imposed curfew due to the virus is “eerily reminiscent of past military clampdowns”:

Beneath the quiet calm lies a sense that society has been unhinged and that the usual rules no longer apply. Small groups of pedestrians look on from the shadows, like an audience watching a spectacle slowly unfolding. People pause on street corners and in the shade of trees, under the watchful gaze of the paramilitary forces and the police.

His essay concludes with the sobering note that “in the minds of many, Covid-19 is just another life-threatening hazard in a city that stumbles from one crisis to another.”

Writing from Chattanooga, novelist Jamie Quatro documents the mixed ways her neighbors have been responding to the threat, and the frustration of conflicting direction, or no direction at all, from local, state, and federal leaders:

Whiplash, trying to keep up with who’s ordering what. We’re already experiencing enough chaos without this back-and-forth. Why didn’t the federal government issue a nationwide shelter-in-place at the get-go, the way other countries did? What happens when one state’s shelter-in-place ends, while others continue? Do states still under quarantine close their borders? We are still one nation, not fifty individual countries. Right?

Award-winning photojournalist Alessio Mamo, quarantined with his partner Marta in Sicily after she tested positive for the virus, accompanies his photographs in the Guardian of their confinement with a reflection on being confined :

The doctors asked me to take a second test, but again I tested negative. Perhaps I’m immune? The days dragged on in my apartment, in black and white, like my photos. Sometimes we tried to smile, imagining that I was asymptomatic, because I was the virus. Our smiles seemed to bring good news. My mother left hospital, but I won’t be able to see her for weeks. Marta started breathing well again, and so did I. I would have liked to photograph my country in the midst of this emergency, the battles that the doctors wage on the frontline, the hospitals pushed to their limits, Italy on its knees fighting an invisible enemy. That enemy, a day in March, knocked on my door instead.

In the New York Times Magazine, deputy editor Jessica Lustig writes with devastating clarity about her family’s life in Brooklyn while her husband battled the virus, weeks before most people began taking the threat seriously:

At the door of the clinic, we stand looking out at two older women chatting outside the doorway, oblivious. Do I wave them away? Call out that they should get far away, go home, wash their hands, stay inside? Instead we just stand there, awkwardly, until they move on. Only then do we step outside to begin the long three-block walk home. I point out the early magnolia, the forsythia. T says he is cold. The untrimmed hairs on his neck, under his beard, are white. The few people walking past us on the sidewalk don’t know that we are visitors from the future. A vision, a premonition, a walking visitation. This will be them: Either T, in the mask, or — if they’re lucky — me, tending to him.

Essayist Leslie Jamison writes in the New York Review of Books about being shut away alone in her New York City apartment with her 2-year-old daughter since she became sick:

The virus. Its sinewy, intimate name. What does it feel like in my body today? Shivering under blankets. A hot itch behind the eyes. Three sweatshirts in the middle of the day. My daughter trying to pull another blanket over my body with her tiny arms. An ache in the muscles that somehow makes it hard to lie still. This loss of taste has become a kind of sensory quarantine. It’s as if the quarantine keeps inching closer and closer to my insides. First I lost the touch of other bodies; then I lost the air; now I’ve lost the taste of bananas. Nothing about any of these losses is particularly unique. I’ve made a schedule so I won’t go insane with the toddler. Five days ago, I wrote Walk/Adventure! on it, next to a cut-out illustration of a tiger—as if we’d see tigers on our walks. It was good to keep possibility alive.

At Literary Hub, novelist Heidi Pitlor writes about the elastic nature of time during her family’s quarantine in Massachusetts:

During a shutdown, the things that mark our days—commuting to work, sending our kids to school, having a drink with friends—vanish and time takes on a flat, seamless quality. Without some self-imposed structure, it’s easy to feel a little untethered. A friend recently posted on Facebook: “For those who have lost track, today is Blursday the fortyteenth of Maprilay.” ... Giving shape to time is especially important now, when the future is so shapeless. We do not know whether the virus will continue to rage for weeks or months or, lord help us, on and off for years. We do not know when we will feel safe again. And so many of us, minus those who are gifted at compartmentalization or denial, remain largely captive to fear. We may stay this way if we do not create at least the illusion of movement in our lives, our long days spent with ourselves or partners or families.

Novelist Lauren Groff writes at the New York Review of Books about trying to escape the prison of her fears while sequestered at home in Gainesville, Florida:

Some people have imaginations sparked only by what they can see; I blame this blinkered empiricism for the parks overwhelmed with people, the bars, until a few nights ago, thickly thronged. My imagination is the opposite. I fear everything invisible to me. From the enclosure of my house, I am afraid of the suffering that isn’t present before me, the people running out of money and food or drowning in the fluid in their lungs, the deaths of health-care workers now growing ill while performing their duties. I fear the federal government, which the right wing has so—intentionally—weakened that not only is it insufficient to help its people, it is actively standing in help’s way. I fear we won’t sufficiently punish the right. I fear leaving the house and spreading the disease. I fear what this time of fear is doing to my children, their imaginations, and their souls.

At ArtForum , Berlin-based critic and writer Kristian Vistrup Madsen reflects on martinis, melancholia, and Finnish artist Jaakko Pallasvuo’s 2018 graphic novel Retreat , in which three young people exile themselves in the woods:

In melancholia, the shape of what is ending, and its temporality, is sprawling and incomprehensible. The ambivalence makes it hard to bear. The world of Retreat is rendered in lush pink and purple watercolors, which dissolve into wild and messy abstractions. In apocalypse, the divisions established in genesis bleed back out. My own Corona-retreat is similarly soft, color-field like, each day a blurred succession of quarantinis, YouTube–yoga, and televized press conferences. As restrictions mount, so does abstraction. For now, I’m still rooting for love to save the world.

At the Paris Review , Matt Levin writes about reading Virginia Woolf’s novel The Waves during quarantine:

A retreat, a quarantine, a sickness—they simultaneously distort and clarify, curtail and expand. It is an ideal state in which to read literature with a reputation for difficulty and inaccessibility, those hermetic books shorn of the handholds of conventional plot or characterization or description. A novel like Virginia Woolf’s The Waves is perfect for the state of interiority induced by quarantine—a story of three men and three women, meeting after the death of a mutual friend, told entirely in the overlapping internal monologues of the six, interspersed only with sections of pure, achingly beautiful descriptions of the natural world, a day’s procession and recession of light and waves. The novel is, in my mind’s eye, a perfectly spherical object. It is translucent and shimmering and infinitely fragile, prone to shatter at the slightest disturbance. It is not a book that can be read in snatches on the subway—it demands total absorption. Though it revels in a stark emotional nakedness, the book remains aloof, remote in its own deep self-absorption.

In an essay for the Financial Times, novelist Arundhati Roy writes with anger about Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s anemic response to the threat, but also offers a glimmer of hope for the future:

Historically, pandemics have forced humans to break with the past and imagine their world anew. This one is no different. It is a portal, a gateway between one world and the next. We can choose to walk through it, dragging the carcasses of our prejudice and hatred, our avarice, our data banks and dead ideas, our dead rivers and smoky skies behind us. Or we can walk through lightly, with little luggage, ready to imagine another world. And ready to fight for it.

From Boston, Nora Caplan-Bricker writes in The Point about the strange contraction of space under quarantine, in which a friend in Beirut is as close as the one around the corner in the same city:

It’s a nice illusion—nice to feel like we’re in it together, even if my real world has shrunk to one person, my husband, who sits with his laptop in the other room. It’s nice in the same way as reading those essays that reframe social distancing as solidarity. “We must begin to see the negative space as clearly as the positive, to know what we don’t do is also brilliant and full of love,” the poet Anne Boyer wrote on March 10th, the day that Massachusetts declared a state of emergency. If you squint, you could almost make sense of this quarantine as an effort to flatten, along with the curve, the distinctions we make between our bonds with others. Right now, I care for my neighbor in the same way I demonstrate love for my mother: in all instances, I stay away. And in moments this month, I have loved strangers with an intensity that is new to me. On March 14th, the Saturday night after the end of life as we knew it, I went out with my dog and found the street silent: no lines for restaurants, no children on bicycles, no couples strolling with little cups of ice cream. It had taken the combined will of thousands of people to deliver such a sudden and complete emptiness. I felt so grateful, and so bereft.

And on his own website, musician and artist David Byrne writes about rediscovering the value of working for collective good , saying that “what is happening now is an opportunity to learn how to change our behavior”:

In emergencies, citizens can suddenly cooperate and collaborate. Change can happen. We’re going to need to work together as the effects of climate change ramp up. In order for capitalism to survive in any form, we will have to be a little more socialist. Here is an opportunity for us to see things differently — to see that we really are all connected — and adjust our behavior accordingly. Are we willing to do this? Is this moment an opportunity to see how truly interdependent we all are? To live in a world that is different and better than the one we live in now? We might be too far down the road to test every asymptomatic person, but a change in our mindsets, in how we view our neighbors, could lay the groundwork for the collective action we’ll need to deal with other global crises. The time to see how connected we all are is now.

The portrait these writers paint of a world under quarantine is multifaceted. Our worlds have contracted to the confines of our homes, and yet in some ways we’re more connected than ever to one another. We feel fear and boredom, anger and gratitude, frustration and strange peace. Uncertainty drives us to find metaphors and images that will let us wrap our minds around what is happening.

Yet there’s no single “what” that is happening. Everyone is contending with the pandemic and its effects from different places and in different ways. Reading others’ experiences — even the most frightening ones — can help alleviate the loneliness and dread, a little, and remind us that what we’re going through is both unique and shared by all.

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The World We Want to Live in After COVID

By Dhruv Khullar

In 1909, the French ethnographer Arnold van Gennep published a book called “ The Rites of Passage .” In it, he explored the rituals that cultures use to transition people from one stage of life to the next. Birth, puberty, graduation, religious initiation, marriage, pregnancy, promotions, the seasons—we’re always on the threshold of one phase or another. How do communities shepherd individuals from the pre- to the post-?

Van Gennep argued that certain universal principles underlie rites of passage across cultures and eras. First, there’s the “pre-liminal” phase, in which “rites of separation” detach individuals from their earlier thoughts, feelings, and perspectives: the Old You dies. Next comes the “liminal” phase, a volatile interregnum that’s simultaneously disorienting and ambiguous, destructive and constructive, during which “rites of transition” open up the possibility of a new and different future. Finally, in the “post-liminal” phase, the “rites of incorporation” allow one to reënter society somehow changed. A New You is inaugurated. “Life itself means to separate and to be reunited, to change form and condition, to die and to be reborn,” van Gennep wrote. “It is to act and to cease, to wait and to rest, and then to begin acting again, but in a different way.”

Van Gennep’s observations were a landmark in the nascent field of anthropology. “Elements of ceremonial behavior were no longer the relics of former superstitious eras,” the anthropologists Richard Huntington and Peter Metcalf later wrote, but “keys to a universal logic of human social life.” In the century since, scholars have applied van Gennep’s framework not just to individuals but to societies in times of turmoil and transformation. Famines, wars, political revolutions, economic downturns, civil-rights movements—societies, too, move from one way of life to another, often experiencing intense periods of renunciation, restructuring, and rebirth.

2020, when the pandemic began, was a pre-liminal year—a headlong, vaccine-less descent away from normality and into calamity. We were torn from our established ways, undergoing separation, loss, and upheaval. 2021 was a liminal year—neither here nor there, not quite normal but not wholly abnormal, either. The inauguration of Joe Biden , the widespread availability of vaccines, and the return of weddings, dining, travel, and sports all coexisted alongside vaccine holdouts, breakthrough infections, new variants, booster shots, and regional surges.

Today, Omicron might make it feel as though we’re still squarely in the liminal phase. But, in fact, we may soon be tipping into a post-liminal paradigm. Omicron’s extraordinary contagiousness—combined with rising vaccination and booster rates—could mean that, in the coming months, nearly all Americans will have some level of immunity to COVID . Repeat infections and breakthrough cases will still occur, but, as our individual and collective immunity broadens, these will become milder and less disruptive. The influenza pandemics of the twentieth century each lasted around two years; now, twenty-one months into our battle with the coronavirus, Omicron is accelerating what could be this pandemic’s final chapter. It’s becoming possible to ask, and perhaps answer, some broad questions: Where will we end up in our attitudes toward ourselves and the social web in which we live? Who will we be on the other side of our transition?

The coronavirus crisis is first and foremost a health crisis, and many of the most obvious changes in our attitudes have to do with health. Some of us have come to reflect more regularly on our age and medical conditions. We’ve gained familiarity with obscure scientific jargon, from PCR tests to mRNA. We meditate on the trade-offs involved in social events, examine the threats we pose to others (and vice versa), and judge people for their choices. Americans differ hugely on what to think and do about all this—the behavior of people in one community can seem unfathomable to those in another—but, at least for now, health has shifted from a narrow individual consideration to a more expansive, social one. Going to work, attending a concert, hosting a dinner party, boarding a flight—if you have a cough, a fever, or just the sniffles, these activities now carry an ethical dimension. Will this remain true after the acute threat of COVID -19 has subsided? We may return to inflicting colds, flus, and various G.I. bugs on one another—or, possibly, we’ll adopt some version of the physician’s oath to do no harm.

The sense that making others sick is an action we’ve taken—and that, conversely, it’s within our power to avoid becoming agents of contagion—reflects a more general paradox of the pandemic. Since COVID arrived, we’ve been both powerless and empowered. Many aspects of our lives have been changed by events beyond our control; at the same time, we have sometimes been pushed to make consequential decisions and chart our own course. Over the past two years, for instance, Americans have quit their jobs in record numbers; in some cases, they’ve been forced to do so—perhaps by medical vulnerability, or unprecedented disruptions in schooling—while, in others, the pandemic’s chaos presented an opportunity to reëvaluate priorities. Regardless, faced with historical circumstances, they made big changes. In this crisis, as in many rites of passage, we don’t just passively recite our lines; we write them, taking vows that may reverberate for decades.

One of the questions we face now is whether we can make such changes on a social level, in addition to an individual one. The pandemic’s school disruptions are the result not just of a novel virus but of years of underinvestment that have yielded underpaid teachers, crowded classrooms, and poorly ventilated buildings. We’ve seen the same pattern in many aspects of our pandemic experience. Decades of investment in basic science allowed American scientists to race from genomic sequencing to an effective COVID vaccine in less than a year—but, during the same period, a public-health system that had been neglected for decades hampered our ability to contain the virus at every turn. We’ve made real changes in our lives. Can we make them in our society, too, building capacity so that our institutions can be more resilient and flexible?

The pandemic has posed similar questions for the world as a whole. COVID -19 struck during the seventy-fifth anniversary of the creation of the United Nations, and arrived at a moment characterized by a sharp rise in nationalism and a broadening skepticism about the international arrangements that have governed since the Second World War. Even before the virus, the multilateral system of international coöperation was fraying. After the 2008 financial crisis, Americans had grown increasingly suspicious of globalization and frustrated by their leaders’ failure to address its consequences: inequality, job displacement, social atomization. Now the coronavirus has shown that globalization moves not just goods and people across borders but pathogens, too.

In March, the National Intelligence Council released a report arguing that, in the coming years, the world will face global crises—pandemics, extreme-weather events, technological disruptions—with growing frequency. At the same time, greater international fragmentation and tension will impede our ability to respond to them. The report outlined several possible futures. In the optimistic scenario, called the “renaissance of democracies,” the world settles into a new equilibrium characterized by technological progress, rising incomes, and responsive democratic governance, led by the U.S. and its allies. In another future, “a world adrift,” the international system is “directionless, chaotic, and volatile”; global problems are largely ignored, and multilateral institutions lose their influence.

At a global level, as at the national one, the health crisis of the pandemic has put another preëxisting crisis into sharper relief. Effective pandemic response requires coördination across nations; this is the work of the World Health Organization, of which America has long been the largest funder. In 2019, the U.S. contributed more than four hundred million dollars to the W.H.O., but in April, 2020, Donald Trump announced that the U.S. would stop its funding. For much of the year, the U.S. also declined to join COVAX , the world’s primary global vaccine-distribution mechanism. Today less than nine per cent of people in low-income countries have received a single dose of a COVID vaccine; the rise of ever more concerning variants, such as Delta and Omicron, is due, in part, to a failure of the U.S. and other wealthy countries to vaccinate the world.

Recently, the G-20—a forum comprising nineteen nations and the European Union, which together account for ninety per cent of the world’s economic output—proposed key steps for strengthening the global response to future infectious threats: higher and more consistent funding for the W.H.O.; greater collaboration between governments and the W.H.O. on data collection, humanitarian support, and vaccine development; and the establishment of global norms for the reporting of emerging pathogens. Will countries unite in making such changes? That depends, in large part, on their willingness to act multilaterally—to see that their own security is interwoven with the security of others. It’s an issue that’s larger than the virus. COVID -19, like the Second World War, has created a hinge in the history of the world, which could swing either toward greater cohesion or toward disarray.

In 1954, a researcher named Muzafer Sherif conducted what would become one of the most famous experiments in social psychology. Sherif was interested in the dynamics of group conflict: how easily loyalties form; how little it takes for rival factions to quarrel; what, if anything, can be done to repair relations. As my colleague Elizabeth Kolbert wrote recently, in a piece on political polarization , Sherif invited twenty-two fifth-grade boys to a summer camp at Robbers Cave State Park, in southeastern Oklahoma. The boys were all white, from middle-class, Protestant, two-parent households. Sherif and his team divided them into two groups, each unaware that the other was housed in a cabin at another end of the camp. In the first phase of the study, lasting about a week, the groups, which named themselves the Eagles and the Rattlers, bonded over shared interests and activities—hiking, swimming, a treasure hunt with a ten-dollar reward. In the second phase, the groups were brought together in a series of zero-sum competitions: baseball, tug-of-war, touch football. The researchers, who doubled as camp counsellors, orchestrated hijinks. One group was delayed in arriving at a picnic; when they got there, they were led to believe that the other group had eaten their food. Tensions rose. The Eagles burned the Rattlers’ flag; the Rattlers raided the Eagles’ cabin. Researchers had to step in to break up fights. Division had set in.

The goal of the third phase was to defuse the animosity. As a first step, the researchers organized a series of noncompetitive activities. The boys shared meals, watched a movie together, and celebrated the Fourth of July. Little changed. Only when the campers were given tasks requiring collaboration on a common endeavor—restarting a stalled food truck, pitching a tent with missing supplies, raising money for a movie night—did conflict decline. In the end, one group bought the other malted milk.

The findings of the Robbers Cave experiment have become a staple of undergraduate seminars and psychology textbooks. But they appear not to apply to our current moment. Never before has it been so clear that our work, behavior, and fates are inextricably linked to those around us. Working together to control the virus should have been the ultimate shared goal. And yet, facing viral invasion, Americans couldn’t agree not to sneeze on one another. While fighting the pandemic, America has remained one of the world’s most polarized nations.

It turns out that the Robbers Cave experiment doesn’t tell the whole story. As Gina Perry explains in her book “ The Lost Boys ,” Sherif had conducted a near-identical experiment the year before, in 1953. He’d invited a similar cohort of boys to a camp in upstate New York and divided them into groups: the Panthers and the Pythons. The researchers had carried out a similar series of conflict-generating shenanigans: they’d stolen clothes, ransacked tents, and broken a boy’s ukulele. This time, however, the boys caught on—they realized that they were being manipulated. Instead of fighting one another, they turned on the adults. “Maybe you just wanted to see what our reactions would be,” one boy suggested to a researcher. ​​One of the groups decided that their clothes must have gone missing because of a laundry mishap; both sides worked together to restore an overturned tent. As the experiment unravelled, Sherif began drinking heavily. He grew so despondent that he nearly punched a research assistant in the face. The experiment was stopped early; Sherif never published the findings.

In an era of social-media virality, cable-news punditry, and political celebrity, we, too, are being manipulated. The ire we direct at one another is, at least in part, a result of forces that aim to extract political or financial gain by stoking division and appealing to our basest instincts. Despite knowing better, people in power traffic in half-truths, adding to the cacophony of conflict. They reflect our discord but also create it. We don’t yet know what post-liminal life looks like—but recognizing that truth may be the first step to healing the divide.

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How to Write About Coronavirus in a College Essay

Students can share how they navigated life during the coronavirus pandemic in a full-length essay or an optional supplement.

Writing About COVID-19 in College Essays

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Experts say students should be honest and not limit themselves to merely their experiences with the pandemic.

The global impact of COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, means colleges and prospective students alike are in for an admissions cycle like no other. Both face unprecedented challenges and questions as they grapple with their respective futures amid the ongoing fallout of the pandemic.

Colleges must examine applicants without the aid of standardized test scores for many – a factor that prompted many schools to go test-optional for now . Even grades, a significant component of a college application, may be hard to interpret with some high schools adopting pass-fail classes last spring due to the pandemic. Major college admissions factors are suddenly skewed.

"I can't help but think other (admissions) factors are going to matter more," says Ethan Sawyer, founder of the College Essay Guy, a website that offers free and paid essay-writing resources.

College essays and letters of recommendation , Sawyer says, are likely to carry more weight than ever in this admissions cycle. And many essays will likely focus on how the pandemic shaped students' lives throughout an often tumultuous 2020.

But before writing a college essay focused on the coronavirus, students should explore whether it's the best topic for them.

Writing About COVID-19 for a College Application

Much of daily life has been colored by the coronavirus. Virtual learning is the norm at many colleges and high schools, many extracurriculars have vanished and social lives have stalled for students complying with measures to stop the spread of COVID-19.

"For some young people, the pandemic took away what they envisioned as their senior year," says Robert Alexander, dean of admissions, financial aid and enrollment management at the University of Rochester in New York. "Maybe that's a spot on a varsity athletic team or the lead role in the fall play. And it's OK for them to mourn what should have been and what they feel like they lost, but more important is how are they making the most of the opportunities they do have?"

That question, Alexander says, is what colleges want answered if students choose to address COVID-19 in their college essay.

But the question of whether a student should write about the coronavirus is tricky. The answer depends largely on the student.

"In general, I don't think students should write about COVID-19 in their main personal statement for their application," Robin Miller, master college admissions counselor at IvyWise, a college counseling company, wrote in an email.

"Certainly, there may be exceptions to this based on a student's individual experience, but since the personal essay is the main place in the application where the student can really allow their voice to be heard and share insight into who they are as an individual, there are likely many other topics they can choose to write about that are more distinctive and unique than COVID-19," Miller says.

Opinions among admissions experts vary on whether to write about the likely popular topic of the pandemic.

"If your essay communicates something positive, unique, and compelling about you in an interesting and eloquent way, go for it," Carolyn Pippen, principal college admissions counselor at IvyWise, wrote in an email. She adds that students shouldn't be dissuaded from writing about a topic merely because it's common, noting that "topics are bound to repeat, no matter how hard we try to avoid it."

Above all, she urges honesty.

"If your experience within the context of the pandemic has been truly unique, then write about that experience, and the standing out will take care of itself," Pippen says. "If your experience has been generally the same as most other students in your context, then trying to find a unique angle can easily cross the line into exploiting a tragedy, or at least appearing as though you have."

But focusing entirely on the pandemic can limit a student to a single story and narrow who they are in an application, Sawyer says. "There are so many wonderful possibilities for what you can say about yourself outside of your experience within the pandemic."

He notes that passions, strengths, career interests and personal identity are among the multitude of essay topic options available to applicants and encourages them to probe their values to help determine the topic that matters most to them – and write about it.

That doesn't mean the pandemic experience has to be ignored if applicants feel the need to write about it.

Writing About Coronavirus in Main and Supplemental Essays

Students can choose to write a full-length college essay on the coronavirus or summarize their experience in a shorter form.

To help students explain how the pandemic affected them, The Common App has added an optional section to address this topic. Applicants have 250 words to describe their pandemic experience and the personal and academic impact of COVID-19.

"That's not a trick question, and there's no right or wrong answer," Alexander says. Colleges want to know, he adds, how students navigated the pandemic, how they prioritized their time, what responsibilities they took on and what they learned along the way.

If students can distill all of the above information into 250 words, there's likely no need to write about it in a full-length college essay, experts say. And applicants whose lives were not heavily altered by the pandemic may even choose to skip the optional COVID-19 question.

"This space is best used to discuss hardship and/or significant challenges that the student and/or the student's family experienced as a result of COVID-19 and how they have responded to those difficulties," Miller notes. Using the section to acknowledge a lack of impact, she adds, "could be perceived as trite and lacking insight, despite the good intentions of the applicant."

To guard against this lack of awareness, Sawyer encourages students to tap someone they trust to review their writing , whether it's the 250-word Common App response or the full-length essay.

Experts tend to agree that the short-form approach to this as an essay topic works better, but there are exceptions. And if a student does have a coronavirus story that he or she feels must be told, Alexander encourages the writer to be authentic in the essay.

"My advice for an essay about COVID-19 is the same as my advice about an essay for any topic – and that is, don't write what you think we want to read or hear," Alexander says. "Write what really changed you and that story that now is yours and yours alone to tell."

Sawyer urges students to ask themselves, "What's the sentence that only I can write?" He also encourages students to remember that the pandemic is only a chapter of their lives and not the whole book.

Miller, who cautions against writing a full-length essay on the coronavirus, says that if students choose to do so they should have a conversation with their high school counselor about whether that's the right move. And if students choose to proceed with COVID-19 as a topic, she says they need to be clear, detailed and insightful about what they learned and how they adapted along the way.

"Approaching the essay in this manner will provide important balance while demonstrating personal growth and vulnerability," Miller says.

Pippen encourages students to remember that they are in an unprecedented time for college admissions.

"It is important to keep in mind with all of these (admission) factors that no colleges have ever had to consider them this way in the selection process, if at all," Pippen says. "They have had very little time to calibrate their evaluations of different application components within their offices, let alone across institutions. This means that colleges will all be handling the admissions process a little bit differently, and their approaches may even evolve over the course of the admissions cycle."

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Seven short essays about life during the pandemic

The boston book festival's at home community writing project invites area residents to describe their experiences during this unprecedented time..

My alarm sounds at 8:15 a.m. I open my eyes and take a deep breath. I wiggle my toes and move my legs. I do this religiously every morning. Today, marks day 74 of staying at home.

My mornings are filled with reading biblical scripture, meditation, breathing in the scents of a hanging eucalyptus branch in the shower, and making tea before I log into my computer to work. After an hour-and-a-half Zoom meeting, I decided to take a long walk to the post office and grab a fresh bouquet of burnt orange ranunculus flowers. I embrace the warm sun beaming on my face. I feel joy. I feel at peace.

I enter my apartment and excessively wash my hands and face. I pour a glass of iced kombucha. I sit at my table and look at the text message on my phone. My coworker writes that she is thinking of me during this difficult time. She must be referring to the Amy Cooper incident. I learn shortly that she is not.

I Google Minneapolis and see his name: George Floyd. And just like that a simple and beautiful day transitions into a day of sorrow.

Nakia Hill, Boston

It was a wobbly, yet solemn little procession: three masked mourners and a canine. Beginning in Kenmore Square, at David and Sue Horner’s condo, it proceeded up Commonwealth Avenue Mall.

S. Sue Horner died on Good Friday, April 10, in the Year of the Virus. Sue did not die of the virus but her parting was hemmed by it: no gatherings to mark the passing of this splendid human being.

David devised a send-off nevertheless. On April 23rd, accompanied by his daughter and son-in-law, he set out for Old South Church. David led, bearing the urn. His daughter came next, holding her phone aloft, speaker on, through which her brother in Illinois played the bagpipes for the length of the procession, its soaring thrum infusing the Mall. Her husband came last with Melon, their golden retriever.

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I unlocked the empty church and led the procession into the columbarium. David drew the urn from its velvet cover, revealing a golden vessel inset with incandescent tiles. We lifted the urn into the niche, prayed, recited Psalm 23, and shared some words.

It was far too small for the luminous “Dr. Sue”, but what we could manage in the Year of the Virus.

Nancy S. Taylor, Boston

On April 26, 2020, our household was a bustling home for four people. Our two sons, ages 18 and 22, have a lot of energy. We are among the lucky ones. I can work remotely. Our food and shelter are not at risk.

As I write this a week later, it is much quieter here.

On April 27, our older son, an EMT, transported a COVID-19 patient to the ER. He left home to protect my delicate health and became ill with the virus a week later.

On April 29, my husband’s 95-year-old father had a stroke. My husband left immediately to be with his 90-year-old mother near New York City and is now preparing for his father’s discharge from the hospital. Rehab people will come to the house; going to a facility would be too dangerous.

My husband just called me to describe today’s hospital visit. The doctors had warned that although his father had regained the ability to speak, he could only repeat what was said to him.

“It’s me,” said my husband.

“It’s me,” said my father-in-law.

“I love you,” said my husband.

“I love you,” said my father-in-law.

“Sooooooooo much,” said my father-in-law.

Lucia Thompson, Wayland

Would racism exist if we were blind?

I felt his eyes bore into me as I walked through the grocery store. At first, I thought nothing of it. With the angst in the air attributable to COVID, I understood the anxiety-provoking nature of feeling as though your 6-foot bubble had burst. So, I ignored him and maintained my distance. But he persisted, glaring at my face, squinting to see who I was underneath the mask. This time I looked back, when he yelled, in my mother tongue, for me to go back to my country.

In shock, I just laughed. How could he tell what I was under my mask? Or see anything through the sunglasses he was wearing inside? It baffled me. I laughed at the irony that he would use my own language against me, that he knew enough to guess where I was from in some version of culturally competent racism. I laughed because dealing with the truth behind that comment generated a sadness in me that was too much to handle. If not now, then when will we be together?

So I ask again, would racism exist if we were blind?

Faizah Shareef, Boston

My Family is “Out” There

But I am “in” here. Life is different now “in” Assisted Living since the deadly COVID-19 arrived. Now the staff, employees, and all 100 residents have our temperatures taken daily. Everyone else, including my family, is “out” there. People like the hairdresser are really missed — with long straight hair and masks, we don’t even recognize ourselves.

Since mid-March we are in quarantine “in” our rooms with meals served. Activities are practically non-existent. We can sit on the back patio 6 feet apart, wearing masks, do exercises there, chat, and walk nearby. Nothing inside. Hopefully June will improve.

My family is “out” there — somewhere! Most are working from home (or Montana). Hopefully an August wedding will happen, but unfortunately, I may still be “in” here.

From my window I wave to my son “out” there. Recently, when my daughter visited, I opened the window “in” my second-floor room and could see and hear her perfectly “out” there. Next time she will bring a chair so we can have an “in” and “out” conversation all day, or until we run out of words.

Barbara Anderson, Raynham

My boyfriend Marcial lives in Boston, and I live in New York City. We had been doing the long-distance thing pretty successfully until coronavirus hit. In mid-March, I was furloughed from my temp job, Marcial began working remotely, and New York started shutting down. I went to Boston to stay with Marcial.

We are opposites in many ways, but we share a love of food. The kitchen has been the center of quarantine life —and also quarantine problems.

Marcial and I have gone from eating out and cooking/grocery shopping for each other during our periodic visits to cooking/grocery shopping with each other all the time. We’ve argued over things like the proper way to make rice and what greens to buy for salad. Our habits are deeply rooted in our upbringing and individual cultures (Filipino immigrant and American-born Chinese, hence the strong rice opinions).

On top of the mundane issues, we’ve also dealt with a flooded kitchen (resulting in cockroaches) and a mandoline accident leading to an ER visit. Marcial and I have spent quarantine navigating how to handle the unexpected and how to integrate our lifestyles. We’ve been eating well along the way.

Melissa Lee, Waltham

It’s 3 a.m. and my dog Rikki just gave me a worried look. Up again?

“I can’t sleep,” I say. I flick the light, pick up “Non-Zero Probabilities.” But the words lay pinned to the page like swatted flies. I watch new “Killing Eve” episodes, play old Nathaniel Rateliff and The Night Sweats songs. Still night.

We are — what? — 12 agitated weeks into lockdown, and now this. The thing that got me was Chauvin’s sunglasses. Perched nonchalantly on his head, undisturbed, as if he were at a backyard BBQ. Or anywhere other than kneeling on George Floyd’s neck, on his life. And Floyd was a father, as we all now know, having seen his daughter Gianna on Stephen Jackson’s shoulders saying “Daddy changed the world.”

Precious child. I pray, safeguard her.

Rikki has her own bed. But she won’t leave me. A Goddess of Protection. She does that thing dogs do, hovers increasingly closely the more agitated I get. “I’m losing it,” I say. I know. And like those weighted gravity blankets meant to encourage sleep, she drapes her 70 pounds over me, covering my restless heart with safety.

As if daybreak, or a prayer, could bring peace today.

Kirstan Barnett, Watertown

Until June 30, send your essay (200 words or less) about life during COVID-19 via bostonbookfest.org . Some essays will be published on the festival’s blog and some will appear in The Boston Globe.

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‘An epidemic of loneliness’: How the pandemic changed life for aging adults

Stock image of a sign at a park in 2020, calling for social distancing. Four years later, a new study shows many are still keeping to themselves more than they did pre-pandemic.  

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Years after the U.S. began to slowly emerge from mandatory COVID-19 lockdowns, more than half of older adults still spend more time at home and less time socializing in public spaces than they did pre-pandemic, according to new CU Boulder research. 

Participants cited fear of infection and “more uncomfortable and hostile” social dynamics as key reasons for their retreat from civic life.

“The pandemic is not over for a lot of folks,” said Jessica Finlay, an assistant professor of geography whose findings are revealed in a series of new papers . “Some people feel left behind.”

The study comes amid what the U.S. Surgeon General recently called an “ epidemic of loneliness ” in which older adults—especially those who are immune compromised or have disabilities—are particularly vulnerable.

“We found that the pandemic fundamentally altered neighborhoods, communities and everyday routines among aging Americans, and these changes have long-term consequences for their physical, mental, social and cognitive health,” said Finlay.

‘I just can’t go back’

As a health geographer and environmental gerontologist, Finlay studies how social and built environments impact health as we age.

In March 2020 as restaurants, gyms, grocery stores and other gathering places shuttered amid shelter-in-place orders, she immediately wondered what the lasting impacts would be. Shortly thereafter, she launched the COVID-19 Coping Study with University of Michigan epidemiologist Lindsay Kobayashi. They began their research with a baseline and monthly survey. Since then, nearly 7,000 people over age 55 from all 50 states have participated.

The researchers check in annually, asking open-ended questions about how neighborhoods and relationships have changed, how people spend their time, opinions and experiences of the COVID-19 pandemic, and their physical and mental health.

By the numbers

How aging adults spend their time

• 59% spend more time at home than before pandemic
• 41% go to the grocery less often
• 75% eat out less often 
• 57% exercise indoors less often
• 62% visit an arts or cultural site less often
• 53% attend religious services less often
• 10% exercise outdoors more often

Source: Data from COVID-19 Coping Study survey results from May 2022. A more recent survey found that more than half still had not returned to pre-pandemic social routines.

“We’ve been in the field for some incredibly pivotal moments,” said Finlay, noting that surveys went out shortly after George Floyd was murdered in May 2020 and again after the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

Collectively, the results paint a troubling picture in which a substantial portion of the older population remains isolated even after others have moved on. 

In one paper published in February in the journal Wellbeing, Space and Society , 60% of respondents said they spend more time in their home while 75% said they dine out less. Some 62% said they visit cultural and arts venues less, and more than half said they attend church or the gym less than before the pandemic.

The most recent survey, taken in spring 2023, showed similar trends, with more than half of respondents still reporting that their socialization and entertainment routines were different than they were pre-pandemic. 

In another paper titled “ I just can’t go back ,” 80% of respondents reported there are some places they are reluctant to visit in person anymore.

“The thought of going inside a gym with lots of people breathing heavily and sweating is not something I can see myself ever doing again,” said one 72-year-old male.

Those who said they still go to public places like grocery stores reported that they ducked in and out quickly and skipped casual chitchat. 

“It’s been tough,” said one 68-year-old female. “You don’t stop and talk to people anymore.”

Many respondents reported they were afraid of getting infected with a virus or infecting young or immune-compromised loved ones, and said they felt “irresponsible” for being around a lot of people.

Some reported getting dirty looks or rude comments when wearing masks or asking others to keep their distance—interpersonal exchanges that reinforced their inclination to stay home.

Revitalizing human connection

Jessica Finlay, a health geographer and environmental gerontologist, studies how built environments impact aging.

The news is not all bad, stresses Finlay.

At least 10% of older adults report exercising outdoors more frequently since the pandemic. And a small but vocal minority said that their worlds had actually opened up, as more meetings, concerts and classes became available online.

Still, Finlay worries that the loss of spontaneous interactions in what sociologists call “third places” could have serious health consequences.

Previous research shows that a lack of social connection can increase risk of premature death as much as smoking 15 cigarettes a day and exacerbate mental illness and dementia.

“For some older adults who live alone, that brief, unplanned exchange with the butcher or the cashier may be the only friendly smile they see in the day, and they have lost that,” Finlay said.

Societal health is also at risk.

“It is increasingly rare for Americans with differing sociopolitical perspectives to collectively hang out and respectfully converse,” she writes. 

Finlay hopes that her work can encourage policymakers to create spaces more amenable to people of all ages who are now more cautious about getting sick—things like outdoor dining spaces, ventilated concert halls or masked or hybrid events.

She also hopes that people will give those still wearing masks or keeping distance some grace.

“It is a privilege to be able to ‘just get over’ the pandemic and many people, for a multitude of reasons, just don’t have that privilege. The world looks different to them now,” she said. “How can we make it easier for them to re-engage?”

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When Life Felt Normal: Your Pre-Pandemic Moments

Readers share memories, images and videos from before the coronavirus became a pandemic, and reflect on what they mean now.

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By Hannah Wise

Our lives have been forever changed by the coronavirus pandemic. Hundreds of thousands of people around the world have died. Millions in the United States alone have lost their jobs.

Though the coronavirus outbreak was declared a pandemic just over a month ago, many of us are already feeling nostalgic for our lives before the virus went global. We asked you to send us photos and videos that captured those moments of normalcy. We received nearly 700 submissions from all over the world — from Wuhan, China, to Paris, Milan to Mumbai, and across the United States.

You shared photos from weddings, funerals, meals with friends, and powerful scenes from crowded places that feel almost unthinkable now.

Nearly every submission expressed a sense of gratitude and appreciation for the time before the pandemic. Many also conveyed worry and a longing to feel a sense of safety and normalcy again.

What follows is a selection of those snapshots. The responses have been edited for clarity and length.

Jashim Salam, Chittagong, Bangladesh

When I visited New York in January, my travel depended on the subway, just like thousands of people who depend on it for their daily commute. I took this photo while traveling from Jackson Heights to 42nd Street.

Looking back on this image, it feels surreal. We can’t even imagine being that close together or holding the subway pole with our bare hands. We can’t think about traveling without wearing a mask and gloves. We are not sure when everything will be normal, or when we will be able to travel without fear.

Gigi Silla, Washington, D.C.

One last day of real high school

I took this picture of my friends on March 13, on what ended up being our very last day of high school together. We were sitting outside on the soccer field during our lunch period having what would be our last in-person conversation together.

Life certainly didn’t feel normal then (what does “normal” even mean these days?), but I definitely hadn’t fully processed the scale and emotional toll we were about to go through. This photo was taken less than 24 hours after we were told that our school would be closed in April. We had no idea it would last this long.

I’m incredibly grateful we had this day to grieve the ending of our senior year together. One of the most difficult parts of quarantine recently has been coming to terms with the fact that our transition out of high school will not be marked by the usual traditions of prom and graduation. The school is working on finding alternatives, but they will likely feel less satisfying.

Nevertheless, I am thankful we had this day together to process and say goodbye and clean out our lockers. We did in one afternoon what we thought we’d have three months for, and although it was less than ideal, I’m grateful we even had that afternoon.

Karen Doolittle, Los Angeles

Cataloging the lasts

It was Queer Night at the Moonlight Rollerway in Glendale, Calif., in February, and a big group of us gathered to celebrate a friend’s birthday. We were all dressed up; everyone glittered under the disco lights.

So many of our rituals anchored in togetherness have been disrupted, and that feels like a type of death. I’ve been grieving, spending this past month cataloging all of my lasts.

This was the last birthday party. Then there was the last time we went out dancing, the last time we went to a show, the last time we got together as a family, the last day we went to work among co-workers. The last time we hugged. The last kiss.

Ashley Prather Spinelli, Oakland, Calif.

‘Nice to meet you’

Life felt normal when my mom and husband helped zip up a swaddle for my one-day-old newborn son, Nico, during their visit to the hospital on Jan. 18. My son and I had a difficult birth — he suffered some minor complications as a result of our prolonged labor and was visited often by NICU doctors during the first 24 hours.

My husband and I were scared and exhausted. We were planning to take visitors the next day, but on the night Nico was born, I called my mom in the middle of the night to come hold him so we could rest. I couldn’t even get out of bed to comfort my son. I remember she held my hand in the dark while she cradled her grandson for the first time and whispered “nice to meet you.”

I long for his grandmother’s arms to hold him now.

Isabella Black, Reston, Va.

An early return home

After my evacuation and termination from the Peace Corps , I feel for what could have been. We prepared for two years of service in Senegal, but we got only a moment of our host families, the language, the service, and the country. We had just begun training on how we could help to facilitate community economic development when we received word we had to go home.

We had the chance to meet community leaders, families, and facilitators who were so eager for our continued service in the country. To return home so early from what I saw as the most incredible and challenging experience of my life has been incredibly difficult.

Natalie Tapias, Seattle

‘I wish we’d just hung out’

In this photo I am trying on a wedding gown in the Nordstrom wedding suite in Seattle. My mom is behind the camera, and a caring stylist, Liz Bolling, is helping me get into a beautiful gown. We went to six appointments all over the city that weekend in February to find the perfect gown for my August wedding. I ended up finding a lovely secondhand gown.

Agonizing over a wedding gown, in retrospect, seems so ridiculous. My mom wanted to share the experience of finding a gown, but now I wish we’d just hung out, or spent our time together in some other meaningful way. She’s a respiratory therapist in Boise, Idaho. She’s been safe and healthy so far but I worry.

Thinking about wedding planning, now, in the grand scheme of things, is still special but not a priority anymore. I’m most looking forward to getting our families all together again, safe, healthy, in one room again.

Agosh Gaur, Queens, New York

Time taken for granted

This photo shows me and my son on the left with my Italian friend and his daughter on the right. His brother is a doctor on the front lines in the fight against the coronavirus in Northern Italy. This photo was taken in my apartment in Queens, the hardest hit borough in New York.

We met nine years ago when we studied at Columbia University. As immigrants, we have followed similar paths in our careers and personal lives. Now, we are both fathers to interracial babies in New York.

Looking back on this photo of us with our firstborns, it makes me realize how much I took for granted the chance to spend time with friends.

Jeremy Wallace, New York City

Together, in New York

After the Celine Dion concert in Brooklyn the trains were delayed. Instead of a mob of angry, frustrated people, we experienced a classic New York subway moment. Stuck in a confined space with a large group of people, the joyous concertgoers locked arms and started singing their favorite Celine Dion songs at the top of their lungs.

There is only one way you can live in New York, and it is together. That togetherness is captured in this moment and reminds me that the concept of “stranger” has a different meaning here.

I wonder if in a post-Covid19 world, if we would be so bold to embrace the arms of a stranger and sway together, sharing our breath by singing in unison — the close moments when New York’s tapestry of different cultures, languages and skin tones are molded into a special kinship. I sure hope so.

Dana Padilla, Greenwood, Ind.

A rare winter trip to the zoo

It was the first sunny day we’d had in awhile, and not terribly cold, and so we decided to take a family trip to the zoo. We’ve been taking our daughter since she was a few months old and it’s been amazing to watch her fall in love with the animals.

My husband, a family medicine resident, often works long days and nights — including, these days, with Covid-19 patients — and doesn’t get a lot of time with our kids. In this photo, he had scooped her up for a kiss after visiting the lions. It was a rare winter trip to the zoo, and a rare Sunday spent all together as a family.

Before the pandemic, I had tried to take my daughter out every day for some outing: the library, zoo, even just errands. We loved getting out to play and explore. Now, I realize how blessed we were to be able to do that.

Mike Stickle, New York CItY

A spirit of resilience

This photo was taken with my seniors in Indianapolis at my final Big Ten basketball tournament on March 12. I am retiring from Rutgers at the end of this academic year after 30 years of coaching the cheerleaders and dancers.

Before the photo, we were told that the tournament would go ahead, but with essential personnel only, which we are not. Shortly after this photo, the tournament was canceled, followed quickly by the NCAA tournament.

While I was heartbroken for the men’s basketball team, I was crushed for my own athletes, who work just as hard, but are often overlooked. Their moment was taken away from them. In this photo, we already knew we wouldn’t be performing, but resilience and pride are what a spirit program is about.

Andrea Champlin, New York City

Stepping into another world

For her birthday, my friend Juli decided to have a dance party at her design studio in Brooklyn. It was the first week of March, still early in the crisis. Some of the guests had canceled and attendance was light but we didn’t mind.

Juli had lost her husband Kanishka to cancer a year and a half earlier. He was an artist and the studio had been his painting studio. The floor still had paint drips from when he was alive, a record of his movements around the room.

We danced with abandon and joy, and some sadness too. The photos are blurry because the light was low and people were moving, but I liked the way the blur made the images seem ephemeral and ghostly.

In retrospect, the experience seems like an ancient ritual of celebration and loss, as if we were preparing to step into another world.

Deena Theresa, Kochi, India

‘Being absolutely grateful for the moment’

A few months before the lockdown, my friend and I decided to go to a film festival in North India. We had a layover in Delhi, the capital where I’d never been. We went to the Jama Masjid, one of India’s largest mosques built in the 17th century. We watched several hundred people arrive to pray while children played outside. I vividly recall being absolutely grateful for the moment.

Hundreds of people including worshipers and tourists were in the area. Only a few weeks later, the country was locked down and no one was offering prayers at the Masjid.

Conrad Anker, Bozeman, Mont.

‘A reminder of being human’

On March 6, days before the coronavirus was declared a pandemic, I was climbing Rubben Falls in the Bardu Valley in Northern Norway, above the Arctic Circle, as part of the Arctic Ice Festival . Participants came from Australia, Hong Kong, the United States, Northern Italy, England, Spain and Germany. We stayed at a communal lodge, dined cafeteria style and relaxed in a sauna. We all had a passion for ice climbing and would enjoy this week of climbing together. This moment is my most cherished memory of climbing in Norway.

During the climb, my climbing companions formed a heart with their ice axes. Now, I see it as a reminder of being human and how climbing brings us closer together.

Alison Rini, Ramsey, N.J.

An ordinary grocery trip

Looking back at this picture, I feel wistful for those three weeks of what we thought would be a four-month-long semester in Milan. I took this mirror selfie in the old-fashioned elevator of my apartment on Via San Marco after a grocery trip in February.

The grocery store was one of my favorite places to explore Italy. I felt content to have four months to explore all of its senza glutine (gluten-free) pastry and potato chip varieties (hi, mango paprika). I had a day of Italian class, went shopping, and was about to cook dinner and see my roommates. Life was good — la vita era veramente bella.

I have been quarantined in New Jersey since my school sent us back on Feb. 27. I haven’t been able to go to the grocery store in about a month and a half.

Liz Lambson, Salt Lake City, UtAH

The last gig

On March 10, just before the world shut down, I had the opportunity to perform as a cellist in a music video for Olivia Rodrigo and Disney Plus filmed at the beautiful Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah. On set, I met fellow freelance musicians and we left as friends, hoping to perform together in the future.

I never felt more excited about my career and my potential as a musician than I did in this moment. Little did I know this would be my last gig before every future performance was to be canceled or indefinitely postponed.

I had just interviewed a nanny for my five young children to give me the flexibility to focus more on my career as a performing artist. Now I have no work at all — not a single gig in sight, and no need for a nanny, who I couldn’t pay anyway.

I’m home 24/7, home schooling two elementary-aged boys while caring for 2-year-old twins and a 5-month-old baby. I’m grateful my husband still has work to support us. As a full-time stay-at-home mom now I don’t know what I was thinking, hoping to become a star in the music and film industries. The dream seems so lackluster now as I focus solely on my family.

I haven’t touched my instrument since that day. Who knows when I will again.

Ellen Girardeau Kempler, Laguna Beach, Calif.

A golden weekend

In October 2019, three generations of my extended family gathered together for the first time in a decade to celebrate the life of an uncle, who had passed away earlier that year. David Bevington was a University of Chicago professor and pre-eminent Shakespeare scholar — a Renaissance man whose passions also included drama, music and vigorous exercise.

David’s Chicago celebration reunited us, our parents and our children for three days of music, cooking, theater and conversation. David would have loved it.

This happy family portrait takes me back to my Midwestern roots, conjuring memories from many lifetimes of (often conflicting) memories. Because we’ve made homes in places across the United State such reunions are rare now.

I hope our children will stay in lifelong contact. We were lucky to be able to hug, cry, laugh, feast, play music, walk and share stories over this golden fall weekend in Chicago.

Rachel Cleary, Palo Alto, Calif.

An anxious right of passage

I was terrified to proceed with my daughter’s small, in-home bat mitzvah on March 14. I was fearful that the sweet, joyful teens could be silent carriers of the virus.

I wrote or called all of the elderly people invited to express my concern. Some stayed home, and some came anyway. Fortunately, in the end, everyone was healthy, though now we know that neighbors and friends did in fact have the virus at the time.

I am grateful that my daughter was able to joyfully celebrate this special rite of passage. But my memory of the day is shadowed by intense anxiety.

Daniel Dolgicer, New York

‘Grease and laughs were in abundant supply’

Before the pandemic my friends were sharing pizza and laughs with one another and the employees at a quintessentially New York pizza spot near Union Square. Grease and laughs were in abundant supply. No one pondered the distance between seats or people.

By comparison, life before the pandemic seemed so simple, so full, so vibrant. So much changed in so little time. Stores are closed, people are separated. Inevitably, I feel nostalgia, enveloped with a bit of sadness.

Sophie Oshman, New York City

‘You may kiss the bride’

My fiancé has a bad shoulder and I was terrified he might drop me during our “you may kiss the bride” moment at our wedding in August. We thought it would be smart to practice a few times to make sure things went smoothly.

This video always made me smile. You can’t see exactly what happens, but you can tell this kiss did not go smoothly — hence the practice! I do feel a little anxious not knowing if we’ll be able to get married in August, but realize it is totally out of our control and we’ll accept whatever it is.

Chelcie Poole, Milan

A Sunday without cars

Two weeks before the lockdown in Milan, we had a “Domenica Senza Auto,” a Sunday without cars. Roads that were previously congested now belonged to pedestrians. My boyfriend and I wandered the city — it was like discovering it for the first time again.

It was incredible: all these people out on foot, walking their dogs in what we previously knew as busy streets. The city felt new and empty and full all at the same time. After that, a lot of people called for more Sundays like this, so we could continue to “take back the city” and live it to its fullest.

Everything is quiet now. I feel claustrophobic and limited, and it feels so strange that it was not long ago when we felt like the city was our playground and so many things were possible.

Ina Hwang, Utrecht, The Netherlands

‘What if I’m late?’

I had started going to the gym in February and tried yoga for the first time. I was quickly able to see my body changing in ways that made me feel better. I felt more productive, and that I was actually doing something instead of spending days at the library or at home.

I miss waking up early, going to the gym and doing yoga. I miss having a place to go and that is not the supermarket. I miss the excitement felt on the way to the gym in the morning. I miss thinking, “What if I’m late?”

Ross Baum, New York City

A collaboration brought to life

In February, Angelica Chéri and I were watching a tech rehearsal for our original musical “Gun & Powder” before its world premiere at the Signature Theater in Arlington, Va. This was our first fully-produced musical, and the pinnacle of a 5-year writing process.

I love that this picture captures us watching our imagined world come to life through a massive collaboration, the thought of which feels so distant now. We completed our run on Feb. 23 and I feel really thankful for that. Had we played any later, we probably would have gotten canceled. The timing of it all encourages me to keep our blind faith, as we have from the very beginning, that our journey with this show will continue to unfold as it is meant to.

To go from the most collaborative experience of my life to the most isolated experience of my life has been jarring, to say the least. I look back on this moment now with a deep appreciation for all the artists who poured their hearts and souls into making our vision come to life.

Emma Rose Milligan, New York City

Cheers to friends

March 6 was my last day out before everything changed. I went to a restaurant, two coffee places, two bars, and one Trader Joe’s in just over 12 hours. I was exhausted from talking and laughing all day with friends. Little did I realize how this “last day” would be so drastically different a few weeks later.

Looking back, I am happy for the moment, happy to be around other people.

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Covid 19 Essay in English

Essay on Covid -19: In a very short amount of time, coronavirus has spread globally. It has had an enormous impact on people's lives, economy, and societies all around the world, affecting every country. Governments have had to take severe measures to try and contain the pandemic. The virus has altered our way of life in many ways, including its effects on our health and our economy. Here are a few sample essays on ‘CoronaVirus’.

100 Words Essay on Covid 19

200 words essay on covid 19, 500 words essay on covid 19.

COVID-19 or Corona Virus is a novel coronavirus that was first identified in 2019. It is similar to other coronaviruses, such as SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV, but it is more contagious and has caused more severe respiratory illness in people who have been infected. The novel coronavirus became a global pandemic in a very short period of time. It has affected lives, economies and societies across the world, leaving no country untouched. The virus has caused governments to take drastic measures to try and contain it. From health implications to economic and social ramifications, COVID-19 impacted every part of our lives. It has been more than 2 years since the pandemic hit and the world is still recovering from its effects.

Since the outbreak of COVID-19, the world has been impacted in a number of ways. For one, the global economy has taken a hit as businesses have been forced to close their doors. This has led to widespread job losses and an increase in poverty levels around the world. Additionally, countries have had to impose strict travel restrictions in an attempt to contain the virus, which has resulted in a decrease in tourism and international trade. Furthermore, the pandemic has put immense pressure on healthcare systems globally, as hospitals have been overwhelmed with patients suffering from the virus. Lastly, the outbreak has led to a general feeling of anxiety and uncertainty, as people are fearful of contracting the disease.

My Experience of COVID-19

I still remember how abruptly colleges and schools shut down in March 2020. I was a college student at that time and I was under the impression that everything would go back to normal in a few weeks. I could not have been more wrong. The situation only got worse every week and the government had to impose a lockdown. There were so many restrictions in place. For example, we had to wear face masks whenever we left the house, and we could only go out for essential errands. Restaurants and shops were only allowed to operate at take-out capacity, and many businesses were shut down.

In the current scenario, coronavirus is dominating all aspects of our lives. The coronavirus pandemic has wreaked havoc upon people’s lives, altering the way we live and work in a very short amount of time. It has revolutionised how we think about health care, education, and even social interaction. This virus has had long-term implications on our society, including its impact on mental health, economic stability, and global politics. But we as individuals can help to mitigate these effects by taking personal responsibility to protect themselves and those around them from infection.

Effects of CoronaVirus on Education

The outbreak of coronavirus has had a significant impact on education systems around the world. In China, where the virus originated, all schools and universities were closed for several weeks in an effort to contain the spread of the disease. Many other countries have followed suit, either closing schools altogether or suspending classes for a period of time.

This has resulted in a major disruption to the education of millions of students. Some have been able to continue their studies online, but many have not had access to the internet or have not been able to afford the costs associated with it. This has led to a widening of the digital divide between those who can afford to continue their education online and those who cannot.

The closure of schools has also had a negative impact on the mental health of many students. With no face-to-face contact with friends and teachers, some students have felt isolated and anxious. This has been compounded by the worry and uncertainty surrounding the virus itself.

The situation with coronavirus has improved and schools have been reopened but students are still catching up with the gap of 2 years that the pandemic created. In the meantime, governments and educational institutions are working together to find ways to support students and ensure that they are able to continue their education despite these difficult circumstances.

Effects of CoronaVirus on Economy

The outbreak of the coronavirus has had a significant impact on the global economy. The virus, which originated in China, has spread to over two hundred countries, resulting in widespread panic and a decrease in global trade. As a result of the outbreak, many businesses have been forced to close their doors, leading to a rise in unemployment. In addition, the stock market has taken a severe hit.

Effects of CoronaVirus on Health

The effects that coronavirus has on one's health are still being studied and researched as the virus continues to spread throughout the world. However, some of the potential effects on health that have been observed thus far include respiratory problems, fever, and coughing. In severe cases, pneumonia, kidney failure, and death can occur. It is important for people who think they may have been exposed to the virus to seek medical attention immediately so that they can be treated properly and avoid any serious complications. There is no specific cure or treatment for coronavirus at this time, but there are ways to help ease symptoms and prevent the virus from spreading.

Explore Career Options (By Industry)

• Construction
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Data Administrator

Database professionals use software to store and organise data such as financial information, and customer shipping records. Individuals who opt for a career as data administrators ensure that data is available for users and secured from unauthorised sales. DB administrators may work in various types of industries. It may involve computer systems design, service firms, insurance companies, banks and hospitals.

Bio Medical Engineer

The field of biomedical engineering opens up a universe of expert chances. An Individual in the biomedical engineering career path work in the field of engineering as well as medicine, in order to find out solutions to common problems of the two fields. The biomedical engineering job opportunities are to collaborate with doctors and researchers to develop medical systems, equipment, or devices that can solve clinical problems. Here we will be discussing jobs after biomedical engineering, how to get a job in biomedical engineering, biomedical engineering scope, and salary. 

Ethical Hacker

A career as ethical hacker involves various challenges and provides lucrative opportunities in the digital era where every giant business and startup owns its cyberspace on the world wide web. Individuals in the ethical hacker career path try to find the vulnerabilities in the cyber system to get its authority. If he or she succeeds in it then he or she gets its illegal authority. Individuals in the ethical hacker career path then steal information or delete the file that could affect the business, functioning, or services of the organization.

GIS officer work on various GIS software to conduct a study and gather spatial and non-spatial information. GIS experts update the GIS data and maintain it. The databases include aerial or satellite imagery, latitudinal and longitudinal coordinates, and manually digitized images of maps. In a career as GIS expert, one is responsible for creating online and mobile maps.

Data Analyst

The invention of the database has given fresh breath to the people involved in the data analytics career path. Analysis refers to splitting up a whole into its individual components for individual analysis. Data analysis is a method through which raw data are processed and transformed into information that would be beneficial for user strategic thinking.

Data are collected and examined to respond to questions, evaluate hypotheses or contradict theories. It is a tool for analyzing, transforming, modeling, and arranging data with useful knowledge, to assist in decision-making and methods, encompassing various strategies, and is used in different fields of business, research, and social science.

Geothermal Engineer

Individuals who opt for a career as geothermal engineers are the professionals involved in the processing of geothermal energy. The responsibilities of geothermal engineers may vary depending on the workplace location. Those who work in fields design facilities to process and distribute geothermal energy. They oversee the functioning of machinery used in the field.

Database Architect

If you are intrigued by the programming world and are interested in developing communications networks then a career as database architect may be a good option for you. Data architect roles and responsibilities include building design models for data communication networks. Wide Area Networks (WANs), local area networks (LANs), and intranets are included in the database networks. It is expected that database architects will have in-depth knowledge of a company's business to develop a network to fulfil the requirements of the organisation. Stay tuned as we look at the larger picture and give you more information on what is db architecture, why you should pursue database architecture, what to expect from such a degree and what your job opportunities will be after graduation. Here, we will be discussing how to become a data architect. Students can visit NIT Trichy , IIT Kharagpur , JMI New Delhi . 

Remote Sensing Technician

Individuals who opt for a career as a remote sensing technician possess unique personalities. Remote sensing analysts seem to be rational human beings, they are strong, independent, persistent, sincere, realistic and resourceful. Some of them are analytical as well, which means they are intelligent, introspective and inquisitive. 

Remote sensing scientists use remote sensing technology to support scientists in fields such as community planning, flight planning or the management of natural resources. Analysing data collected from aircraft, satellites or ground-based platforms using statistical analysis software, image analysis software or Geographic Information Systems (GIS) is a significant part of their work. Do you want to learn how to become remote sensing technician? There's no need to be concerned; we've devised a simple remote sensing technician career path for you. Scroll through the pages and read.

Budget Analyst

Budget analysis, in a nutshell, entails thoroughly analyzing the details of a financial budget. The budget analysis aims to better understand and manage revenue. Budget analysts assist in the achievement of financial targets, the preservation of profitability, and the pursuit of long-term growth for a business. Budget analysts generally have a bachelor's degree in accounting, finance, economics, or a closely related field. Knowledge of Financial Management is of prime importance in this career.

Underwriter

An underwriter is a person who assesses and evaluates the risk of insurance in his or her field like mortgage, loan, health policy, investment, and so on and so forth. The underwriter career path does involve risks as analysing the risks means finding out if there is a way for the insurance underwriter jobs to recover the money from its clients. If the risk turns out to be too much for the company then in the future it is an underwriter who will be held accountable for it. Therefore, one must carry out his or her job with a lot of attention and diligence.

Finance Executive

Product manager.

A Product Manager is a professional responsible for product planning and marketing. He or she manages the product throughout the Product Life Cycle, gathering and prioritising the product. A product manager job description includes defining the product vision and working closely with team members of other departments to deliver winning products.  

Operations Manager

Individuals in the operations manager jobs are responsible for ensuring the efficiency of each department to acquire its optimal goal. They plan the use of resources and distribution of materials. The operations manager's job description includes managing budgets, negotiating contracts, and performing administrative tasks.

Stock Analyst

Individuals who opt for a career as a stock analyst examine the company's investments makes decisions and keep track of financial securities. The nature of such investments will differ from one business to the next. Individuals in the stock analyst career use data mining to forecast a company's profits and revenues, advise clients on whether to buy or sell, participate in seminars, and discussing financial matters with executives and evaluate annual reports.

A Researcher is a professional who is responsible for collecting data and information by reviewing the literature and conducting experiments and surveys. He or she uses various methodological processes to provide accurate data and information that is utilised by academicians and other industry professionals. Here, we will discuss what is a researcher, the researcher's salary, types of researchers.

Welding Engineer

Welding Engineer Job Description: A Welding Engineer work involves managing welding projects and supervising welding teams. He or she is responsible for reviewing welding procedures, processes and documentation. A career as Welding Engineer involves conducting failure analyses and causes on welding issues. 

Transportation Planner

A career as Transportation Planner requires technical application of science and technology in engineering, particularly the concepts, equipment and technologies involved in the production of products and services. In fields like land use, infrastructure review, ecological standards and street design, he or she considers issues of health, environment and performance. A Transportation Planner assigns resources for implementing and designing programmes. He or she is responsible for assessing needs, preparing plans and forecasts and compliance with regulations.

Environmental Engineer

Individuals who opt for a career as an environmental engineer are construction professionals who utilise the skills and knowledge of biology, soil science, chemistry and the concept of engineering to design and develop projects that serve as solutions to various environmental problems. 

Safety Manager

A Safety Manager is a professional responsible for employee’s safety at work. He or she plans, implements and oversees the company’s employee safety. A Safety Manager ensures compliance and adherence to Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) guidelines.

Conservation Architect

A Conservation Architect is a professional responsible for conserving and restoring buildings or monuments having a historic value. He or she applies techniques to document and stabilise the object’s state without any further damage. A Conservation Architect restores the monuments and heritage buildings to bring them back to their original state.

Structural Engineer

A Structural Engineer designs buildings, bridges, and other related structures. He or she analyzes the structures and makes sure the structures are strong enough to be used by the people. A career as a Structural Engineer requires working in the construction process. It comes under the civil engineering discipline. A Structure Engineer creates structural models with the help of computer-aided design software. 

Highway Engineer

Highway Engineer Job Description:  A Highway Engineer is a civil engineer who specialises in planning and building thousands of miles of roads that support connectivity and allow transportation across the country. He or she ensures that traffic management schemes are effectively planned concerning economic sustainability and successful implementation.

Field Surveyor

Are you searching for a Field Surveyor Job Description? A Field Surveyor is a professional responsible for conducting field surveys for various places or geographical conditions. He or she collects the required data and information as per the instructions given by senior officials. 

Orthotist and Prosthetist

Orthotists and Prosthetists are professionals who provide aid to patients with disabilities. They fix them to artificial limbs (prosthetics) and help them to regain stability. There are times when people lose their limbs in an accident. In some other occasions, they are born without a limb or orthopaedic impairment. Orthotists and prosthetists play a crucial role in their lives with fixing them to assistive devices and provide mobility.

Pathologist

A career in pathology in India is filled with several responsibilities as it is a medical branch and affects human lives. The demand for pathologists has been increasing over the past few years as people are getting more aware of different diseases. Not only that, but an increase in population and lifestyle changes have also contributed to the increase in a pathologist’s demand. The pathology careers provide an extremely huge number of opportunities and if you want to be a part of the medical field you can consider being a pathologist. If you want to know more about a career in pathology in India then continue reading this article.

Veterinary Doctor

Speech therapist, gynaecologist.

Gynaecology can be defined as the study of the female body. The job outlook for gynaecology is excellent since there is evergreen demand for one because of their responsibility of dealing with not only women’s health but also fertility and pregnancy issues. Although most women prefer to have a women obstetrician gynaecologist as their doctor, men also explore a career as a gynaecologist and there are ample amounts of male doctors in the field who are gynaecologists and aid women during delivery and childbirth. 

Audiologist

The audiologist career involves audiology professionals who are responsible to treat hearing loss and proactively preventing the relevant damage. Individuals who opt for a career as an audiologist use various testing strategies with the aim to determine if someone has a normal sensitivity to sounds or not. After the identification of hearing loss, a hearing doctor is required to determine which sections of the hearing are affected, to what extent they are affected, and where the wound causing the hearing loss is found. As soon as the hearing loss is identified, the patients are provided with recommendations for interventions and rehabilitation such as hearing aids, cochlear implants, and appropriate medical referrals. While audiology is a branch of science that studies and researches hearing, balance, and related disorders.

An oncologist is a specialised doctor responsible for providing medical care to patients diagnosed with cancer. He or she uses several therapies to control the cancer and its effect on the human body such as chemotherapy, immunotherapy, radiation therapy and biopsy. An oncologist designs a treatment plan based on a pathology report after diagnosing the type of cancer and where it is spreading inside the body.

Are you searching for an ‘Anatomist job description’? An Anatomist is a research professional who applies the laws of biological science to determine the ability of bodies of various living organisms including animals and humans to regenerate the damaged or destroyed organs. If you want to know what does an anatomist do, then read the entire article, where we will answer all your questions.

For an individual who opts for a career as an actor, the primary responsibility is to completely speak to the character he or she is playing and to persuade the crowd that the character is genuine by connecting with them and bringing them into the story. This applies to significant roles and littler parts, as all roles join to make an effective creation. Here in this article, we will discuss how to become an actor in India, actor exams, actor salary in India, and actor jobs. 

Individuals who opt for a career as acrobats create and direct original routines for themselves, in addition to developing interpretations of existing routines. The work of circus acrobats can be seen in a variety of performance settings, including circus, reality shows, sports events like the Olympics, movies and commercials. Individuals who opt for a career as acrobats must be prepared to face rejections and intermittent periods of work. The creativity of acrobats may extend to other aspects of the performance. For example, acrobats in the circus may work with gym trainers, celebrities or collaborate with other professionals to enhance such performance elements as costume and or maybe at the teaching end of the career.

Video Game Designer

Career as a video game designer is filled with excitement as well as responsibilities. A video game designer is someone who is involved in the process of creating a game from day one. He or she is responsible for fulfilling duties like designing the character of the game, the several levels involved, plot, art and similar other elements. Individuals who opt for a career as a video game designer may also write the codes for the game using different programming languages.

Depending on the video game designer job description and experience they may also have to lead a team and do the early testing of the game in order to suggest changes and find loopholes.

Radio Jockey

Radio Jockey is an exciting, promising career and a great challenge for music lovers. If you are really interested in a career as radio jockey, then it is very important for an RJ to have an automatic, fun, and friendly personality. If you want to get a job done in this field, a strong command of the language and a good voice are always good things. Apart from this, in order to be a good radio jockey, you will also listen to good radio jockeys so that you can understand their style and later make your own by practicing.

A career as radio jockey has a lot to offer to deserving candidates. If you want to know more about a career as radio jockey, and how to become a radio jockey then continue reading the article.

Choreographer

The word “choreography" actually comes from Greek words that mean “dance writing." Individuals who opt for a career as a choreographer create and direct original dances, in addition to developing interpretations of existing dances. A Choreographer dances and utilises his or her creativity in other aspects of dance performance. For example, he or she may work with the music director to select music or collaborate with other famous choreographers to enhance such performance elements as lighting, costume and set design.

Social Media Manager

A career as social media manager involves implementing the company’s or brand’s marketing plan across all social media channels. Social media managers help in building or improving a brand’s or a company’s website traffic, build brand awareness, create and implement marketing and brand strategy. Social media managers are key to important social communication as well.

Photographer

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Life before COVID-19: how was the World actually performing?

Salvatore f. pileggi.

1 School of Information, Systems and Modelling (ISM), University of Technology Sydney, Sydney, Australia

2 Centre on Persuasive Systems for Wise Adaptive Living (PERSWADE), University of Technology Sydney, Sydney, Australia

The COVID-19 pandemic has suddenly and deeply changed our lives in a way comparable with the most traumatic events in history, such as a World war. With millions of people infected around the World and already thousands of deaths, there is still a great uncertainty on the actual evolution of the crisis, as well as on the possible post-crisis scenarios, which depend on a number of key variables and factors (e.g. a treatment, a vaccine or some kind of immunity). Despite the optimism enforced by the positive results recently achieved to produce a vaccine, uncertainty is probably still somehow the predominant feeling. From a more philosophical perspective, the COVID-19 drama is also a kind of stress-test for our global system and, probably, an opportunity to reconsider some aspects underpinning it, as well as its sustainability. In this article we focus on the pre-crisis situation by combining a number of selected global indicators that are likely to represent measures of different aspects of life. How was the World actually performing? We have defined 6 macro-categories and inferred their relevance from different sources. Results show that economic-oriented priorities correspond to positive performances, while all other distributions point to a negative performance. Additionally, balanced and economy-focused distributions of weights propose an optimistic interpretation of performance regardless of the absolute score.

Introduction

The unpredictable and overwhelming COVID-19 pandemic has completely and radically changed our lives and lifestyle in a way comparable with the most traumatic events in history, such as a World war. With millions of people infected around the World and already thousands of deaths (Dong et al. 2020 ), there is still a great uncertainty on the actual evolving of the crisis, as well as on the possible post-crisis scenarios, which depend on a number of key variables and factors (e.g. a treatment Felsenstein et al. 2020 , a vaccine Le et al. 2020 or some kind of immunity Weitz et al. 2020 ). Despite the optimism enforced by the positive results recently achieved to produce a vaccine, uncertainty is probably still somehow the predominant feeling (Chater 2020 ).

The whole scientific community is currently committed to face the challenging situation and to provide solutions and mitigation plans as a response to the complex dynamics at different levels. Indeed, the actual impact of COVID-19 on the different aspects of life (e.g. socio-economic Bashir et al. 2020 , environmental Collivignarelli et al. 2020 and psycological Fofana et al. 2020 ) is still not completely clear. Even relatively obvious or largely predictable macro-effects, such as a huge economic recession, present great elements of uncertainty at the moment (Altig et al. 2020 ). Additionally, a large number of studies have been conducted to explore the role of different factors [e.g. temperature Jamil et al. 2020 and air pollution  Fattorini and Regoli ( 2020 )].

From a more philosophical perspective, the COVID-19 drama is also a kind of stress-test for our system and, probably, an opportunity to reconsider some aspects underpinning it, as well as its sustainability (Naidoo and Fisher 2020 ). However, in order to re-design the World and our lives accordingly, we should first of all fully understand them. We definitely recognise the importance of cultural factors, opinions, personal values and beliefs. At the same time, we believe that it would be valuable to understand global performance in a data-driven and relatively systematic way.

In this article we focus on the pre-crisis situation by combining a number of selected global indicators to represent macro-categories that are likely to represent measures of different aspects of life: how was the World actually performing before pandemic?

We believe that answering the previously stated research question by adopting a relatively unbiased and customizable analysis framework can first of all (1) contribute to have a concise understanding of global development evolution and its priorities in the pre-pandemic period; additionally, it should (2) facilitate a better holistic understanding of the post-pandemic scenario; last but not least, (3) a similar approach can be adopted to estimate and analyse more specific aspects (e.g. global or country resilience to pandemic).

Previous work and background This paper is based on the method proposed in Pileggi ( 2020 ) which adopts a Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) philosophy (Ishizaka and Nemery 2013 ; Velasquez and Hester 2013 ). That paper focuses on the method in itself, which is explained in detail and applied to a number of examples using real data. This work is conceptually different and addresses the result, as the method previously defined has been applied to concretely measure global performance from heterogeneous criteria with emphasis on sustainable development (Hopwood et al. 2005 ). The idea of indices in such an area (e.g. Bravo 2014 ; Shaker 2018 ; Barrera-Roldán and Saldıvar-Valdés 2002 ) is a well consolidated concept. Furthermore, many studies explicitely focus on underlying correlations (e.g. Shaker 2018 , 2015 ).

As discussed later on in the paper, the original method has been slightly modified for this concrete application: on one side, the definition of the categories and their relation with numerical indicators has been simplified (see Sect.  3.1 ); on the other side, some extension has been provided in the weighting phase to better model the trade-offs existing among the different aspects considered (see Sect.  4.1 ). Last but not least, the interpretation of computations has been better formalised (see Sect.  5 ).

Structure of the paper This introductory part is followed by a detailed description of the research methodology. Each of the three phases identified in the methodological section is object of one of the core sections which deal, respectively, with the selection of criteria (Sect.  3 ), the weighting of such criteria (Sect.  4 ) and the performance analysis based on the resulting computations (Sect.  5 ). The paper finishes with a typical conclusions and future work section.

Methodology and approach

The methodology adopted in this study is summarised in concept in Fig.  1 . The target system is modelled by selecting a number of categorised indicators, which are global indicators in this study. The model also assumes weights and semantics associated with indicators and it’s the input for the computational method (Pileggi 2020 ). Interpretations are based on both qualitative and quantitative metrics. The three main seamless phases are briefly discussed in this section both with key design decisions, possible biases and uncertainties.

Method in concept. The target system is modelled by a number of categorised indicators and by the weights and the semantics associated. Such a model is the input for the computational method. Results are analysed by adopting qualitative and quantitative metrics

Criteria selection: macro-categories and representative indicators The normal approach (adopted also in previous work (Pileggi 2020 ) as well as by many reputable studies and publications, such as Our World in Data ) is to group the different indicators in classes which represent, therefore, an abstracted categorization of the considered indicators. It is very useful, especially considering the great availability of data, dependencies and the need to consider multiple aspects together.

In the context of this work, we have defined a number of categories of interest, each one represented by one single indicator that should be chosen to effectively characterise the target category. In terms of model (Fig.  1 ), given M categories and N indicators, we are assuming N = M and cardinality 1:1. Such a simplification allows an easier weighting and modelling within the method adopted (Pileggi 2020 ). We are assuming the definition of categories and the selection of representative indicators as an intrinsic bias, which is referred to as selection bias . Additionally, as the different indicators are expressed by different units and scales which don’t necessarily reflect their relevance in the resulting system or model, we assume a second kind of bias called numerical bias . The latter will be further discussed in Sect.  3.1 .

Weighting Weighting the target categories or indicators is a critical step. Indeed, while indicators themselves may be considered objective measures, their weighting should reflect the different relevance/importance of the various criteria in the context of the considered system or model. Weights may be estimated in different ways. For instance, they may reflect the opinions within a given group or community, normally elicited by surveys or interviews. Alternatively, weights may be inferred by capturing input parameters by the users of tools that adopt the method (Pileggi 2020 ). Either ways, to be relevant, the weighting should be based on a significant number of samples. Moreover, in general, survey/interview defines a static approach as it is based on a concrete selection of indicators. Changing indicators implies the need to re-estimate weights. Such a process is very demanding and definitely it is not agile.

In this study we have adopted a more pragmatic and, at the same time, flexible approach to establish weights that are inferred by analysing reports on global priorities, issues or challenges. Although, due to the different intent and extent of the selected reports, it is not possible to define a systematic method to infer weights, this approach assures weighting according to different foci and perspectives. As proposed later on in the paper, the analysis of different reports leads to weight configurations that may vary very much from each other.

Last but not least, unlike in the original method, in this work we assume finite resource for weighting to better model the trade-offs raising in a limited resource world (see Sect.  4 ).

Computation and analysis The final step is the computation of the results based on the input as defined in the two previous phases. The computational method should support the systematic combination of heterogeneous indicators and associated semantics, measure uncertainty and biases, as well as provide a framework for the interpretation of results. Results based on the application of the original method (Pileggi 2020 ) with the modifications previously explained are discussed in Sect.  5 .

Categories and indicators

The very first logical step of the study assumes the definition of macro-categories and the consequent selection of representative indicators. Such a step is described in the following subsection, while Sect.  3.2 deals with numerical bias and its minimization.

Inspired by Our World in Data , we have defined our own marco-categories (summary in Table  1 ) reflecting different aspects of life as follows:

• Environment/sustainability Several indicators might represent this macro-category as either global environmental measures (e.g. temperature anomaly or CO2 emissions) or indicators in sub-categories (e.g. energy) potentially express the performance trend. In the context of this work, we consider temperature anomaly (Morice et al. 2012 ; Ritchie and Roser 2017 ) as a representative indicator which we want, evidently, to decrease.
• Health/demographic change Life expectancy (Temperature 2020 ; Riley 2005 ; Zijdeman and Ribeira da Silva 2005 ; Max Roser and Ritchie 2013 ) has been selected to represent this macro-category. Indeed, an increasing life expectancy reflects, normally, an improved healthcare, as well as it implies population increasing. In terms of wished trend, we want life expectancy to increase, although an higher population may have negative implications in terms of global sustainability.
• Economy It is represented by the classic GDP per capita (World Development Indicators, Roser 2013b ), as more sophisticated indicators (e.g. Economic Complexity Index Hausmann et al. 2014 ) are normally understood at a country level and might be not very indicative if considered globally. The GDP represents somehow an economical model that assumes never ending growing. The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on global economy is expected to be much more consistent than in recent crisis (Kotz 2009 ) and to be comparable with the second World war.
• Poverty/inequality We consider that the number of people living in extreme poverty (Roser and Ortiz-Ospina 2013 ; Ravallion 2015 ) is the ideal measure to properly integrate economic indicators that express a generic increasing well-being by introducing the concept of inequality. Although we recognise an intrinsic interdependency, we prefer to keep this category separated from the previous one as we want to be able to differentiate ideas and concerns related to the economic growth in itself from the others that explicitly address poverty and inequality.
• Human rights/freedom By considering democracy as one of the most relevant achievements of all times, we believe that the number of people living in democracy (Roser 2013a ) may be an effective representative for human rights and, more in general, freedom. Indeed, we consider democracy as a condition necessary (although not always sufficient) to create a socio-political environment in which individual freedom and human rights are likely to be fully respected.
• Violence/instability The selection of a single indicator to express violence and instability in general terms is not easy. Looking at recent happenings, we consider that measures related to terrorism (Ritchie et al. 2013 ) may be a very reasonable choice. From one side, it’s not always easy to understand terrorism and classify terrorist attacks according to the same criteria worldwide. However, a clear definition for terrorism and a number of unanimously recognised principles currently exist (Ritchie et al. 2013 ). Terrorism is normally generated by situations of war or local conflict and it definitely causes uncertainty, violence and instability.

Summary of the criteria considered in this study

Each criterion is understood as a macro-category associated with a representative indicator adopted in computations and with an associated wished trend

All indicators selected are based on objective measures, while others that result from perceptions or opinions (e.g. happiness Frey and Stutzer 2012 ) have not been included.

For the numerical analysis proposed in the paper, we are considering recent years and, more concretely, the time range 2000–2015. Unfortunately, it is not possible to include in the study later years as the indicator measuring people currently living in democracy is available only up to 2015. As per previous explanations, we consider such an indicator as very relevant for the extent and the intent of this research, so we prefer to keep it and reduce the target time range. Additionally, the indicator on people living in extreme poverty is measured at a different granularity of all others, which are available by year. We have indeed adopted approximations considering the available values for the years 2002, 2005, 2008, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2015.

In terms of wished trends (Table  1 ), we want the temperature anomaly, people living in poverty and deaths caused by terrorism to decrease, while an increasing trend is wanted for life expectancy, people living in democracy and GDP. The actual trends in the considered time range is shown in Fig.  2 on the left. In the same figure, the contribution to global performance by considering the wished trends (Pileggi 2020 ) is shown on the right. According to this view, positive trends in the chart contributes positively to global performance. Likewise, negative trends have a negative impact on the performance.

Selected indicators expressed as the percentage of variation with respect to the initial state (left). The contribution of the different indicators to performance as the function of the associated wished trend is reported on the right

Looking at the data reported, health/demographics, economy, poverty/inequality and freedom/human rights are positively performing. On the other side, environment/sustainability and violence/instability present strongly negative performance.

Dealing with numerical bias

At a more theoretical level, the definition of a restricted number of meaningful categories in the extent and intent of the current study can be considered a kind of bias in itself. It’s somehow inherent in study design.

At a practical level, it is almost impossible to provide a numerically balanced set of indicators. Indeed, indicators are normally very heterogeneous, adopts their own units of measure and may present very different numerical variations. In general, the variation of a given indicator is not comparable in terms of relevance with the variation of another indicators. Therefore, numerical proportions are not semantically relevant for the purpose of the considered study, meaning that numerical variations are not necessarily proportional with the relevance in the system or model.

We have represented all indicators uniformly as the percentage variation with respect to the initial state. As shown in Fig.  2 , for the considered set of indicators, the variation of deaths by terrorism is numerically much more relevant than any other. Also the temperature anomaly presents a strong pattern in this sense. However, it is not numerically comparable with the previous. As both indicators contribute potentially in a negative way on global performance, the resulting indicator framework is strongly biased (numerically) in this case and may affect the fairness of the computation.

The numerical differences among the considered indicators imply the need to deal with different scales when computing the different aspects together. In order to minimise numerical biases, we adopt the mechanism described in Pileggi ( 2020 ) in addition to weighting. A detailed description of such an adaptive mechanism is out of the scope of the paper. An example of the numerical bias using and not using the mechanism is reported in Fig.  3 .

Visualization of numerical bias by considering a linear combination of the different criteria by adopting the reference computational method (Pileggi 2020 ) (left). Such numerical bias can be reduced by applying adaptive tuning as per reference method (Pileggi 2020 ) (right)

Once target criteria are defined, the weighting stage may result extremely subjective. The most natural way to weight criteria is probably by survey, as it is relatively simple to map weights into an opinion-based survey. In such a way, opinions from a generic public as well as opinions within defined communities may be captured and converted in a corresponding set of weights.

However, capturing people’s opinions in a meaningful way requires a large number of samples. Therefore, we have preferred to adopt a completely different and more pragmatic approach that aims to infer weights from the analysis of popular reports (e.g. from United Nations 1 and Global Economic Forum 2 ). On one side, the simplified approach adopted in the selection phase allows to weight categories rather than single indicators. It makes the mapping much easier. On the other side, the interpretation of certain kind of report may be subjective.

In the following subsections, we first describe an extension to the reference method to better model existing trade-offs and, then, we discuss the inference of weight sets from different sources of information.

Finite-resource assumption to model trade-offs

The original method (Pileggi 2020 ) doesn’t assume specific constraints for weights: the different indicators are weighted independently within a minimum value W min and a maximum value W max . Thus, any indicator i is associated with the corresponding weight W min ⩽ w i ⩽ W max , for instance in a range [0,10].

That independent weighting intrinsically assumes an infinite resource model. For instance, it is possible to associate the maximum weight with all indicators ( w i = W max , ∀ i ). It doesn’t force decisions which should model the trade-offs existing among the different aspects of life. In order to model such trade-offs in a more effective way, we introduce a constraint for the overall weighting value, W tot = ∑ i = 1 n w i ≤ n k , where n is the number of considered criteria and k is a value between W min and W max . In the context of this work we are using six different criteria ( n = 6 ) and weighting in the range [1,10] ( 1 ≤ w i ≤ 10 , ∀ i ) rather than [0,10] as we want all criteria to contribute to overall performance. We consider k = 5 , which implies W tot = 30 .

Weighting based on report analysis

In this sub-section we propose different weightings based on the analysis of different sources of information. As previously explained, probably such an inference cannot be completely objective. In order to minimise the impact of interpretations and biases in the analysis, for each case considered, the criteria and conclusions are explained and briefly discussed. Additionally, we have restricted the analysis to sources of information that allow a relative easy mapping. We have excluded those sources that potentially provide very good insight but are objectively hard to be converted in a clear weight set to the target criteria.

A summary of the weights produced by analysing the different reports is proposed in Fig.  4 . Each case is separately analysed and explained in the remaining part of this sub-section.

Weighting based on the analysis of different sources. Each weights set is compared with an homogeneous distribution of the resources—i.e. Neutral Weighting

Weighting based on the analysis of UN Global Issues The UN Global Issues report proposes 22 different global issues. Each issue in the report can be associated to no-one, one or more than one of the categories identified in this study.

According to our analysis, the category Environment/Sustainability is associated with 5 issues from the report (Atomic Energy, Climate Change, Food, Water), Health/Demography with 5 issues (Africa, Ageing, AIDS, Health, Population), Economy with no issue directly, Poverty/Inequality with 6 issues (Africa, Children, Decolonization, Ending Poverty, Food, Water), Human Rights/Freedom with 6 issues (Africa, Democracy, Gender Equality, Human Rights, International Law and Justice, Refugees) and Violence/Instability with 2 issues (Africa, Peace&Security). Resulting weights are reported in Table  2 . As previously discussed, the minimum weight assumed is 1.

Weighting based on UN Global Issues

Weighting based on the analysis of WEF 10 biggest global challenges (2016) The WEF 10 biggest global challenges [8] is a report with a much more economic focus. The criteria to map the 10 challenges in the report into weights are the same as in the previous case.

From our analysis, Environment/Sustainability is directly related to 2 challenges (Food Security, Climate Change), Health/Demographics to 1 challenge (Healthcare), Economy to 5 challenges (Inclusive Growth, Unemployment, Financial Crisis, Global Trade, Investment Strategy), Poverty/Inequality to 2 challenges (Food Security, Inclusive Growth), Human Rights/Freedom to 1 challenge (Gender Equality) and Violence/Instability to no challenge. The resulting weighing is reported in Table  3 .

Weighting based on WEF—10 biggest global challenges

Weighting based on the analysis of 10 most important global issues from The Borgen Project The Borgen Project, a nonprofit organization that is addressing poverty and hunger, has provided a list of 10 most important global issues [5].

According to our analysis of such a source, Environment/Sustainability is directly associated with 3 of the 10 issues (Climate Change, Pollution), Health/Demographics with 4 (Pollution, Security and Wellbeing, Malnourishment and Hunger, Substance Abuse), Economy with 1 (Unemployment), Poverty/Inequality with 3 (Lack of Education, Malnourishment and Hunger, Security and Wellbeing), Human Rights/Freedom with 1 (Government Corruption) and Violence/Instability with 3 (Violence, Security and Wellbeing, Terrorism). The resulting weights are reported in Table  4 .

Weighting based on The Borgen Project—Top 10 most important current Global Issues

Weighting based on the analysis of Global Shapers Survey 2017 Global Shapers Survey 2017 by WEF reflects opinion of millennials. Business Insider Australia has recently provided a list of the 10 most critical problems in the World according to millennials based on the Global Shapers Survey. In order to assure uniformity and consistency with previous cases, we have considered the list of problems provided but not the relevance associated with each of them.

According to our analysis, Environment/Sustainability matches with 2 problems (Food and water security, Climate change/Destruction of nature), Health/Demographics with 1 (Safety/Security/Wellbeing), Economy with 1 (Lack of economic opportunity and unemployment), Poverty/Inequality with 4 (Lack of education, Food and water security, Poverty, Inequality), Human Rights/Freedom with 1 (Government accountability and transparency/Corruption) and Violence/Instability with 3 (Safety/Security/Wellbeing, Religious conflicts, Large scale conflict/Wars ). Weights are reported in Table  5 .

Weighting based on Global Shapers Survey 2017 and its analysis

Performance analysis

Performance analysis is based on two main metrics as follows:

• Score This is the primary metric for analysis and it is based uniquely on the absolute performance according to computations (Pileggi 2020 ): positive scores are associated with positive performance, as well as negative scores correspond to negative performance.
• Interpretation It is a relative metric defined by comparing the score of a given computation with the corresponding neutral computation, which assumes fair weighting (Pileggi 2020 ). In qualitative terms, scores higher than neutral computation correspond to an optimistic interpretation, while lower scores are associated with a pessimistic interpretation.

The two metrics as defined are completely independent as all qualitative combinations of the two metrics (positive/optimistic, positive/pessimistic, negative/optimistic and negative/pessimistic) are possible.

Looking at the analysis framework more holistically, two additional analysis factors may be considered:

• Uncertainty In the context of this study, rather than a proper uncertainty, such a metric defines higher and lower bounds based on the potential weighting variance. Such an estimation provides a more consistent support for analysis in context.
• Numerical bias Even though it is limited by the method adopted, numerical bias directly affects the absolute result. It is expressed by the neutral computation and can play a relevant role not only in the analysis phase but also when selecting criteria, as it can drive the selection of balanced set of indicators.

Computations for the different weight sets are presented in Fig.  5 , while a qualitative summary of results is presented in Table  6 .

Summary of results (qualitative)

For each computation, the qualitative score—i.e. POSITIVE/NEGATIVE —and the qualitative interpretation—i.e. OPTIMISTIC/PESSIMISTIC —is reported

Computations based on the different weight sets. On the left, computed results assuming a given weights set are compared with the corresponding assuming homogeneous weighting ( Neutral Weighting ). On the right, results are considered looking at the extreme possible computations

Looking at Fig.  5 , the score associated with the different weight sets is represented by the blue line. Such a score is compared with the corresponding neutral computations in the charts on the left, while it is represented both with extreme computations in the charts on the right.

Weights from the analysis of UN Global Issues propose a relatively balanced distribution with a priority on Poverty/Inequality, Human Rights/Freedom, Health/Demographics and Environment/Sustainability. Additionally, there is a relative low priority for Violence/Instability and no economical focus. The resulting computation shows contrasting results, including a negative performance but also an optimistic interpretation. The weight set resulting from the analysis of the 10 biggest global challenges by WEF presents a much more economic oriented focus with a significant attention also for Environment/Sustainability and Poverty/Inequality. Human Rights/Freedom is still considered a kind of priority, while there is no explicit attention for Violence/Instability. Such a distribution of weights result in a very positive understanding of global performance. By focusing explicitly on addressing poverty, the weights from The Borgen Project proposes an interesting case study. The priority is clearly on 3 criteria, Health/Demographics, Poverty/Inequality and Violence/Instability. The computations associated show a clear negative trend in terms of either performance and interpretation (pessimistic). The analysis based on opinions of Millennials proposes a much more radical distribution with a clear priority on Poverty/Inequality and a significant attention on Environment/Sustainability and Violence/Instability. Final results are very similar to the ones related to the previous case (negative/pessimistic).

Average weights are reported in the last chart in Fig.  4 . As shown, the different case studies considered seem to balance each other. The average case proposes however a priority on Poverty/Inequality. Computations for the average case point out negative performance and optimistic interpretation (Fig. ​ (Fig.6 6 ).

Computation based on average weights. On the left, the computed result adopting average weighs is compared with the corresponding assuming homogeneous weighting ( Neutral Weighting ). On the right, that same result is considered looking at the extreme possible computations

As expected, the priorities defined by the different weight sets play a key role in the final assessment of performance from a quantitative perspective. However, as shown, it’s the contextual interpretation of such metrics that is considered the final assessment. We believe that the research framework proposed can be simple and effective to assess holistically the post-pandemic scenario, as well as to properly assess and reflect mindset and priorities changes behind the numerical estimations or measures.

Looking at possible interpretations of the results, we would like to remark that the method adopted works in terms of dynamic trend rather than of static snapshot, according to a philosophy of continuous evolution of the World. Such an approach is reflected in the computation of metrics. Therefore, a positive score in a given time-frame should be understood like the World is becoming a better place rather than the World is a good place (Pileggi 2020 ).

Conclusions and future work

By adopting a MCDA-based method, we considered 6 different macro-categories to measure global performance. The method provides a relatively fair analysis framework which allows the systematic combination of heterogeneous criteria. The weights associated with the different criteria play a key role in terms of final result. We have adopted a model that assumes finite resource in order to empathize the trade-offs existing among the different aspects considered.

In order to assess global performance and, more in general, global development trends, we have considered four different case studies with a very different focus. Results show that economic-oriented priorities correspond to positive performances, while all other distributions point to a negative performance. Additionally, balanced and economy-focused distributions of weights propose an optimistic interpretation of performance regardless of the absolute score.

Future work is expected to be developed in different directions. In line with the current focus, we will aim more fine grained studies at a country level. We will explore further secondary data sources to infer priorities accordingly (e.g. World Values Survey — http://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/ ). We will also propose and analyse in context additional case studies with a more community-oriented focus to be established by survey (e.g. Danowski and Park 2020 ).

The results obtained contribute to provide a concise understanding in context of the global development evolution and its underpinning priorities in the pre-pandemic period. We believe that such a dynamic snapshot can be useful to facilitate a better holistic understanding of the post-pandemic scenario that will be object of our future research. Indeed, we expect a significant mindset change triggered by the pandemic that will probably have an impact in setting priorities for a sustainable development. Last but not least, we will adopt a similar approach to estimate and analyse more specific aspects (e.g. global or country resilience to pandemic).

Acknowledgements

Our most sincere gratitude to the anonymous reviewers who provided extensive and constructive feedback. The comments received were very valuable to produce a significantly improved version of the paper.

1 United Nations— https://www.un.org/en/ .

2 World Economic Forum— https://www.weforum.org .

Publisher's Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

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