Students’ Essays on

Infectious Disease
Prevention, COVID-19
Published Nationwide

As part of the BIO 173: Global Change and Infectious Disease course, Professor Fred
Cohan assigns students to write an essay persuading others to prevent future and
mitigate present infectious diseases. If students submit their essay to a news outlet—
and it’s published—Cohan awards them with extra credit.
As a result of this assignment, more than 25 students have had their work published in
newspapers across the United States. Many of these essays cite and applaud the
University’s Keep Wes Safe campaign and its COVID-19 testing protocols.
Cohan, professor of biology and Huffington Foundation Professor in the College of the
Environment (COE), began teaching the Global Change and Infectious Disease course
in 2009, when the COE was established. “I wanted very much to contribute a course to
what I saw as a real game-changer in Wesleyan’s interest in the environment. The
course is about all the ways that human demands on the environment have brought us
infectious diseases, over past millennia and in the present, and why our environmental
disturbances will continue to bring us infections into the future.”
Over the years, Cohan learned that he can sustainably teach about 170 students every
year without running out of interested students. This fall, he had 207. Although he didn’t
change the overall structure of his course to accommodate COVID-19 topics, he did add
material on the current pandemic to various sections of the course.
“I wouldn’t say that the population of the class increased tremendously as a result of
COVID-19, but I think the enthusiasm of the students for the material has increased
substantially,” he said.
To accommodate online learning, Cohan shaved off 15 minutes from his normal 80-
minute lectures to allow for discussion sections, led by Cohan and teaching assistants.
“While the lectures mostly dealt with biology, the discussions focused on how changes
in behavior and policy can solve the infectious disease problems brought by human
disturbance of the environment,” he said.
Based on student responses to an introspective exam question, Cohan learned that
many students enjoyed a new hope that we could each contribute to fighting infectious
disease. “They discovered that the solution to infectious disease is not entirely a waiting
game for the right technologies to come along,” he said. “Many enjoyed learning about
fighting infectious disease from a moral and social perspective. And especially, the
students enjoyed learning about the ‘socialism of the microbe,’ how preventing and
curing others’ infections will prevent others’ infections from becoming our own. The
students enjoyed seeing how this idea can drive both domestic and international health
policies.”
A sampling of the published student essays are below:
Alexander Giummo ’22 and Mike Dunderdale’s ’23 op-ed titled “A National Testing
Proposal: Let’s Fight Back Against COVID-19” was published in the Journal Inquirer in
Manchester, Conn.
They wrote: “With an expansive and increased testing plan for U.S. citizens, those who
are COVID-positive could limit the number of contacts they have, and this would also
help to enable more effective contact tracing. Testing could also allow for the return of
some ‘normal’ events, such as small social gatherings, sports, and in-person class and
work schedules.
“We propose a national testing strategy in line with the one that has kept Wesleyan
students safe this year. The plan would require a strong push by the federal government
to fund the initiative, but it is vital to successful containment of the virus.
“Twice a week, all people living in the U.S. should report to a local testing site staffed
with professionals where the anterior nasal swab Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR)
test, used by Wesleyan and supported by the Broad Institute, would be implemented.”
Kalyani Mohan ’22 and Kalli Jackson ’22 penned an essay titled “Where Public
Health Meets Politics: COVID-19 in the United States,” which was published in
Wesleyan’s Arcadia Political Review.
They wrote: “While the U.S. would certainly benefit from a strengthened pandemic
response team and structural changes to public health systems, that alone isn’t enough,
as American society is immensely stratified, socially and culturally. The politicization of
the COVID-19 pandemic shows that individualism, libertarianism and capitalism are
deeply ingrained in American culture, to the extent that Americans often blind to the fact
community welfare can be equivalent to personal welfare. Pandemics are multifaceted,
and preventing them requires not just a cultural shift but an emotional one amongst the
American people, one guided by empathy—towards other people, different communities
and the planet. Politics should be a tool, not a weapon against its people.”
Sydnee Goyer ’21 and Marcel Thompson’s ’22 essay “This Flu Season Will Be
Decisive in the Fight Against COVID-19” also was published in Arcadia Political Review.
“With winter approaching all around the Northern Hemisphere, people are preparing for
what has already been named a “twindemic,” meaning the joint threat of the coronavirus
and the seasonal flu,” they wrote. “While it is known that seasonal vaccinations reduce
the risk of getting the flu by up to 60% and also reduce the severity of the illness after
the contamination, additional research has been conducted in order to know whether or
not flu shots could reduce the risk of people getting COVID-19. In addition to the flu
shot, it is essential that people remain vigilant in maintaining proper social distancing,
washing your hands thoroughly, and continuing to wear masks in public spaces.”
An op-ed titled “The Pandemic Has Shown Us How Workplace Culture Needs to
Change,” written by Adam Hickey ’22 and George Fuss ’21, was published in Park
City, Utah’s The Park Record.
They wrote: “One review of academic surveys (most of which were conducted in the
United States) conducted in 2019 found that between 35% and 97% of respondents in
those surveys reported having attended work while they were ill, often because of
workplace culture or policy which generated pressure to do so. Choosing to ignore
sickness and return to the workplace while one is ill puts colleagues at risk, regardless
of the perceived severity of your own illness; COVID-19 is an overbearing reminder that
a disease that may cause mild, even cold-like symptoms for some can still carry fatal
consequences for others.
“A mandatory paid sick leave policy for every worker, ideally across the globe, would
allow essential workers to return to work when necessary while still providing enough
wiggle room for economically impoverished employees to take time off without going
broke if they believe they’ve contracted an illness so as not to infect the rest of their
workplace and the public at large.”