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How Did the Covid-19 Pandemic Affect You, Your Family and Your Community?

This week is the fourth anniversary of the pandemic. What are your most lasting memories? How did it reshape your life — and the world?

By Jeremy Engle

It has been four years since the World Health Organization declared Covid-19 a global pandemic on March 11, 2020. The New York Times writes of the anniversary:

Four years ago today, society began to shut down. Shortly after noon Eastern on March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization declared Covid — or “the coronavirus,” then the more popular term — to be a global pandemic. Stocks plummeted in the afternoon. In the span of a single hour that night, President Donald Trump delivered an Oval Office address about Covid, Tom Hanks posted on Instagram that he had the virus and the N.B.A. announced it had canceled the rest of its season. It was a Wednesday, and thousands of schools would shut by the end of the week. Workplaces closed, too. People washed their hands frequently and touched elbows instead of shaking hands (although the C.D.C. continued to discourage widespread mask wearing for several more weeks). The worst pandemic in a century had begun.

For some people, the earliest days of the pandemic may feel like a lifetime ago; for others, it may feel like just yesterday. But for all of us Covid has indelibly changed our lives and the world. What do you remember about the earliest days of the pandemic? When did it first hit home for you? How did it affect you, your family and your community? What lessons did you learn about yourself and the world?

In “ Four Years On, Covid Has Reshaped Life for Many Americans ,” Julie Bosman writes that while the threat of severe illness and death has faded for many people, the pandemic’s effects still linger:

Jessie Thompson, a 36-year-old mother of two in Chicago, is reminded of the Covid-19 pandemic every day. Sometimes it happens when she picks up her children from day care and then lets them romp around at a neighborhood park on the way home. Other times, it’s when she gets out the shower at 7 a.m. after a weekday workout. “I always think: In my past life, I’d have to be on the train in 15 minutes,” said Ms. Thompson, a manager at United Airlines. A hybrid work schedule has replaced her daily commute to the company headquarters in downtown Chicago, giving Ms. Thompson more time with her children and a deeper connection to her neighbors. “The pandemic is such a negative memory,” she said. “But I have this bright spot of goodness from it.” For much of the United States, the pandemic is now firmly in the past, four years to the day that the Trump administration declared a national emergency as the virus spread uncontrollably. But for many Americans, the pandemic’s effects are still a prominent part of their daily lives. In interviews, some people said that the changes are subtle but unmistakable: Their world feels a little smaller, with less socializing and fewer crowds. Parents who began to home-school their children never stopped. Many people are continuing to mourn relatives and spouses who died of Covid or of complications from the coronavirus. The World Health Organization dropped its global health emergency designation in May 2023, but millions of people who survived the virus are suffering from long Covid, a mysterious and frequently debilitating condition that causes fatigue, muscle pain and cognitive decline . One common sentiment has emerged. The changes brought on by the pandemic now feel lasting, a shift that may have permanently reshaped American life.

As part of our coverage of the pandemic’s anniversary, The Times asked readers how Covid has changed their attitudes toward life. Here is what they said:

“I’m a much more grateful person. Life is precious, and I see the beauty in all the little miracles that happen all around me. I’m a humbled human being now. I have more empathy and compassion towards everyone.” — Gil Gallegos, 59, Las Vegas, N.M. “The pandemic has completely changed my approach to educating my child. My spouse and I had never seriously considered home-schooling until March 2020. Now, we wouldn’t have it any other way.” — Kim Harper, 47, Clinton, Md. “I had contamination O.C.D. before the pandemic began. The last four years have been a steady string of my worst fears coming true. I never feel safe anymore. I know very well now that my body can betray me at any time.” — Adelia Brown, 23, Madison, Wis. “I don’t take for granted the pleasure of being around people. Going to a show, a road trip, a restaurant, people watching at the opera. I love it.” — Philip Gunnels, 66, Sugar Land, Texas “My remaining years are limited. On the one hand, I feel cheated out of many experiences I was looking forward to; on the other hand, I do not want to live my remaining years with long Covid. It’s hard.” — Sandra Wulach, 77, Edison, N.J.

Students, read one or both of the articles and then tell us:

How did the Covid-19 pandemic affect you, your family and your community? How did it reshape your life and the world? What are your most lasting memories of this difficult period? What do you want to remember most? What do you want to forget?

How did you change during this time? What did you learn about yourself and about life? What do you wish you knew then that you know now?

Ms. Bosman writes that some of the people she interviewed revealed that four years after the global pandemic began, “Their world feels a little smaller, with less socializing and fewer crowds.” However, Gil Gallegos told The Times: “I’m a much more grateful person. Life is precious, and I see the beauty in all the little miracles that happen all around me. I’m a humbled human being now. I have more empathy and compassion towards everyone.” Which of the experiences shared in the two articles reminded you the most of your own during and after the pandemic and why? How did Covid change your overall outlook on life?

“The last normal day of school.” “The nursing home shut its doors.” “The bride wore Lululemon.” These are just a few quotes from “ When the Pandemic Hit Home ,” an article in which The Times asked readers to share their memories of the world shutting down. Read the article and then tell us about a time when the pandemic hit home for you.

In the last four years, scientists have unraveled some of the biggest mysteries about Covid. In another article , The Times explores many remaining questions about the coronavirus: Are superdodgers real? Is Covid seasonal? And what’s behind its strangest symptoms? Read the article and then tell us what questions you still have about the virus and its effects.

How do you think history books will tell the story of the pandemic? If you were to put together a time capsule of artifacts from this era to show people 100 years from now, what would you include and why? What will you tell your grandchildren about what it was like to live during this time?

Students 13 and older in the United States and Britain, and 16 and older elsewhere, are invited to comment. All comments are moderated by the Learning Network staff, but please keep in mind that once your comment is accepted, it will be made public and may appear in print.

Find more Student Opinion questions here. Teachers, check out this guide to learn how you can incorporate these prompts into your classroom.

Jeremy Engle joined The Learning Network as a staff editor in 2018 after spending more than 20 years as a classroom humanities and documentary-making teacher, professional developer and curriculum designer working with students and teachers across the country. More about Jeremy Engle

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In Their Own Words, Americans Describe the Struggles and Silver Linings of the COVID-19 Pandemic

The outbreak has dramatically changed americans’ lives and relationships over the past year. we asked people to tell us about their experiences – good and bad – in living through this moment in history..

Pew Research Center has been asking survey questions over the past year about Americans’ views and reactions to the COVID-19 pandemic. In August, we gave the public a chance to tell us in their own words how the pandemic has affected them in their personal lives. We wanted to let them tell us how their lives have become more difficult or challenging, and we also asked about any unexpectedly positive events that might have happened during that time.

The vast majority of Americans (89%) mentioned at least one negative change in their own lives, while a smaller share (though still a 73% majority) mentioned at least one unexpected upside. Most have experienced these negative impacts and silver linings simultaneously: Two-thirds (67%) of Americans mentioned at least one negative and at least one positive change since the pandemic began.

For this analysis, we surveyed 9,220 U.S. adults between Aug. 31-Sept. 7, 2020. Everyone who completed the survey is a member of Pew Research Center’s American Trends Panel (ATP), an online survey panel that is recruited through national, random sampling of residential addresses. This way nearly all U.S. adults have a chance of selection. The survey is weighted to be representative of the U.S. adult population by gender, race, ethnicity, partisan affiliation, education and other categories.  Read more about the ATP’s methodology . 

Respondents to the survey were asked to describe in their own words how their lives have been difficult or challenging since the beginning of the coronavirus outbreak, and to describe any positive aspects of the situation they have personally experienced as well. Overall, 84% of respondents provided an answer to one or both of the questions. The Center then categorized a random sample of 4,071 of their answers using a combination of in-house human coders, Amazon’s Mechanical Turk service and keyword-based pattern matching. The full methodology  and questions used in this analysis can be found here.

In many ways, the negatives clearly outweigh the positives – an unsurprising reaction to a pandemic that had killed  more than 180,000 Americans  at the time the survey was conducted. Across every major aspect of life mentioned in these responses, a larger share mentioned a negative impact than mentioned an unexpected upside. Americans also described the negative aspects of the pandemic in greater detail: On average, negative responses were longer than positive ones (27 vs. 19 words). But for all the difficulties and challenges of the pandemic, a majority of Americans were able to think of at least one silver lining. 

Both the negative and positive impacts described in these responses cover many aspects of life, none of which were mentioned by a majority of Americans. Instead, the responses reveal a pandemic that has affected Americans’ lives in a variety of ways, of which there is no “typical” experience. Indeed, not all groups seem to have experienced the pandemic equally. For instance, younger and more educated Americans were more likely to mention silver linings, while women were more likely than men to mention challenges or difficulties.

Here are some direct quotes that reveal how Americans are processing the new reality that has upended life across the country.

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About Pew Research Center Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping the world. It conducts public opinion polling, demographic research, media content analysis and other empirical social science research. Pew Research Center does not take policy positions. It is a subsidiary of The Pew Charitable Trusts .

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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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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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I Thought We’d Learned Nothing From the Pandemic. I Wasn’t Seeing the Full Picture

M y first home had a back door that opened to a concrete patio with a giant crack down the middle. When my sister and I played, I made sure to stay on the same side of the divide as her, just in case. The 1988 film The Land Before Time was one of the first movies I ever saw, and the image of the earth splintering into pieces planted its roots in my brain. I believed that, even in my own backyard, I could easily become the tiny Triceratops separated from her family, on the other side of the chasm, as everything crumbled into chaos.

Some 30 years later, I marvel at the eerie, unexpected ways that cartoonish nightmare came to life – not just for me and my family, but for all of us. The landscape was already covered in fissures well before COVID-19 made its way across the planet, but the pandemic applied pressure, and the cracks broke wide open, separating us from each other physically and ideologically. Under the weight of the crisis, we scattered and landed on such different patches of earth we could barely see each other’s faces, even when we squinted. We disagreed viciously with each other, about how to respond, but also about what was true.

Recently, someone asked me if we’ve learned anything from the pandemic, and my first thought was a flat no. Nothing. There was a time when I thought it would be the very thing to draw us together and catapult us – as a capital “S” Society – into a kinder future. It’s surreal to remember those early days when people rallied together, sewing masks for health care workers during critical shortages and gathering on balconies in cities from Dallas to New York City to clap and sing songs like “Yellow Submarine.” It felt like a giant lightning bolt shot across the sky, and for one breath, we all saw something that had been hidden in the dark – the inherent vulnerability in being human or maybe our inescapable connectedness .

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But it turns out, it was just a flash. The goodwill vanished as quickly as it appeared. A couple of years later, people feel lied to, abandoned, and all on their own. I’ve felt my own curiosity shrinking, my willingness to reach out waning , my ability to keep my hands open dwindling. I look out across the landscape and see selfishness and rage, burnt earth and so many dead bodies. Game over. We lost. And if we’ve already lost, why try?

Still, the question kept nagging me. I wondered, am I seeing the full picture? What happens when we focus not on the collective society but at one face, one story at a time? I’m not asking for a bow to minimize the suffering – a pretty flourish to put on top and make the whole thing “worth it.” Yuck. That’s not what we need. But I wondered about deep, quiet growth. The kind we feel in our bodies, relationships, homes, places of work, neighborhoods.

Like a walkie-talkie message sent to my allies on the ground, I posted a call on my Instagram. What do you see? What do you hear? What feels possible? Is there life out here? Sprouting up among the rubble? I heard human voices calling back – reports of life, personal and specific. I heard one story at a time – stories of grief and distrust, fury and disappointment. Also gratitude. Discovery. Determination.

Among the most prevalent were the stories of self-revelation. Almost as if machines were given the chance to live as humans, people described blossoming into fuller selves. They listened to their bodies’ cues, recognized their desires and comforts, tuned into their gut instincts, and honored the intuition they hadn’t realized belonged to them. Alex, a writer and fellow disabled parent, found the freedom to explore a fuller version of herself in the privacy the pandemic provided. “The way I dress, the way I love, and the way I carry myself have both shrunk and expanded,” she shared. “I don’t love myself very well with an audience.” Without the daily ritual of trying to pass as “normal” in public, Tamar, a queer mom in the Netherlands, realized she’s autistic. “I think the pandemic helped me to recognize the mask,” she wrote. “Not that unmasking is easy now. But at least I know it’s there.” In a time of widespread suffering that none of us could solve on our own, many tended to our internal wounds and misalignments, large and small, and found clarity.

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I wonder if this flourishing of self-awareness is at least partially responsible for the life alterations people pursued. The pandemic broke open our personal notions of work and pushed us to reevaluate things like time and money. Lucy, a disabled writer in the U.K., made the hard decision to leave her job as a journalist covering Westminster to write freelance about her beloved disability community. “This work feels important in a way nothing else has ever felt,” she wrote. “I don’t think I’d have realized this was what I should be doing without the pandemic.” And she wasn’t alone – many people changed jobs , moved, learned new skills and hobbies, became politically engaged.

Perhaps more than any other shifts, people described a significant reassessment of their relationships. They set boundaries, said no, had challenging conversations. They also reconnected, fell in love, and learned to trust. Jeanne, a quilter in Indiana, got to know relatives she wouldn’t have connected with if lockdowns hadn’t prompted weekly family Zooms. “We are all over the map as regards to our belief systems,” she emphasized, “but it is possible to love people you don’t see eye to eye with on every issue.” Anna, an anti-violence advocate in Maine, learned she could trust her new marriage: “Life was not a honeymoon. But we still chose to turn to each other with kindness and curiosity.” So many bonds forged and broken, strengthened and strained.

Instead of relying on default relationships or institutional structures, widespread recalibrations allowed for going off script and fortifying smaller communities. Mara from Idyllwild, Calif., described the tangible plan for care enacted in her town. “We started a mutual-aid group at the beginning of the pandemic,” she wrote, “and it grew so quickly before we knew it we were feeding 400 of the 4000 residents.” She didn’t pretend the conditions were ideal. In fact, she expressed immense frustration with our collective response to the pandemic. Even so, the local group rallied and continues to offer assistance to their community with help from donations and volunteers (many of whom were originally on the receiving end of support). “I’ve learned that people thrive when they feel their connection to others,” she wrote. Clare, a teacher from the U.K., voiced similar conviction as she described a giant scarf she’s woven out of ribbons, each representing a single person. The scarf is “a collection of stories, moments and wisdom we are sharing with each other,” she wrote. It now stretches well over 1,000 feet.

A few hours into reading the comments, I lay back on my bed, phone held against my chest. The room was quiet, but my internal world was lighting up with firefly flickers. What felt different? Surely part of it was receiving personal accounts of deep-rooted growth. And also, there was something to the mere act of asking and listening. Maybe it connected me to humans before battle cries. Maybe it was the chance to be in conversation with others who were also trying to understand – what is happening to us? Underneath it all, an undeniable thread remained; I saw people peering into the mess and narrating their findings onto the shared frequency. Every comment was like a flare into the sky. I’m here! And if the sky is full of flares, we aren’t alone.

I recognized my own pandemic discoveries – some minor, others massive. Like washing off thick eyeliner and mascara every night is more effort than it’s worth; I can transform the mundane into the magical with a bedsheet, a movie projector, and twinkle lights; my paralyzed body can mother an infant in ways I’d never seen modeled for me. I remembered disappointing, bewildering conversations within my own family of origin and our imperfect attempts to remain close while also seeing things so differently. I realized that every time I get the weekly invite to my virtual “Find the Mumsies” call, with a tiny group of moms living hundreds of miles apart, I’m being welcomed into a pocket of unexpected community. Even though we’ve never been in one room all together, I’ve felt an uncommon kind of solace in their now-familiar faces.

Hope is a slippery thing. I desperately want to hold onto it, but everywhere I look there are real, weighty reasons to despair. The pandemic marks a stretch on the timeline that tangles with a teetering democracy, a deteriorating planet , the loss of human rights that once felt unshakable . When the world is falling apart Land Before Time style, it can feel trite, sniffing out the beauty – useless, firing off flares to anyone looking for signs of life. But, while I’m under no delusions that if we just keep trudging forward we’ll find our own oasis of waterfalls and grassy meadows glistening in the sunshine beneath a heavenly chorus, I wonder if trivializing small acts of beauty, connection, and hope actually cuts us off from resources essential to our survival. The group of abandoned dinosaurs were keeping each other alive and making each other laugh well before they made it to their fantasy ending.

Read More: How Ice Cream Became My Own Personal Act of Resistance

After the monarch butterfly went on the endangered-species list, my friend and fellow writer Hannah Soyer sent me wildflower seeds to plant in my yard. A simple act of big hope – that I will actually plant them, that they will grow, that a monarch butterfly will receive nourishment from whatever blossoms are able to push their way through the dirt. There are so many ways that could fail. But maybe the outcome wasn’t exactly the point. Maybe hope is the dogged insistence – the stubborn defiance – to continue cultivating moments of beauty regardless. There is value in the planting apart from the harvest.

I can’t point out a single collective lesson from the pandemic. It’s hard to see any great “we.” Still, I see the faces in my moms’ group, making pancakes for their kids and popping on between strings of meetings while we try to figure out how to raise these small people in this chaotic world. I think of my friends on Instagram tending to the selves they discovered when no one was watching and the scarf of ribbons stretching the length of more than three football fields. I remember my family of three, holding hands on the way up the ramp to the library. These bits of growth and rings of support might not be loud or right on the surface, but that’s not the same thing as nothing. If we only cared about the bottom-line defeats or sweeping successes of the big picture, we’d never plant flowers at all.

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How The Pandemic Has Changed The Way We Communicate

NPR's Lulu Garcia-Navarro speaks with Amelia Aldao, a clinical psychologist in New York City, about how the pandemic has impacted the ways we communicate with one another.

LULU GARCIA-NAVARRO, HOST:

Here in the United States, some 1,700 people are still dying every day, and tens of thousands are getting infected. It's been almost a year since the pandemic changed every aspect of our lives and, in particular, the way we communicate. We asked some of you to tell us about how you've talked to the people in your life, what's worked for you over the last year and what hasn't.

JAY DANIELS: Before COVID-19, we would, you know, have our occasional phone calls where I called my parents, like, every Wednesday. And I talked to my sister every once in a while. But the pandemic has changed all that. So we've gone from infrequent communication to now every Friday night, we have a Zoom dinner where the three families can get together, and the grandkids can see each other, and we can talk and have dinner together. We don't ever miss it.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

JESSICA LINEHAM: On Thursday, March 20, 2020, my book club was scheduled to meet. Another member suggested we get together on Zoom, something we'd never done before. The rest is history. Since then, we've met up every single Thursday. We don't talk about a book every week, but we do spend a few hours chatting, commiserating and remembering what it's like to see our friends. And while I'm looking forward to getting vaccinated and seeing them in person, I have a feeling we'll keep up our more frequent Zooms, too.

KAREN FREEMAN: I've always really loved writing handwritten letters and receiving them in the mail. So at the beginning of the pandemic, when I was missing my colleagues and friends, I gathered a bunch of postcards and started writing one to someone every day at lunch, someone I was thinking of and missing. And it was a great opportunity to connect with them. I loved receiving notes back and texts and people telling me how much it meant that I was thinking of them.

CLAIRE O'KEEFE: I teach community college, and probably the biggest change that I've witnessed is how the technologies that we rely on for remote learning have this tendency to bring new student voices into the conversation. Traditional face-to-face classes have a way of rewarding one kind of student, the one who's good at speaking extemporaneously and who is comfortable raising their hand. But now I hear from everybody, whether it's via discussion boards or the chat feature. And all of those multiple entry points have this wonderful, magical way of just blowing the class wide open.

CHRIS WELLS: My friends and I always found it hard to get together. And then the pandemic struck last March, and we found ourselves home alone. One thing that we all have in common is that we are Trekkies, meaning we love "Star Trek." And so we got together one night on Zoom and decided to watch an episode of "Star Trek: The Next Generation" together through one of the watch party services. Believe it or not, we've been getting together almost every night since then.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: That was Jay Daniels (ph), Jessica Lineham (ph), Karen Freeman (ph), Claire O'Keefe (ph) and Chris Wells (ph). While technology has been great for some people - and shoutout there to those "Star Trek" fans - there's a lot we do lose through a screen - eye contact, body language, nonverbal cues. We spoke with Amelia Aldao - she's a therapist in New York - about the future of post-pandemic communication. I asked her if we found ways to compensate for what we've lost.

AMELIA ALDAO: To be honest, no. If you actually think about it - right? - we are not necessarily making eye contact. We're looking at the person on the screen, but we're not really looking at the camera. And if we are looking at the camera, we're not actually looking at the person. And that's actually very different, right? It's sort of changing the way in which we are looking into each other. So the eye contact is off.

And I've noticed myself, my clients and also some of my friends as well that then when we go see people in real life, we get a little awkward with the whole eye contact because we're sort of forgetting how to do it outside of the small circle of people that maybe live in our household or that we see regularly. So the eye contact is a big adjustment that we're all going to be facing in the next few months, to be honest.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: So I asked people on Twitter what their experience has been with communicating during COVID, and some people had some really wonderful responses. You know, people are now handwriting each other letters as a reaction against this kind of enforced virtual world that we find ourselves in. They're playing board games virtually. They're talking with family that lives far away more often than they would otherwise. So there is, you know, something positive that we can take away from all this. Do you think we will take away some of this virtual connection when we move forward - there'll be a sort of hybrid?

ALDAO: Yeah, I absolutely think so, and I hope so as well. It is convenient to use all these technologies to communicate, and that's useful. What we're missing by doing things that are efficient - this is usually in general, right? Whenever we optimize for efficiency, we tend to lose depth, and we tend to lose connection. So I think it's going to be finding a balance between using technology so that we can do certain things more efficiently, faster, better and then find time and space to connect with people differently, one-on-one, in the sort of messiness of the real world.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: What do you tell your clients about how they should go back into the world as this pandemic and its effects end?

ALDAO: So the first thing that I tell my clients and my friends and myself and everybody who's willing to listen, to be honest, is that this is not going to be a switch that we turn on and off. Basically, approach this as a quote-unquote "exposure exercise." You know, maybe you grab a coffee with a friend one week. And then maybe two weeks later, you decide to make that into a dinner with a friend or a dinner with a friend and another friend.

So that's what I tell people - be patient. It's going to take a long time. But at the same time, you have to take agency and put yourself out there. And it's going to be awkward. It's going to be difficult. It's going to be anxiety-provoking. But it's really the only path forward. So that's how we're going to get through all of this.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Dr. Amelia Aldao is a therapist in New York City.

Thank you very much.

ALDAO: Yeah, thank you for having me.

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Writing about COVID-19 in a college admission essay

by: Venkates Swaminathan | Updated: September 14, 2020

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For students applying to college using the CommonApp, there are several different places where students and counselors can address the pandemic’s impact. The different sections have differing goals. You must understand how to use each section for its appropriate use.

The CommonApp COVID-19 question

First, the CommonApp this year has an additional question specifically about COVID-19 :

Community disruptions such as COVID-19 and natural disasters can have deep and long-lasting impacts. If you need it, this space is yours to describe those impacts. Colleges care about the effects on your health and well-being, safety, family circumstances, future plans, and education, including access to reliable technology and quiet study spaces. Please use this space to describe how these events have impacted you.

This question seeks to understand the adversity that students may have had to face due to the pandemic, the move to online education, or the shelter-in-place rules. You don’t have to answer this question if the impact on you wasn’t particularly severe. Some examples of things students should discuss include:

• The student or a family member had COVID-19 or suffered other illnesses due to confinement during the pandemic.
• The candidate had to deal with personal or family issues, such as abusive living situations or other safety concerns
• The student suffered from a lack of internet access and other online learning challenges.
• Students who dealt with problems registering for or taking standardized tests and AP exams.

Jeff Schiffman of the Tulane University admissions office has a blog about this section. He recommends students ask themselves several questions as they go about answering this section:

• Are my experiences different from others’?
• Are there noticeable changes on my transcript?
• Am I aware of my privilege?
• Am I specific? Am I explaining rather than complaining?
• Is this information being included elsewhere on my application?

If you do answer this section, be brief and to-the-point.

Counselor recommendations and school profiles

Second, counselors will, in their counselor forms and school profiles on the CommonApp, address how the school handled the pandemic and how it might have affected students, specifically as it relates to:

• Grading scales and policies
• Graduation requirements
• Instructional methods
• Schedules and course offerings
• Testing requirements
• Your academic calendar
• Other extenuating circumstances

Students don’t have to mention these matters in their application unless something unusual happened.

Writing about COVID-19 in your main essay

Write about your experiences during the pandemic in your main college essay if your experience is personal, relevant, and the most important thing to discuss in your college admission essay. That you had to stay home and study online isn’t sufficient, as millions of other students faced the same situation. But sometimes, it can be appropriate and helpful to write about something related to the pandemic in your essay. For example:

• One student developed a website for a local comic book store. The store might not have survived without the ability for people to order comic books online. The student had a long-standing relationship with the store, and it was an institution that created a community for students who otherwise felt left out.
• One student started a YouTube channel to help other students with academic subjects he was very familiar with and began tutoring others.
• Some students used their extra time that was the result of the stay-at-home orders to take online courses pursuing topics they are genuinely interested in or developing new interests, like a foreign language or music.

Experiences like this can be good topics for the CommonApp essay as long as they reflect something genuinely important about the student. For many students whose lives have been shaped by this pandemic, it can be a critical part of their college application.

Want more? Read 6 ways to improve a college essay , What the &%$! should I write about in my college essay , and Just how important is a college admissions essay? .

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• COVID-19 and your mental health

Worries and anxiety about COVID-19 and its impact can be overwhelming. Learn ways to cope during this pandemic.

The COVID-19 pandemic may have brought many changes to how you live your life, and with it, at times, uncertainty, altered daily routines, financial pressures and social isolation. You may worry about getting sick, how long the pandemic will last, whether your job will be affected and what the future will bring. Information overload, rumors and misinformation can make your life feel out of control and make it unclear what to do.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, you may experience stress, anxiety, fear, sadness and loneliness. And mental health disorders, including anxiety and depression, can worsen.

Surveys show a major increase in the number of U.S. adults who report symptoms of stress, anxiety, depression and insomnia during the pandemic, compared with surveys before the pandemic. Some people have increased their use of alcohol or drugs, thinking that can help them cope with their fears about the pandemic. In reality, using these substances can worsen anxiety and depression.

People with substance use disorders, notably those addicted to tobacco or opioids, are likely to have worse outcomes if they get COVID-19 . That's because these addictions can harm lung function and weaken the immune system, causing chronic conditions such as heart disease and lung disease, which increase the risk of serious complications from COVID-19 .

For all of these reasons, it's important to learn self-care strategies and get the care you need to help you cope.

Self-care strategies

Self-care strategies are good for your mental and physical health and can help you take charge of your life. Take care of your body and your mind and connect with others to benefit your mental health.

Take care of your body

Be mindful about your physical health:

• Get enough sleep. Go to bed and get up at the same times each day. Stick close to your typical sleep-wake schedule, even if you're staying at home.
• Participate in regular physical activity. Regular physical activity and exercise can help reduce anxiety and improve mood. Find an activity that includes movement, such as dance or exercise apps. Get outside, such as a nature trail or your own backyard.
• Eat healthy. Choose a well-balanced diet. Avoid loading up on junk food and refined sugar. Limit caffeine as it can aggravate stress, anxiety and sleep problems.
• Avoid tobacco, alcohol and drugs. If you smoke tobacco or if you vape, you're already at higher risk of lung disease. Because COVID-19 affects the lungs, your risk increases even more. Using alcohol to try to cope can make matters worse and reduce your coping skills. Avoid taking drugs to cope, unless your doctor prescribed medications for you.
• Limit screen time. Turn off electronic devices for some time each day, including 30 to 60 minutes before bedtime. Make a conscious effort to spend less time in front of a screen — television, tablet, computer and phone.
• Relax and recharge. Set aside time for yourself. Even a few minutes of quiet time can be refreshing and help to settle your mind and reduce anxiety. Many people benefit from practices such as deep breathing, tai chi, yoga, mindfulness or meditation. Soak in a bubble bath, listen to music, or read or listen to a book — whatever helps you relax. Select a technique that works for you and practice it regularly.

Take care of your mind

Reduce stress triggers:

• Keep your regular routine. Maintaining a regular daily schedule is important to your mental health. In addition to sticking to a regular bedtime routine, keep consistent times for meals, bathing and getting dressed, work or study schedules, and exercise. Also set aside time for activities you enjoy. This predictability can make you feel more in control.
• Limit exposure to news media. Constant news about COVID-19 from all types of media can heighten fears about the disease. Limit social media that may expose you to rumors and false information. Also limit reading, hearing or watching other news, but keep up to date on national and local recommendations. Look for reliable sources, such as the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the World Health Organization (WHO).
• Stay busy. Healthy distractions can get you away from the cycle of negative thoughts that feed anxiety and depression. Enjoy hobbies that you can do at home, such as reading a book, writing in a journal, making a craft, playing games or cooking a new meal. Or identify a new project or clean out that closet you promised you'd get to. Doing something positive to manage anxiety is a healthy coping strategy.
• Focus on positive thoughts. Choose to focus on the positive things in your life, instead of dwelling on how bad you feel. Consider starting each day by listing things you are thankful for. Maintain a sense of hope, work to accept changes as they occur and try to keep problems in perspective.
• Use your moral compass or spiritual life for support. If you draw strength from a belief system, it can bring you comfort during difficult and uncertain times.
• Set priorities. Don't become overwhelmed by creating a life-changing list of things to achieve while you're home. Set reasonable goals each day and outline steps you can take to reach those goals. Give yourself credit for every step in the right direction, no matter how small. And recognize that some days will be better than others.

Connect with others

Build support and strengthen relationships:

Make connections. If you work remotely from home or you need to isolate yourself from others for a period of time due to COVID-19 , avoid social isolation. Find time each day to make virtual connections by email, texts, phone or video chat. If you're working remotely from home, ask your co-workers how they're doing and share coping tips. Enjoy virtual socializing and talking to those in your home.

If you're not fully vaccinated, be creative and safe when connecting with others in person, such as going for walks, chatting in the driveway and other outdoor activities, or wearing a mask for indoor activities.

If you are fully vaccinated, you can more safely return to many indoor and outdoor activities you may not have been able to do because of the pandemic, such as gathering with friends and family. If you are in an area with a high number of people with COVID-19 in the hospital, the CDC recommends wearing a mask indoors in public or outdoors in crowded areas or in close contact with unvaccinated people. For unvaccinated people, outdoor activities that allow plenty of space between you and others pose a lower risk of spread of the COVID-19 virus than indoor activities do.

• Do something for others. Find purpose in helping the people around you. Helping others is an excellent way to help ourselves. For example, email, text or call to check on your friends, family members and neighbors — especially those who are older. If you know someone who can't get out, ask if there's something needed, such as groceries or a prescription picked up.
• Support a family member or friend. If a family member or friend needs to be quarantined at home or in the hospital due to COVID-19 , come up with ways to stay in contact. This could be through electronic devices or the telephone or by sending a note to brighten the day, for example.

Avoid stigma and discrimination

Stigma can make people feel isolated and even abandoned. They may feel depressed, hurt and angry when friends and others in their community avoid them for fear of getting COVID-19 .

Stigma harms people's health and well-being in many ways. Stigmatized groups may often be deprived of the resources they need to care for themselves and their families during a pandemic. And people who are worried about being stigmatized may be less likely to get medical care.

People who have experienced stigma related to COVID-19 include people of Asian descent, health care workers, people with COVID-19 and those released from quarantine. People who are stigmatized may be excluded or shunned, treated differently, denied job and educational opportunities, and be targets of verbal, emotional and physical abuse.

You can reduce stigma by:

• Getting the facts about COVID-19 from reputable sources such as the CDC and WHO
• Speaking up if you hear or see inaccurate statements about COVID-19 and certain people or groups
• Reaching out to people who feel stigmatized
• Showing support for health care workers

Recognize what's typical and what's not

Stress is a normal psychological and physical reaction to the demands of life. Everyone reacts differently to difficult situations, and it's normal to feel stress and worry during a crisis. But multiple challenges, such as the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, can push you beyond your ability to cope.

Many people may have mental health concerns, such as symptoms of anxiety and depression during this time. And feelings may change over time.

Despite your best efforts, you may find yourself feeling helpless, sad, angry, irritable, hopeless, anxious or afraid. You may have trouble concentrating on typical tasks, changes in appetite, body aches and pains, or difficulty sleeping or you may struggle to face routine chores.

When these signs and symptoms last for several days in a row, make you miserable and cause problems in your daily life so that you find it hard to carry out normal responsibilities, it's time to ask for help.

Get help when you need it

Hoping mental health problems such as anxiety or depression will go away on their own can lead to worsening symptoms. If you have concerns or if you experience worsening of mental health symptoms, ask for help when you need it, and be upfront about how you're doing. To get help you may want to:

• Call or use social media to contact a close friend or loved one — even though it may be hard to talk about your feelings.
• Contact a minister, spiritual leader or someone in your faith community.
• Contact your employee assistance program, if your employer has one, and ask for counseling or a referral to a mental health professional.
• Call your primary care professional or mental health professional to ask about appointment options to talk about your anxiety or depression and get advice and guidance. Some may provide the option of phone, video or online appointments.
• Contact organizations such as the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), or the Anxiety and Depression Association of America for help and guidance on information and treatment options.

If you're feeling suicidal or thinking of hurting yourself, seek help. Contact your primary care professional or a mental health professional. Or contact a suicide hotline. In the U.S., call or text 988 to reach the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline , available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Or use the Lifeline Chat . Services are free and confidential.

Continue your self-care strategies

You can expect your current strong feelings to fade when the pandemic is over, but stress won't disappear from your life when the health crisis of COVID-19 ends. Continue these self-care practices to take care of your mental health and increase your ability to cope with life's ongoing challenges.

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• Health effects of cigarette smoking. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/health_effects/effects_cig_smoking/index.htm#respiratory. Accessed March 25, 2020.
• Sawchuk CN (expert opinion). Mayo Clinic. March 27, 2020.
• Holman EA, et al. The unfolding COVID-19 pandemic: A probability-based, nationally representative study of mental health in the U.S. Science Advances. 2020; doi:10.1126/sciadv.abd5390.
• Wang QQ, et al. COVID-19 risk and outcomes in patients with substance use disorders: Analyses from electronic health records in the United States. Molecular Psychiatry. 2020; doi:10.1038/s41380-020-00880-7.
• Ettman CK, et al. Prevalence of depression symptoms in U.S. adults before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. JAMA Network Open. 2020; doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2020.19686.
• Czeisler ME, et al. Mental health, substance use, and suicidal ideation during the COVID-19 pandemic — United States, June 24-30, 2020. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6932a1.htm. Accessed Oct. 12, 2020.
• Social stigma associated with COVID-19. World Health Organization. https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/covid19-stigma-guide.pdf. Accessed Oct. 20, 2021.
• Yashadhana A, et al. Pandemic-related racial discrimination and its health impact among non-Indigenous racially minoritized peoples in high-income contexts: A systematic review. Health Promotion International. 2021; doi:10.1093/heapro/daab144.
• Participate in outdoor and indoor activities. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/daily-life-coping/outdoor-activities.html. Accessed Nov. 16, 2021.
• When you've been fully vaccinated. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/fully-vaccinated.html. Accessed Nov. 16, 2021.

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Effects of COVID-19 pandemic in daily life

Dear Editor,

COVID-19 (Coronavirus) has affected day to day life and is slowing down the global economy. This pandemic has affected thousands of peoples, who are either sick or are being killed due to the spread of this disease. The most common symptoms of this viral infection are fever, cold, cough, bone pain and breathing problems, and ultimately leading to pneumonia. This, being a new viral disease affecting humans for the first time, vaccines are not yet available. Thus, the emphasis is on taking extensive precautions such as extensive hygiene protocol (e.g., regularly washing of hands, avoidance of face to face interaction etc.), social distancing, and wearing of masks, and so on. This virus is spreading exponentially region wise. Countries are banning gatherings of people to the spread and break the exponential curve. 1 , 2 Many countries are locking their population and enforcing strict quarantine to control the spread of the havoc of this highly communicable disease.

COVID-19 has rapidly affected our day to day life, businesses, disrupted the world trade and movements. Identification of the disease at an early stage is vital to control the spread of the virus because it very rapidly spreads from person to person. Most of the countries have slowed down their manufacturing of the products. 3 , 4 The various industries and sectors are affected by the cause of this disease; these include the pharmaceuticals industry, solar power sector, tourism, Information and electronics industry. This virus creates significant knock-on effects on the daily life of citizens, as well as about the global economy.

Presently the impacts of COVID-19 in daily life are extensive and have far reaching consequences. These can be divided into various categories:

• • Challenges in the diagnosis, quarantine and treatment of suspected or confirmed cases
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• • Postponement of examinations

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• Published: 09 August 2021

Has the pandemic changed the way we communicate?

• David Westgarth 1  

BDJ In Practice volume  34 ,  pages 14–18 ( 2021 ) Cite this article

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Has COVID-19 changed the what and the how of communication?

What are the implications?

Could the changes be a good thing?

Introduction

There's a very funny picture doing the rounds on social media that says you can drive for four hours in America and you're on the same road in the same State, but in the same distance in UK the accent and name for a bread roll has changed 18 times. Besides the geographical challenges and differences posed by the countries, it is fascinating how language, accent and dialect change so much. Despite spending precisely zero minutes growing up in the North East, it's still the accent people tell me I have. And yet, after a weekend at home in Cumbria, upon my return to the city my Cumbrian accent is stronger than ever. Few people will forget how hilarious former England football manager Steve McLaren adopted a Dutch accent during his time coaching one of the country's clubs, only for it to disappear on his return to England.

The environment around us has a significant impact on what we say and how we say it. Throughout the pandemic, many of the normal social conventions have been put on hold, altered and changed. Dentistry felt those alterations and changes hard, but just how has communication within the profession been impacted?

The what and the how

There has been plenty said about the 'how' changes, most notably the increased use of teledentistry for patient-facing processes. Less has been said about the vast quantity of digital learning that has taken place, for dental students and those fully qualified. The disruption, as with most things since March 2020, provided challenges and opportunities. Research has previously highlighted four key areas that have been adversely impacted: 1

Online communication skills teaching

While not necessarily the optimum way to strengthen communication skills, many teachers are learning and seeking to identify best practices for virtual communication skills teaching during the pandemic. Teachers need information on how best to employ videoconferencing platforms such as Zoom and WebX for experiential communication skills learning, which includes peer role play and practice with simulated patients.

Clinical learners not seeing patients

In many health professional schools around the world, many clinical rotations have been suspended. Sharing resources for continuing case-based and other forms of learning in the absence of direct patient encounters is another pressing need and opportunity.

' The environment around us has a significant impact on what we say and how we say it. Throughout the pandemic, many of the normal social conventions have been put on hold, altered and changed.'

Workplace-based learning

Not all learners have been removed from clinical settings during the pandemic and many, such as residents, are experiencing increased clinical obligations. It will be helpful to identify opportunities for continued emphasis on communication skills learning and development in the clinical setting. Innovations that adhere to the need for physical distancing and still emphasise communication content could include virtual rounding, video recording with asynchronous feedback of learner-patient encounters, and communication-focused debriefing of patient/family encounters.

Virtual communication assessments

In addition to in-person teaching, the pandemic has made in- person assessments such as OSCEs untenable. Many schools are developing successful and innovative ways to continue to conduct communication-focused performance-based assessments, including involvement of simulated patients using videoconferencing platforms.

While I found it interesting that the authors highlighted that there are some successes and innovations to aid students, trainers and qualified alike, the impact caused by a lack of face-to-face training was not discussed. Dentistry by its very nature is hands-on, so who knows what impact that has had on dental student and course attendees? Only time will tell.

In addition to the setting, the qualifications and the virtual nature of conversations, what we say has also changed over the pandemic. Almost every conversation I've had with friends and loved ones has included a discussion on positivity rates, or R value, the vaccine or the desire for things to go back to the way they were. There are few situations where every person on the planet can sympathise and empathise with what you're going through; this is one of those. Pre-pandemic, what did a mask mean? Did it mean ski mask and thoughts of a happier nature? Did it mean a masquerade ball and again, happy, party vibes? In dentistry it was a staple of treating a patient. Its role hasn't changed. The difference was to talk to a patient, you could pop it off as soon as you were done treating them. To this end, it's another example of how practitioners talk to patients has changed. Practitioners need to enhance non-verbal communication to compensate for the loss of visible facial expression, as Jane Merivale has previously written:

'Facial expressions signal our thoughts and emotions and most of us become fairly adept at reading the faces of others to understand what they are thinking and feeling. We have evolved 42 muscles of facial expression for this purpose!

' Many schools are developing successful and innovative ways to continue to conduct communication-focused performance-based assessments, including involvement of simulated patients using videoconferencing platforms.'

'Being able to observe the mouth can impact on the patient's perception of a dentist's emotional intelligence, and their likeability, which directly affects patient satisfaction, regardless of the actual treatment outcome.' 2

Masks, necessary as they are, can create problems. Research shows high-frequency sounds are reduced by 3-4 decibels (dB) when wearing a surgical mask, and by 12 dB when wearing an N95 mask.3 A 10-decibel reduction will be twice as quiet as the original decibel reading. As people age, their hearing loss generally affects these higher frequencies, resulting in greater difficulty hearing. 4 Add some background noise (such as air purifiers for the room), and this decrease in decibels is enough of a reduction to affect the quality of speech for people with some level of hearing loss. 3

Masks also make it impossible to read lips. They muffle sounds, and with more than half of the face covered, it is more difficult to decipher facial expressions. Wearing two masks and a face shield likely affects the quality of speech even more. For patients to be able to make a decision on their treatment based on informed consent and understand all of their treatment options, the ability to hear and understand what we are attempting to communicate is of utmost importance.

Muffled sound through 15 months (and counting) of masked communication may also impact on how we pronounce our words. At Michigan State University Sociolinguistics Lab, a team of researchers have been collecting recorded speech from Michigan residents since the beginning of April 2020 to track changes to language during the pandemic. According to them, the most recent time a major event had such an impact on language was the Second World War, because it brought people together who ordinarily wouldn't have had contact with one another. They would have had to speak louder and clearer during bombing campaigns, for example.

With the pandemic, it's just the opposite. We've been pried apart, and 'you're on mute', 'you broke up a bit there' and 'I can't quite hear you' have become norms for meetings. Research isn't available to date, but anecdotally I would think I've probably changed how I speak - I'm louder, slower and clearer, for masks and for virtual discussions. For someone softly and quietly spoken, they would perhaps have had to adapt more than a public speaker, for example. And yet, as one of the points in Box 1 shows, it can be difficult to speak louder for clarity and retain patient confidentiality. This may well have been improved upon since the beginning of the pandemic, but as restrictions persist and foundation dentists take up posts from next month, it is something many will be encountering for the first time.

The implications

In the last ten years, the biggest change we have seen to communication is that it has become a lot more immediate. Instead of sending emails back and forth from the computer, and waiting for the recipient to be at their desk before they can send a reply, most people now have got access to instant messaging software, which is now becoming integrated into working offices too. When the very first iPhone came out back in 2007, no-one could foresee how smartphones would come to dominate our lives. Our phones are an essential lifeline - they're on the same checklist as keys, wallet and masks when you leave the house. Chances are you're probably reading this on your phone, too, as the number of mobile web users has now outstripped their desktop counterparts. Email does still have its place, but instant messaging apps will soon make them obsolete and a thing of the past at current rates of progress.

' Masks also make it impossible to read lips. They muffle sounds, and with more than half of the face covered, it is more difficult to decipher facial expressions.'

This immediacy means patients have come to expect it too, which is why you wonder if - for a large segment of patients - it should stay. It's one less barrier to getting patients into the practice. Toothbrushes use smart technology to send data back to a patient's dentist. It would perhaps be more cost-effective and enable dental practitioners with targets to achieve them easier. Would it even be a cost-effective bridge for patients to access private dentistry more often and take the pressure off the health service, clearly under pressure? These parameters would apply to a small section of the population, but the implications for a return to 'how things used to be' simply places pressure on a system still essentially operating with peak-pandemic restrictions; it shouldn't happen.

This has also led to another change in precisely how we communicate, namely the length of how we communicate. It wasn't all that long ago that you could expect lengthy emails about even the simplest of topics, Now, though, there's no need to do that when you're communicating with someone in 'real-time'. Conciseness is the order of the day, particularly because that ease of communication means that we often have a lot to keep on top of at once.

And that rings true of most scenarios, except for consent.

Conciseness is not the order of the day. As with consent, and the changes adopted as a result of the Montgomery case, records and consent need to be tailored to the individual patient and therefore being concise will never work in your favour. There is no substitute for good communication, and it is important that what is written in the records actually took place; the patient may argue that there was no such dialogue and no such agreement to proceed on those terms. BDA Indemnity has previously reaffirmed:

'In order to be valid, the consent process needs to be tailored to each patient and their particular circumstances, taking into account what matters most to them. Essentially, this summarises the legal precedent created by the Montgomery case in 2015. Hence your records are the only sure method of demonstrating the consent process which will inevitably evolve over the period you are treating the patient; remembering also that the patient can withdraw their consent at any point.' 5

When providing dental treatment, it is important that every patient fully understands any dental treatment that is proposed in order to make an informed decision about how they would like to proceed. Fully and concise in this scenario do not mix, and it is important to consider the implications of discussing treatment plans with a patient via traditional means and the problems associated with masks, and digital means, particularly if the patient seems like they'd rather be elsewhere.

Conversely, some of the problems that may arise from muffled communication - those with hearing difficulties, those who do not have English as their first language, those living with a disability or other impairment - may reverse the 'instant' nature of communication. Could practitioners be extra cautious about giving patients too much information if there are concerns about misinterpretations or misunderstandings? It's not beyond the realms of possibility, and yet there is still a balance to ensure the patient gets information they can understand and will digest.

True progress, or progress for the sake of it

Sometimes it can feel like technology is being used for the sake of it, and as a result there's no communication, other than with a responsive piece of software. Dentistry must not find itself implementing changes purely for the sake of it - any of the pandemic learnings integrated into everyday practising should be done so for the benefit of the patient and practitioner.

Take receptionists, for example. An integral part of the dental team, yet for some there will be a temptation to make the check-in process digital through touchpads and/or voice-activated programs. Their numbers could potentially dwindle. Besides the fact they're one skillset most at risk from COVID-19 given how many different people they see in a static environment, they're an invaluable asset in any practice. Could a touchpad resolve a query? Yes, most likely. Could a receptionist be able to iron out the beginnings of a complaint? Yes, absolutely. It's those intangible aspects that savings - which many practice owners will naturally seek to find post-pandemic - cannot replace.

' When providing dental treatment, it is important that every patient fully understands any dental treatment that is proposed in order to make an informed decision about how they would like to proceed.'

For dental students, would a hybrid model of learning be something they wish to incorporate? Do they need to be present in lectures as well as clinics? There's an argument for one, but a weaker one for the other.

Do practice meetings need to be in-person when everyone has adopted and integrated technology replacements so ably?

It's easy to say technology - in these scenarios - replaces the need for in-person communication. Truth is they do. The question is should they replace them, to which the answer is anything but straight forward. The 'soft skill' is something many are concerned is lacking in many students and young dentists, given their focus on clinical skills. Researchers have previously concluded that: ' An increase in service industry and competitive private practices emphasises the need for soft skills. Soft skills are used in personal and professional life.

'These soft skills help to organise, plan and manage, and track changes during the course of the growing dental practices. However, understanding of the soft skills in practice management, its simplicity and complex contexts of practice is essential. It is really helpful to all practitioners to grow their practices using soft skills.' 6

Given the shift to instant communication, and in a post-pandemic world where we're actively discouraged from being face-to-face with someone, being able to read the conversation, the flow and the body language, it will be fascinating to see the long-term impact this has on the profession - and wider society - moving forward.

COVID-19 has changed clinical communication practices, of that there is no doubt. The transition from and the balance of face-to-face communication with remote encounters has shifted, even for a profession as reliant upon in-person as dentistry. Which of those changes becomes the norm will only be seen once COVID-19 is in the rear view mirror - for how much longer will masks be mandatory for the entirety of the appointment? For how much longer will practitioners have to speak above air filtration units on top of that? How will this affect those of partial hearing too? How those changes affect the way we communicate will take even longer to gestate - will we all end up speaking slowly and loudly, like Brits abroad do when they want to order something off the menu from behind the counter but have no idea of how to do so in the local language? ◆

Box 1 Tips for masked communication

Dr Jane Merivale, senior dento-legal advisor for BDA Indemnity, has previously suggested the following for communicating wearing a mask2

The environment - Minimise the noise and distractions in the surgery; patients need to understand what is being said and if not hearing fully, especially in the absence of lip-reading cues, they will 'make a guess' at what's been said, particularly patients with a cognitive or hearing impediment

Make eye contact - This conveys 'I see you' activating empathy and connection. Too much and the patient feels uncomfortable, but enough strengthens the greeting and promotes trust

Introductions are key - Wear a name badge so everyone knows 'who's who' and their job title

Explain why you are wearing a mask - This can enhance trust in the dental setting signalling adherence to cross infection control measures given dentistry is carried out at such close quarters

Listen well - Let patients tell their story, uninterrupted

Give reassurance that the patient is safe and acknowledge the extra difficulties imposed by wearing a mask

Check your tone of voice - The tone conveys over 38% of the non-verbal emotional content of what we say. The pace, rhythm and pitch of spoken language is called prosody. Prosody infuses a layer of emotion that goes above and beyond the singular meaning of each word and we are all highly sensitive to variations in tone of voice. In a famous study by Nalini Ambady, audiotapes of surgeons talking with patients were filtered so only the volume, pace and rhythm of their communications were audible. When the tapes were played to a group of volunteers, listeners could determine the surgeons who had a history of complaints and claims

Name your emotion - If the PPE makes it difficult to express it: for example, 'You make me smile' or 'I empathise with you'

Convey openness, warmth and respect with body language - Sit down with patients, turn towards them, and sit at eye level whilst maintaining social distance.

Encourage questions to gauge understanding - In the face of any lack of comprehension that is critical to obtaining valid consent. Information gathered by the dentist may otherwise be incomplete leading to clinical and consent inaccuracies.

Use gestures - Thumbs up or down to clarify what has or hasn't been understood

Give more supplementary written information than usual

Safeguard confidentiality - It can be difficult to speak louder for clarity. You may have to move somewhere more confidential if the situation demands it

Use technology creatively to supplement information given - some dentists are experimenting with live transcript applications compatible with mobile phone technology as a means of communication solving, so the patient can listen again when they've left the surgery.

Rubinelli S, Myers K, Rosenbaum M and Davis D. Implications of the current COVID-19 pandemic for communication in healthcare. Patient Educ Couns 2020; 103: 1067-1069.

Merivale J. 'Masked' communication. BDJ In Pract 2021; 34: 28.

Goldin A, Weinstein B, Shiman N. How do medical masks degrade speech reception? Hearing Review 2020; 27: 8-9.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. What noises cause hearing loss? National Center for Environmental Health. Updated October 7, 2019. Available online at: www.cdc.gov/nceh/hearing_loss/what_noises_cause_hearing_loss.html (Accessed August 2021).

Merivale J. Adapting patient consent in response to COVID-19. BDJ In Pract 2021; 33: 26-27.

Dalaya M, Ishaquddin S, Ghadage M, Hatte G. An interesting review on soft skills and dental practice. J Clin Diagn Res 2015; 9: ZE19-ZE21.

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The pandemic has had devastating impacts on learning. What will it take to help students catch up?

Subscribe to the brown center on education policy newsletter, megan kuhfeld , megan kuhfeld senior research scientist - nwea @megankuhfeld jim soland , jim soland assistant professor, school of education and human development - university of virginia, affiliated research fellow - nwea @jsoland karyn lewis , and karyn lewis director, center for school and student progress - nwea @karynlew emily morton emily morton research scientist - nwea @emily_r_morton.

March 3, 2022

As we reach the two-year mark of the initial wave of pandemic-induced school shutdowns, academic normalcy remains out of reach for many students, educators, and parents. In addition to surging COVID-19 cases at the end of 2021, schools have faced severe staff shortages , high rates of absenteeism and quarantines , and rolling school closures . Furthermore, students and educators continue to struggle with mental health challenges , higher rates of violence and misbehavior , and concerns about lost instructional time .

As we outline in our new research study released in January, the cumulative impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on students’ academic achievement has been large. We tracked changes in math and reading test scores across the first two years of the pandemic using data from 5.4 million U.S. students in grades 3-8. We focused on test scores from immediately before the pandemic (fall 2019), following the initial onset (fall 2020), and more than one year into pandemic disruptions (fall 2021).

Average fall 2021 math test scores in grades 3-8 were 0.20-0.27 standard deviations (SDs) lower relative to same-grade peers in fall 2019, while reading test scores were 0.09-0.18 SDs lower. This is a sizable drop. For context, the math drops are significantly larger than estimated impacts from other large-scale school disruptions, such as after Hurricane Katrina—math scores dropped 0.17 SDs in one year for New Orleans evacuees .

Even more concerning, test-score gaps between students in low-poverty and high-poverty elementary schools grew by approximately 20% in math (corresponding to 0.20 SDs) and 15% in reading (0.13 SDs), primarily during the 2020-21 school year. Further, achievement tended to drop more between fall 2020 and 2021 than between fall 2019 and 2020 (both overall and differentially by school poverty), indicating that disruptions to learning have continued to negatively impact students well past the initial hits following the spring 2020 school closures.

These numbers are alarming and potentially demoralizing, especially given the heroic efforts of students to learn and educators to teach in incredibly trying times. From our perspective, these test-score drops in no way indicate that these students represent a “ lost generation ” or that we should give up hope. Most of us have never lived through a pandemic, and there is so much we don’t know about students’ capacity for resiliency in these circumstances and what a timeline for recovery will look like. Nor are we suggesting that teachers are somehow at fault given the achievement drops that occurred between 2020 and 2021; rather, educators had difficult jobs before the pandemic, and now are contending with huge new challenges, many outside their control.

Clearly, however, there’s work to do. School districts and states are currently making important decisions about which interventions and strategies to implement to mitigate the learning declines during the last two years. Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) investments from the American Rescue Plan provided nearly $200 billion to public schools to spend on COVID-19-related needs. Of that sum, $22 billion is dedicated specifically to addressing learning loss using “evidence-based interventions” focused on the “ disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on underrepresented student subgroups. ” Reviews of district and state spending plans (see Future Ed , EduRecoveryHub , and RAND’s American School District Panel for more details) indicate that districts are spending their ESSER dollars designated for academic recovery on a wide variety of strategies, with summer learning, tutoring, after-school programs, and extended school-day and school-year initiatives rising to the top.

Comparing the negative impacts from learning disruptions to the positive impacts from interventions

To help contextualize the magnitude of the impacts of COVID-19, we situate test-score drops during the pandemic relative to the test-score gains associated with common interventions being employed by districts as part of pandemic recovery efforts. If we assume that such interventions will continue to be as successful in a COVID-19 school environment, can we expect that these strategies will be effective enough to help students catch up? To answer this question, we draw from recent reviews of research on high-dosage tutoring , summer learning programs , reductions in class size , and extending the school day (specifically for literacy instruction) . We report effect sizes for each intervention specific to a grade span and subject wherever possible (e.g., tutoring has been found to have larger effects in elementary math than in reading).

Figure 1 shows the standardized drops in math test scores between students testing in fall 2019 and fall 2021 (separately by elementary and middle school grades) relative to the average effect size of various educational interventions. The average effect size for math tutoring matches or exceeds the average COVID-19 score drop in math. Research on tutoring indicates that it often works best in younger grades, and when provided by a teacher rather than, say, a parent. Further, some of the tutoring programs that produce the biggest effects can be quite intensive (and likely expensive), including having full-time tutors supporting all students (not just those needing remediation) in one-on-one settings during the school day. Meanwhile, the average effect of reducing class size is negative but not significant, with high variability in the impact across different studies. Summer programs in math have been found to be effective (average effect size of .10 SDs), though these programs in isolation likely would not eliminate the COVID-19 test-score drops.

Figure 1: Math COVID-19 test-score drops compared to the effect sizes of various educational interventions

Source: COVID-19 score drops are pulled from Kuhfeld et al. (2022) Table 5; reduction-in-class-size results are from pg. 10 of Figles et al. (2018) Table 2; summer program results are pulled from Lynch et al (2021) Table 2; and tutoring estimates are pulled from Nictow et al (2020) Table 3B. Ninety-five percent confidence intervals are shown with vertical lines on each bar.

Notes: Kuhfeld et al. and Nictow et al. reported effect sizes separately by grade span; Figles et al. and Lynch et al. report an overall effect size across elementary and middle grades. We were unable to find a rigorous study that reported effect sizes for extending the school day/year on math performance. Nictow et al. and Kraft & Falken (2021) also note large variations in tutoring effects depending on the type of tutor, with larger effects for teacher and paraprofessional tutoring programs than for nonprofessional and parent tutoring. Class-size reductions included in the Figles meta-analysis ranged from a minimum of one to minimum of eight students per class.

Figure 2 displays a similar comparison using effect sizes from reading interventions. The average effect of tutoring programs on reading achievement is larger than the effects found for the other interventions, though summer reading programs and class size reduction both produced average effect sizes in the ballpark of the COVID-19 reading score drops.

Figure 2: Reading COVID-19 test-score drops compared to the effect sizes of various educational interventions

Source: COVID-19 score drops are pulled from Kuhfeld et al. (2022) Table 5; extended-school-day results are from Figlio et al. (2018) Table 2; reduction-in-class-size results are from pg. 10 of Figles et al. (2018) ; summer program results are pulled from Kim & Quinn (2013) Table 3; and tutoring estimates are pulled from Nictow et al (2020) Table 3B. Ninety-five percent confidence intervals are shown with vertical lines on each bar.

Notes: While Kuhfeld et al. and Nictow et al. reported effect sizes separately by grade span, Figlio et al. and Kim & Quinn report an overall effect size across elementary and middle grades. Class-size reductions included in the Figles meta-analysis ranged from a minimum of one to minimum of eight students per class.

There are some limitations of drawing on research conducted prior to the pandemic to understand our ability to address the COVID-19 test-score drops. First, these studies were conducted under conditions that are very different from what schools currently face, and it is an open question whether the effectiveness of these interventions during the pandemic will be as consistent as they were before the pandemic. Second, we have little evidence and guidance about the efficacy of these interventions at the unprecedented scale that they are now being considered. For example, many school districts are expanding summer learning programs, but school districts have struggled to find staff interested in teaching summer school to meet the increased demand. Finally, given the widening test-score gaps between low- and high-poverty schools, it’s uncertain whether these interventions can actually combat the range of new challenges educators are facing in order to narrow these gaps. That is, students could catch up overall, yet the pandemic might still have lasting, negative effects on educational equality in this country.

Given that the current initiatives are unlikely to be implemented consistently across (and sometimes within) districts, timely feedback on the effects of initiatives and any needed adjustments will be crucial to districts’ success. The Road to COVID Recovery project and the National Student Support Accelerator are two such large-scale evaluation studies that aim to produce this type of evidence while providing resources for districts to track and evaluate their own programming. Additionally, a growing number of resources have been produced with recommendations on how to best implement recovery programs, including scaling up tutoring , summer learning programs , and expanded learning time .

Ultimately, there is much work to be done, and the challenges for students, educators, and parents are considerable. But this may be a moment when decades of educational reform, intervention, and research pay off. Relying on what we have learned could show the way forward.

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How has the pandemic changed the way you’ll learn?

As students gradually return to campus, many universities will be offering blended learning – mixing face-to-face lectures with the best of digital teaching

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T he past year and a half has been a learning experience for everyone in education. You might recall frustrating days battling your internet connection to log on to Teams classes. Similarly, the pandemic has been a baptism of fire for universities in how to deliver quality online learning.

While universities are planning to revert to their pre-pandemic state by autumn 2022, many are also thinking hard about the positive lessons that can be drawn from what’s happened. The main shift is likely to be around how much online teaching you get. Most universities are planning to use a “blended model” that will combine the flexibility of online lectures with more interactive activities in-person, such as labs, seminars, workshops and Q&A sessions.

“The reference to some universities talking about ending face-to-face lectures doesn’t mean students won’t be attending any in-person classes; it means they’ll move away from large lectures of 200 students upwards. We’ll see a lot more of these sessions provided online because that can be far more effective,” explains Liz Barnes, the vice-chancellor of Staffordshire University who has led a review into online learning..

Some universities and courses are planning for more online learning than others, so when you’re choosing a university think about what might work for you. A broad rule of thumb is that practical courses have more face-to-face contact hours than academic degrees which involve lots of reading.

Ask yourself: are you planning to commute, and would you prefer to only be in for a couple of days per week, with the rest online? Or do you need in-person teaching to motivate you and to meet new people? Some universities are offering a variety of options to suit different learning styles and personal circumstances. Most university websites aren’t able to supply the full details of how individual courses will be taught, so to find out the number of face-to-face contact hours you should ask the universities directly – and ideally visit an open day, says Barnes. She adds that the next year is still going to be a transition phase out of the pandemic, so things may well change in 2022.

If you’re concerned about whether online teaching means you’re getting worse value for money, this is actually not the case, assures Prof Allison Littlejohn, an academic at UCL specialising in learning technology.

“The time needed to prepare and produce online teaching materials is much higher than for on-campus lectures,” she says. Instead, most universities are shifting lectures online as they think it’s a better way for their students to learn.

If you’re still worried about surviving Zoom lectures, there are some strategies that can help.

“Don’t watch an entire, hour-long Zoom lecture. If the lecture is pre-recorded, combine watching it with active reflection on what you’re learning. If the lecture is live, find ways to interact with other students and with academics afterwards to discuss ideas and concepts,” recommends Littlejohn.

Interaction is an essential component of well-designed online learning, she says, so if it’s not included, ask your tutor to build in more time with individual students or in small groups, online or in person. You can also organise your own study groups to discuss what you’ve learned in a Zoom lecture or do problem-solving activities using new ideas and concepts.

One thing you might be worrying about is whether your disrupted school experience could hold you back at university.

“You might have had a poor experience with digital learning or feel less prepared for the academic challenges and independence university brings. So find out what a university is doing to help you around digital skills and how they support students,” recommends Ian Dunn, deputy vice-chancellor at Coventry University.

“Think about your last year of study during the Covid-19 pandemic and what you need from a learning and teaching perspective to thrive.”

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Sounds of Silence: How the Pandemic Has Impacted Our Communication Skills

Face-to-face communication and in-person socialization have suffered over the past year.

Pandemic Impact on Communication Skills

Every year since 1927, the month of May has been designated "Better Hearing & Speech Month" to promote awareness about communication disorders and the wide array of effective available treatment opportunities.

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Though the month has long passed, the need this year is greater than ever – all year long.

Changes to Our Way of Life

The pandemic has turned our lives upside-down. In early 2020, we had to transition from brick-and-mortar to virtual systems overnight . We jumped from our business offices to working from home and from in-person medical visits to telehealth. We embraced streaming services, takeout from restaurants and virtual holiday celebrations.

The timing of the pandemic was uncanny. Americans actually had the infrastructure to support it; we had become accustomed to online banking, Amazon deliveries and FaceTime chats with our out-of-town friends and relatives.

What a different scenario from 2014, when I came up with my business plan to create a virtual speech therapy company, called Great Speech Inc. Before the pandemic, our ability to conceive life virtually was not on the public's radar and was indeed groundbreaking. Today, telehealth and telemedicine are not only mainstream, but expected.

What we were not prepared for was the infectious nature and deadly capacity of this virus and how it affected face-to-face communication and in-person socialization. We sheltered in place, worked from home and Zoom-schooled our children. We found new ways to connect, share ideas around virtual conference tables and enjoy after-work activities. Our children were jolted from their daily school routines of sitting face-to-face in classrooms, participating in after-school activities and enjoying sleepovers, parties and play dates. With parks closed and field trips canceled, socialization and language development opportunities were unnaturally limited.

Face Coverings Complicate Connection

Beyond the day-to-day disruption, mandatory mask-wearing complicates our ability to communicate even further. Masks can make it hard to breathe, project our voices and use facial expressions to share our emotions.

As social creatures, we naturally crave connections and facial expressions are an essential part of non-verbal communication. It gives us the cues we need to promote conversation and establish and maintain social relationships.

We have all struggled to communicate with a mask. I personally have experienced the stress of making myself understood, particularly in a store with a lot of background noise. For the hearing-impaired, the combination of wearing a mask has been extraordinarily challenging. Unable to lip read, and without the visual cues of nonverbal communication, this segment of the population has been at an extreme disadvantage.

Communication Struggles Are a Universal Crisis

Most of us will bounce back from these challenges. The concern is for those who culturally, financially or geographically have limited access to health care services even during non-pandemic times.

Promoting better speech and hearing awareness is key in addressing these social determinants of health. Resources that enhance quality of life can have a significant influence on population health outcomes.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention , there are 34.2 million Americans diagnosed with diabetes. The National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders approximates 46 million Americans experience some form of communication disorder and 37.5 million Americans report having some form of hearing disorder. And these were the numbers before COVID. Yet, "diabetes is associated with substantial clinical and economic burdens" on patients and on the U.S. health care system, while communication disorders are not.

As a country, we spend billions of dollars treating diabetes which is the seventh leading cause of death in the U.S. Perhaps it's the mortality factor which naturally garners more awareness. Though communication disorders may cost the U.S. up to 186 billion dollars per year and may impact an individual's physical, social, educational and vocational health, the awareness is surprisingly limited.

What's Next

We need to create awareness for those who are not in grave danger yet are medically impaired and give a voice to those who cannot effectively speak for themselves.

I strongly suspect we will see the number rise for post-pandemic communication disorders. I have personally seen a dramatic increase in the inquiries in my virtual speech therapy practice; other therapists are reporting a similar increase. Think of the havoc COVID-19 wreaked on the larynx and vocal cords of those who were intubated, the front-line workers who had to work with masks and overuse their voices. Let us not forget those students who were not diagnosed during this school year with a speech or language delay.

The needs for communication remediation are not just limited to COVID-related issues. With the medical advances and increased survival rates of stroke patients, victims of car accidents and others who have sustained traumatic brain injuries, the State of Texas alone has guesstimated a 32% increase in speech therapy demand by 2028.

Awareness and Advocacy Are Key

While promoting awareness is key in remediating the problem of lack of access and the lack of education about the efficacy of virtual speech therapy , advocacy is also needed. Health care professionals should be encouraged to ask questions about communication issues and patients need to be empowered to express their need for services. The addition of communication concerns to the health care provider-patient conversation may be the powerful advocacy tool needed to propel the awareness to the level needed for action.

We are making strides with insurance companies who have been reluctant in the past to cover telehealth services but rose to the occasion during COVID for two reasons:

• One reason was that traditional delivery of services was impossible.
• The other reason is that consumers did not accept denial as the final act, but used it as an opportunity to continue the conversation and broaden the coverage for services.

Demand is one of the driving forces for change. Awareness and advocacy are equal partners.

By raising awareness, increasing demand and promoting advocacy, we can address communication disorders – both those related and unrelated to the pandemic – and promote the promising opportunities available for remediation by the speech and language therapy community.

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