1Daniel Arroyo

Daniel Arroyo
Prof. S Khan
English 1102-130
5/9/20

Fighting the Invisible Foe - Life during a Pandemic

This has been one of the strangest times in my life, as I’m sure it has been for

many others as well. I do not remember a time whereas a nation we had to close down

and where we as a whole world have been going through something at the same time,

on the same page through it all. Covid-19 has changed the way we all live our daily lives

and in this paper, I am going to just highlight some of those changes we have made to

lessen the spread of this virus. Along with some of my own personal stories and

thoughts during these strange and difficult times.

“As Joblessness Soars, Food Banks Struggle to Fill the Hunger Gap”

The first source I would like to bring in is on this story down by Times Magazine

that will be coming out on 5/11/20 but I had access to due to a database. The article

follows how the demand for more food banks has increased and the struggle people are

facing just to feed themselves and their loved ones. The story follows a person who

lives in Ohio but also at the same time delivers information for how we are all doing

across the US. One of the numbers brought up in the article is in the number of people

who have recently had to rely on food banks, one food bank had even stated that they

had “anticipated 200 to 250 cars per site per day. By mid-April, it was seeing six times

as many: 1,200 cars at some of its sites”. The cars being the number of households that

needed food. It is clear to see that in theses times we are just struggling to get food and
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unfortunately for these people the food banks may not be enough to help all of them

from going hungry.

As many of us have seen, the rise in having to wear protection went from

optional to normal and now to mandatory when going out in public. I think this picture

really represents how it feels to have to go out nowadays to the store just to get

supplies that we all need. Many stores have started to close earlier and many others

have started to require a facemask when going in. This can be difficult to acquire when

everyone is looking for facemasks and they are in high demand, low supply. We have

seen shortages of all types of things and more and more people at times panic buy,

making it hard for others to just get the basic necessities they require. Some places

have become so dire that people will fight with each other over toilet paper and soap.

Although store regulation has improved these situations, there is still a high demand for

all types of products, and our situations can still go from bad to worse at any point.
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“COVID‐19 Prompts New Executive Orders From Minnesota Governor”

This article form Mental health Weekly that came out on April 13th of 2020, helps

explain the situation that is going on in Minnesota right now and how they have decided

to put their focus on bettering people’s mental health and helping them with

unemployment benefits. The Governor has signed an executive order, 20-28 which has

increased the amount of money that is being funded for mental health professionals and

to give them more access to the public. That has also signed another order to give 6.1

million dollars to families of veterans to give them a one time amount of 1,000 dollars.

Overall I think it is interesting that someone is thinking about the mental situation

everyone will be in once this pandemic is over and how people’s mental health will

change. I think that once we are out of quarantine that this problem will be more evident

than ever.

COVID Spring

This article posted by the National Review on 5/4/20 tells a different tale than

most other articles you would be hearing on our current pandemic situation. The author

Kyle Smith talks about some of the unforeseen benefits that this quarantine has had on

some families. Reporting that some polls that asked people how they have spent their

time in quarantine have said with their families and enjoying their company. Other

sources have seen a spike in at-home board games and puzzles with “The nation's

largest puzzle distributor, Puzzle Warehouse, said its business is up 2000 percent

compared to last year” meaning that people are trying to find creative ways to stay busy.

Many families are using this quarantine to do more family bonding activities or to just
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spend time together using all the free time that they did not have before. Coming from

my own experiences, I would agree with this, in that my family has made it a point to do

things together more and we are experiencing a change of pace for the better as far as

our personal relationships go.

Nurses Die, Doctors Fall Sick and Panic Rises on Virus Front Lines
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I think that one of the worst-hit places was the hospitals and how their staff have

been getting sick from all of the new covid19 patients with no increase in their sanitary

health. An article published by The New York Times that came out on May 5th, 2020,

goes in-depth on just how the medical professional has been feeling. These reports are

coming out of New York, which is

one of the worst places to have

been hit by the pandemic with over

30,00 cases of covid19. “I feel like

we’re all just being sent to

slaughter,” as one of the nurses

commented as he and his husband

both contracted the virus. Many of the medical professionals do not feel that they are

safe in their place of work and have also looked to see how it has gone for others in a

similar situation. Looking at Italy where they have nearly double the amount of health

care workers infected as Chine, reaching up to 6000 workers and in Spain where about

14 percent of the total number of people have been health care workers. With a lack of

equipment and sanitary supplies, many fear that these numbers will only grow in the

US. The good news is that there have been more efforts to get these supplies to the

correct medical professions and we can only hope it is enough to help our nurses and

doctors from falling sick too.

I think that this whole pandemic has been tough on my personal life as well.

While there have been more ups than I would have expected, there have still been a lot

of downs in the sense of how things have changed. Up until recently, I was working, and
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while it was a big change in how we would work, from having to screen everyone before

they came in, to having to decline people who might have needed our services of

physical therapy but were too sick to treat. We were fortunate to have had a supply of

masks that we require everyone to wear and while this made us feel safer at work it did

not take away the feeling that one of us might come in contact with the virus and bring it

home. Unfortunately one of the therapists at our sister clinic did contract the virus and

so because of that we had all been tested and sent on temporary leave.

On the other side of things, my family all had to be quarantined at home with me

and while my parents work from home, it does let us have more time together. It has

actually been a lot of fun being able to spend time with all of them. Being that my dad

travels for work and my sister goes out of state for school. As a family, I feel as if we

have come together more and have been able to get through this better because we

have each other. While being in quarantine is not always fun it has brought some

benefits, and that I am grateful for in these hard times.