Alec Rich COVID 19 Simulation Reflection

This simulation was a pretty interesting simulation. I feel like it is kind of outdated, so I found

myself answering questions as if I was being asked them 2 years ago. I noticed during the simulation that

there were a lot of things throughout the pandemic that I never really considered. My experience was

not all that bad because I maintained my job and my routine was relatively the same around that, but I

didn’t really consider that there are people and communities that were hit a lot harder. I started to

understand the different hardships that communities experienced like: losing your job due to layoffs

because of the pandemic, not having income which then causes you to not be able to get adequate food

and supplies, elderly community having to completely isolate themselves because of being a high risk

population, and lack of government aide while the entire country suffered. I wouldn’t say it was a

solution, but the entire country was ordered to stay at home to prevent further spread of the virus (but

people just went outside and went about their days normally, which was pretty counterproductive). The

government gave us a couple stimulus checks over a 2-year period (like a total of 2-3 thousand dollars),

and expected us to live off that. I think this whole situation was a wakeup call for our country on disaster

preparedness and how to handle something like this in the future. I learned throughout this simulation

that there were many vulnerable populations during the pandemic! I chose the African American

community for my vulnerable population and found out about genetic health disparities and community

health disparities. Because of poverty, this community struggled with shelter, healthcare, food, and

transportation. Programs that were originally in place were taken away because of the need to social

distance and prevent the spread of the virus, which put the community at an even larger health disparity

then they were in before the pandemic. This simulation definitely opened my eyes to the needs of other

communities and that sometimes you have to put yourself in someone else’s shoes to really understand

how they struggle. I think this is a good lesson to learn as we progress through our nursing school
journey because can directly influence your care as a nurse. You want to care for everyone to the best of

your ability and provide the most holistic care possible, but if you don’t know the necessities of

vulnerable populations it becomes hard to do that.