thoughts about covid 19 pandemic essay brainly

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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8 Lessons We Can Learn From the COVID-19 Pandemic

BY KATHY KATELLA May 14, 2021

Note: Information in this article was accurate at the time of original publication. Because information about COVID-19 changes rapidly, we encourage you to visit the websites of the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC), World Health Organization (WHO), and your state and local government for the latest information.

The COVID-19 pandemic changed life as we know it—and it may have changed us individually as well, from our morning routines to our life goals and priorities. Many say the world has changed forever. But this coming year, if the vaccines drive down infections and variants are kept at bay, life could return to some form of normal. At that point, what will we glean from the past year? Are there silver linings or lessons learned?

“Humanity's memory is short, and what is not ever-present fades quickly,” says Manisha Juthani, MD , a Yale Medicine infectious diseases specialist. The bubonic plague, for example, ravaged Europe in the Middle Ages—resurfacing again and again—but once it was under control, people started to forget about it, she says. “So, I would say one major lesson from a public health or infectious disease perspective is that it’s important to remember and recognize our history. This is a period we must remember.”

We asked our Yale Medicine experts to weigh in on what they think are lessons worth remembering, including those that might help us survive a future virus or nurture a resilience that could help with life in general.

Lesson 1: Masks are useful tools

What happened: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) relaxed its masking guidance for those who have been fully vaccinated. But when the pandemic began, it necessitated a global effort to ensure that everyone practiced behaviors to keep themselves healthy and safe—and keep others healthy as well. This included the widespread wearing of masks indoors and outside.

What we’ve learned: Not everyone practiced preventive measures such as mask wearing, maintaining a 6-foot distance, and washing hands frequently. But, Dr. Juthani says, “I do think many people have learned a whole lot about respiratory pathogens and viruses, and how they spread from one person to another, and that sort of old-school common sense—you know, if you don’t feel well—whether it’s COVID-19 or not—you don’t go to the party. You stay home.”

Masks are a case in point. They are a key COVID-19 prevention strategy because they provide a barrier that can keep respiratory droplets from spreading. Mask-wearing became more common across East Asia after the 2003 SARS outbreak in that part of the world. “There are many East Asian cultures where the practice is still that if you have a cold or a runny nose, you put on a mask,” Dr. Juthani says.

She hopes attitudes in the U.S. will shift in that direction after COVID-19. “I have heard from a number of people who are amazed that we've had no flu this year—and they know masks are one of the reasons,” she says. “They’ve told me, ‘When the winter comes around, if I'm going out to the grocery store, I may just put on a mask.’”

Lesson 2: Telehealth might become the new normal

What happened: Doctors and patients who have used telehealth (technology that allows them to conduct medical care remotely), found it can work well for certain appointments, ranging from cardiology check-ups to therapy for a mental health condition. Many patients who needed a medical test have also discovered it may be possible to substitute a home version.

What we’ve learned: While there are still problems for which you need to see a doctor in person, the pandemic introduced a new urgency to what had been a gradual switchover to platforms like Zoom for remote patient visits. 

More doctors also encouraged patients to track their blood pressure at home , and to use at-home equipment for such purposes as diagnosing sleep apnea and even testing for colon cancer . Doctors also can fine-tune cochlear implants remotely .

“It happened very quickly,” says Sharon Stoll, DO, a neurologist. One group that has benefitted is patients who live far away, sometimes in other parts of the country—or even the world, she says. “I always like to see my patients at least twice a year. Now, we can see each other in person once a year, and if issues come up, we can schedule a telehealth visit in-between,” Dr. Stoll says. “This way I may hear about an issue before it becomes a problem, because my patients have easier access to me, and I have easier access to them.”

Meanwhile, insurers are becoming more likely to cover telehealth, Dr. Stoll adds. “That is a silver lining that will hopefully continue.”

Lesson 3: Vaccines are powerful tools

What happened: Given the recent positive results from vaccine trials, once again vaccines are proving to be powerful for preventing disease.

What we’ve learned: Vaccines really are worth getting, says Dr. Stoll, who had COVID-19 and experienced lingering symptoms, including chronic headaches . “I have lots of conversations—and sometimes arguments—with people about vaccines,” she says. Some don’t like the idea of side effects. “I had vaccine side effects and I’ve had COVID-19 side effects, and I say nothing compares to the actual illness. Unfortunately, I speak from experience.”

Dr. Juthani hopes the COVID-19 vaccine spotlight will motivate people to keep up with all of their vaccines, including childhood and adult vaccines for such diseases as measles , chicken pox, shingles , and other viruses. She says people have told her they got the flu vaccine this year after skipping it in previous years. (The CDC has reported distributing an exceptionally high number of doses this past season.)  

But, she cautions that a vaccine is not a magic bullet—and points out that scientists can’t always produce one that works. “As advanced as science is, there have been multiple failed efforts to develop a vaccine against the HIV virus,” she says. “This time, we were lucky that we were able build on the strengths that we've learned from many other vaccine development strategies to develop multiple vaccines for COVID-19 .” 

Lesson 4: Everyone is not treated equally, especially in a pandemic

What happened: COVID-19 magnified disparities that have long been an issue for a variety of people.

What we’ve learned: Racial and ethnic minority groups especially have had disproportionately higher rates of hospitalization for COVID-19 than non-Hispanic white people in every age group, and many other groups faced higher levels of risk or stress. These groups ranged from working mothers who also have primary responsibility for children, to people who have essential jobs, to those who live in rural areas where there is less access to health care.

“One thing that has been recognized is that when people were told to work from home, you needed to have a job that you could do in your house on a computer,” says Dr. Juthani. “Many people who were well off were able do that, but they still needed to have food, which requires grocery store workers and truck drivers. Nursing home residents still needed certified nursing assistants coming to work every day to care for them and to bathe them.”  

As far as racial inequities, Dr. Juthani cites President Biden’s appointment of Yale Medicine’s Marcella Nunez-Smith, MD, MHS , as inaugural chair of a federal COVID-19 Health Equity Task Force. “Hopefully the new focus is a first step,” Dr. Juthani says.

Lesson 5: We need to take mental health seriously

What happened: There was a rise in reported mental health problems that have been described as “a second pandemic,” highlighting mental health as an issue that needs to be addressed.

What we’ve learned: Arman Fesharaki-Zadeh, MD, PhD , a behavioral neurologist and neuropsychiatrist, believes the number of mental health disorders that were on the rise before the pandemic is surging as people grapple with such matters as juggling work and childcare, job loss, isolation, and losing a loved one to COVID-19.

The CDC reports that the percentage of adults who reported symptoms of anxiety of depression in the past 7 days increased from 36.4 to 41.5 % from August 2020 to February 2021. Other reports show that having COVID-19 may contribute, too, with its lingering or long COVID symptoms, which can include “foggy mind,” anxiety , depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder .

 “We’re seeing these problems in our clinical setting very, very often,” Dr. Fesharaki-Zadeh says. “By virtue of necessity, we can no longer ignore this. We're seeing these folks, and we have to take them seriously.”

Lesson 6: We have the capacity for resilience

What happened: While everyone’s situation is different­­ (and some people have experienced tremendous difficulties), many have seen that it’s possible to be resilient in a crisis.

What we’ve learned: People have practiced self-care in a multitude of ways during the pandemic as they were forced to adjust to new work schedules, change their gym routines, and cut back on socializing. Many started seeking out new strategies to counter the stress.

“I absolutely believe in the concept of resilience, because we have this effective reservoir inherent in all of us—be it the product of evolution, or our ancestors going through catastrophes, including wars, famines, and plagues,” Dr. Fesharaki-Zadeh says. “I think inherently, we have the means to deal with crisis. The fact that you and I are speaking right now is the result of our ancestors surviving hardship. I think resilience is part of our psyche. It's part of our DNA, essentially.”

Dr. Fesharaki-Zadeh believes that even small changes are highly effective tools for creating resilience. The changes he suggests may sound like the same old advice: exercise more, eat healthy food, cut back on alcohol, start a meditation practice, keep up with friends and family. “But this is evidence-based advice—there has been research behind every one of these measures,” he says.

But we have to also be practical, he notes. “If you feel overwhelmed by doing too many things, you can set a modest goal with one new habit—it could be getting organized around your sleep. Once you’ve succeeded, move on to another one. Then you’re building momentum.”

Lesson 7: Community is essential—and technology is too

What happened: People who were part of a community during the pandemic realized the importance of human connection, and those who didn’t have that kind of support realized they need it.

What we’ve learned: Many of us have become aware of how much we need other people—many have managed to maintain their social connections, even if they had to use technology to keep in touch, Dr. Juthani says. “There's no doubt that it's not enough, but even that type of community has helped people.”

Even people who aren’t necessarily friends or family are important. Dr. Juthani recalled how she encouraged her mail carrier to sign up for the vaccine, soon learning that the woman’s mother and husband hadn’t gotten it either. “They are all vaccinated now,” Dr. Juthani says. “So, even by word of mouth, community is a way to make things happen.”

It’s important to note that some people are naturally introverted and may have enjoyed having more solitude when they were forced to stay at home—and they should feel comfortable with that, Dr. Fesharaki-Zadeh says. “I think one has to keep temperamental tendencies like this in mind.”

But loneliness has been found to suppress the immune system and be a precursor to some diseases, he adds. “Even for introverted folks, the smallest circle is preferable to no circle at all,” he says.

Lesson 8: Sometimes you need a dose of humility

What happened: Scientists and nonscientists alike learned that a virus can be more powerful than they are. This was evident in the way knowledge about the virus changed over time in the past year as scientific investigation of it evolved.

What we’ve learned: “As infectious disease doctors, we were resident experts at the beginning of the pandemic because we understand pathogens in general, and based on what we’ve seen in the past, we might say there are certain things that are likely to be true,” Dr. Juthani says. “But we’ve seen that we have to take these pathogens seriously. We know that COVID-19 is not the flu. All these strokes and clots, and the loss of smell and taste that have gone on for months are things that we could have never known or predicted. So, you have to have respect for the unknown and respect science, but also try to give scientists the benefit of the doubt,” she says.

“We have been doing the best we can with the knowledge we have, in the time that we have it,” Dr. Juthani says. “I think most of us have had to have the humility to sometimes say, ‘I don't know. We're learning as we go.’"

Information provided in Yale Medicine articles is for general informational purposes only. No content in the articles should ever be used as a substitute for medical advice from your doctor or other qualified clinician. Always seek the individual advice of your health care provider with any questions you have regarding a medical condition.

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15 Lessons the Coronavirus Pandemic Has Taught Us

What we've learned over the past 12 months could pay off for years to come.

For the past year, our country has been mired in not one deep crisis but three: a pandemic , an economic meltdown and one of the most fraught political transitions in our history. Interwoven in all three have been challenging issues of racial disparity and fairness. Dealing with all of this has dominated much of our energy, attention and, for many Americans, even our emotions.

But spring is nearly here, and we are, by and large, moving past the worst moments as a nation — which makes it a good time to take a deep breath and assess the changes that have occurred. While no one would be displeased if we could magically erase this whole pandemic experience, it's been the crucible of our lives for a year, and we have much to learn from it — and even much to gain.

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AARP asked dozens of experts to go beyond the headlines and to share the deeper lessons of the past year that have had a particular impact on older Americans. More importantly, we asked them to share how we can use these learnings to make life better for us as we recover and move forward. Here is what they told us.

Lesson 1: Family Matters More Than We Realized

"The indelible image of the older person living alone and having to struggle — we need to change that. You're going to see more older people home-sharing within families and cohousing across communities to avoid future situations of tragedy."

—Marc Freedman, CEO and president of Encore.org and author of  How to Live Forever: The Enduring Power of Connecting the Generations

Norman Rockwell would have needed miles of canvas to portray the American family this past year. You can imagine the titles: The Family That Zooms Together. Generations Under One Roof. Grandkids Outside My Window. The Shared Office . “Beneath the warts and complexities of all that went wrong, we rediscovered the interdependence of generations and how much we need each other,” Freedman says. Among the lessons:

Adult kids are OK. A Pew Research Center survey last summer found that 52 percent of the American population between ages 18 and 29 were living with parents, a figure unmatched since the Great Depression. From February to July 2020, 2.6 million young adults moved back with one or both parents. That's a lot of shared Netflix accounts. It's also a culture shift, says Karen Fingerman, director of the Texas Aging & Longevity Center at the University of Texas at Austin. “After the family dinners together, grandparents filling in for childcare, and the wise economic sense, it's going to be acceptable for adult family members to co-reside,” Fingerman says. “At least for a while.”

What We've Learned From the Pandemic

•  Lesson 1: Family Matters •  Lesson 2: Medical Breakthroughs •  Lesson 3: Self-Care Matters •  Lesson 4: Be Financially Prepared •  Lesson 5: Age Is Just a Number •  Lesson 6: Getting Online for Good •  Lesson 7: Working Anywhere •  Lesson 8: Restoring Trust •  Lesson 9: Gathering Carefully •  Lesson 10: Isolation's Health Toll •  Lesson 11: Getting Outside •  Lesson 12: Wealth Disparities’ Toll •  Lesson 13: Preparing for the Future •  Lesson 14: Tapping Telemedicine •  Lesson 15: Cities Are Changing

Spouses and partners are critical to well-being . “The ones who've done exceptionally well are couples in long-term relationships who felt renewed intimacy and reconnection to each other,” says social psychologist Richard Slatcher, who runs the Close Relationships Laboratory at the University of Georgia.

Difficult caregiving can morph into good-for-all home-sharing.  To get older Americans out of nursing homes and into a loved one's home — a priority that has gained in importance and urgency due to the pandemic — will take more than just a willing child or grandchild. New resources could help, like expanding Medicaid programs to pay family caregivers, such as an adult child, or initiatives like the Program of All-Inclusive Care for the Elderly, a Medicare-backed benefit currently helping 50,000 “community dwelling” seniors with medical services, home care and transportation.

"A positive piece this year has been the pause to reflect on how we can help people stay in their homes as they age, which is what everyone wants,” says Nancy LeaMond, AARP's chief advocacy and engagement officer. “If you're taking care of a parent, grandparent, aging partner or yourself, you see more than ever the need for community and government support, of having technology to communicate with your doctor and of getting paid leave for family caregivers. The pandemic has forced us to think about all these things, and that's very positive.”

Family may be the best medicine of all . “Now we know if you can't hug your 18-month-old granddaughter in person, you can read to her on FaceTime,” says Jane Isay, author of several books about family relationships. “You can send your adult kids snail mail. You can share your life's wisdom even from a distance. These coping skills may be the greatest gifts of COVID” — to an older generation that deeply and rightly fears isolation.

Lesson 2: We Have Unleashed a Revolution in Medicine

" One of the biggest lessons we've learned from COVID is that the scientific community working together can do some pretty amazing things."

—John Cooke, M.D., medical director of the RNA Therapeutics Program at Houston Methodist Hospital's DeBakey Heart and Vascular Center

In the past it's taken four to 20 years to create conventional vaccines. For the new messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccines from Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna, it was a record-setting 11 months. The process may have changed forever the way drugs are developed.

"Breakthroughs” come after years of research . Supporting the development of the COVID-19 vaccines was more than a decade of research into mRNA vaccines, which teach human cells how to make a protein that triggers a specific immune response. The research had already overcome many challenging hurdles, such as making sure that mRNA wouldn't provoke inflammation in the body, says Lynne E. Maquat, director of the University of Rochester's Center for RNA Biology: From Genome to Therapeutics.

Vaccines may one day treat heart disease and more. In the near future, mRNA technology could lead to better flu vaccines that could be updated quickly as flu viruses mutate with the season, Maquat says, or the development of a “universal” flu shot that might be effective for several years. Drug developers are looking at vaccines for rabies, Zika virus and HIV. “I expect to see the approval of more mRNA-based vaccines in the next several years,” says mRNA researcher Norbert Pardi, a research assistant professor of medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.

"We could use mRNA for diseases and conditions that can't be treated with drugs,” Cooke explains.

It may also target our biggest killers . Future mRNA therapies could help regenerate muscle in failing hearts and target the unique genetics of individual cancers with personalized cancer vaccines. “Every case of cancer is unique, with its own genetics,” Cooke says. “Doctors will be able to sequence your tumor and use it to make a vaccine that awakens your immune system to fight it.” Such mRNA vaccines will also prepare us for future pandemics, Maquat says.

In the meantime, use the vaccines we have available. Don't skip recommended conventional vaccines now available to older adults for the flu, pneumonia, shingles and more, Pardi says. The flu vaccine alone, which 1 in 3 older adults skipped in the winter 2019 season, saves up to tens of thousands of lives a year and lowers your risk for hospitalization with the flu by 28 percent and for needing a ventilator to breathe by 46 percent.

Lesson 3: Self Care Is Not Self-Indulgence

"Not only does self-care have positive outcomes for you, but it also sets an example to younger generations as something to establish and maintain for your entire life."

—Richelle Concepcion, clinical psychologist and president of the Asian American Psychological Association

As the virus upended life last spring, America became hibernation nation. Canned, dry and instant soup sales have risen 37 percent since last April. Premium chocolate sales grew by 21 percent in the first six months of the pandemic. The athleisure market that includes sweatpants and yoga wear saw its 2020 U.S. revenue push past an estimated $105 billion.

With 7 in 10 American workers doing their jobs from home, “COVID turned the focus, for all ages, on the small, simple pleasures that soothe and give us meaning,” says Isabel Gillies, author of  Cozy: The Art of Arranging Yourself in the World.

Why care about self-care? Pampering is vital to well-being — for yourself and for those around you. Activities that once felt indulgent became essential to our health and equilibrium, and that self-care mindset is likely to endure. Whether it is permission to take long bubble baths, tinkering in the backyard “she shed,” enjoying herbal tea or seeing noon come while still in your robe, “being good to yourself offers a necessary reprieve from whatever horrors threaten us from out there,” Gillies says. Being good to yourself is good for others, too. A recent European survey found that 77 percent of British respondents 75 and younger consider it important to take their health into their own hands in order not to burden the health care system.

Nostalgia TV, daytime PJs. It's OK to use comfort as a crutch. Comfort will help us ease back to life. Some companies are already hawking pajamas you can wear in public. Old-fashioned drive-ins and virtual cast reunions for shows like  Taxi, Seinfeld  and  Happy Days  will likely continue as long as the craving is there. (More than half the consumers in a 2020 survey reported finding comfort in revisiting TV and music from their childhood.) Even the iconic “Got Milk?” ads are back, after dairy sales started to show some big upticks.

So, cut yourself some slack. Learn a new skill; adopt a pet; limit your news diet; ask for help if you need it. You've lived long enough to see the value of prioritizing number one. “Not only does self-care have positive outcomes for you,” Concepcion says, “but it also sets an example to younger generations as something to establish and maintain for your entire life."

Lesson 4: Have a Stash Ready for the Next Crisis

"The need to augment our retirement savings system to help people put away emergency savings is crucial."

—J. Mark Iwry, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and former senior adviser to the U.S. secretary of the Treasury

Before the pandemic, nearly 4 in 10 households did not have the cash on hand to cover an unexpected $400 expense, according to a Federal Reserve report. Then the economic downturn hit. By last October, 52 percent of workers were reporting reduced hours, lower pay, a layoff or other hits to their employment situation. A third had taken a loan or early withdrawal from a retirement plan , or intended to. “Alarm bells were already ringing, but many workers were caught off guard without emergency savings,” says Catherine Collinson, CEO and president of the Transamerica Institute. “The pandemic has laid bare so many weaknesses in our safety net."

Companies can help . One solution could be a workplace innovation that's just beginning to catch on: an employee-sponsored rainy-day savings account funded with payroll deductions. By creating a dedicated pot of savings, the thinking goes, workers are less likely to tap retirement accounts in an emergency. “It's much better from a behavioral standpoint to separate short-term savings from long-term savings,” Iwry says. (AARP has been working to make these accounts easier to create and use and is already offering them to its employees.)

Funding that emergency savings account with automatic payroll deductions is a key to the program's success. “Sometimes you think you don't have the money to save, but if a little is put away for you each pay period, you don't feel the pinch,” Iwry notes.

We're off to a good start . Thanks to quarantines and forced frugality, Americans’ savings rate — the average percentage of people's income left over after taxes and personal spending — skyrocketed last spring, peaking at an unprecedented 33.7 percent. On the decline since then, most recently at 13.7 percent, it's still above the single-digit rates characterizing much of the past 35 years. Where it will ultimately settle is unclear; currently, it's in league with high-saving countries Mexico and Sweden. The real model of thriftiness: China, where, according to the latest available figures, the household savings rate averaged at least 30 percent for 14 years straight.

Lesson 5: The Adage ‘Age Is Just a Number’ Has New Meaning

"This isn't just about the pandemic. Your health is directly related to lifestyle — nutrition, physical activity, a healthy weight and restorative sleep."

—Jacob Mirsky, M.D., primary care physician at the Massachusetts General Hospital Revere HealthCare Center and an instructor at Harvard Medical School

Just a few months ago, researchers at Scotland's University of Glasgow asked a big question: If you're healthy, how much does older age matter for risk of death from COVID? The health records of 470,034 women and men revealed some intriguing answers.

Age accounted for a higher risk, but comorbidities (essentially, having two or more health issues simultaneously) mattered much more. Specifically, risk for a fatal infection was four times higher for healthy people 75 and older than for all participants younger than 65. But if you compared all those 75 and older — including those with chronic health condition s like high blood pressure, obesity or lung problems — that shoved the grim odds up thirteenfold.

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Live healthfully, live long . More insights from the study: A healthy 75-year-old was one-third as likely to die from the coronavirus as a 65-year-old with multiple chronic health issues. The bottom line: Age affects your risk of severe illness with COVID, but you should be far more focused on avoiding chronic health conditions. “Coronavirus highlighted yet another reason it's so important to attend to health factors like poor diet and lack of exercise that cause so much preventable illness and death,” says Massachusetts General's Mirsky. “Lifestyle changes can improve your overall health, which will likely directly reduce your risk of developing severe COVID or dying of COVID."

Exercise remains critical . In May 2020 a British study of 387,109 adults in their 40s through 60s found a 38 percent higher risk for severe COVID in people who avoided physical activity. “Mobility should be considered one of the vital signs of health,” concludes exercise psychologist David Marquez, a professor in the department of kinesiology and nutrition at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

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Lesson 6: We Befriended Technology, and There's No Going Back

"Folks who have tried online banking will stay with it. It won't mean they won't go back to branches, but they might go back for a different purpose."

—Theodora Lau, founder of financial technology consulting firm Unconventional Ventures

Of course, the world has long been going digital . But before the pandemic, standard operating procedure for most older Americans was to buy apples at the grocery, try the shoes on first before buying, have your doctor measure your blood pressure and see that hot new movie at the theater.

Arguably the biggest long-term societal effect of the pandemic will be a grand flipping of the switch that makes the digital solution the first choice of many Americans for handling life's tasks. We still may cling to a few IRL (in real life) experiences, but it is increasingly apparent that easy-to-use modern virtual tools are the new default.

"If nothing else, COVID has shown us how resilient and adaptable humans are as a society when forced to change,” says Joseph Huang, CEO of StartX, a nonprofit that helps tech companies get off the ground. “We've been forced to learn new technologies that, in many cases, have been the only safe way to continue to live our lives and stay connected to our loved ones during the pandemic.”

The tech boom wasn't just video calls and streaming TV. Popular food delivery apps more than doubled their earnings last year. Weddings and memorial services were held over videoconferences (yes, we'll go back to in-person ones but probably with cameras and live feeds now to include remote participants). In the financial sector, PayPal reported that its fastest-growing user group was people over 50; Chase said about half of its new online users were 50-plus. In telehealth, more doctors conducted routine exams via webcam than ever before — and, in response, insurance coverage expanded for these remote appointments. “It quickly became the only way to operate at scale in today's world,” Huang says, “both for us as patients and for the doctors and nurses who treat us. Telemedicine will turn out to be a better and more effective experience in many cases, even after COVID ends."

Tech is for all . To financial technology expert Lau, the tech adoption rate by older people is no surprise. She never believed the myth that older people lack such knowledge. “There's a difference between knowing how to use something versus preferring to use it,” Lau says. “Sometimes we know how, but we prefer face-to-face interaction.” And now those preferences are shifting.

Lesson 7: Work Is Anywhere Now — a Shift That Bodes Well for Older Americans

"One of the major impacts of the new working-from-home focus is that more jobs are becoming non-location-specific."

—Carol Fishman Cohen, cofounder of iRelaunch, which works with employers to create mid-career return-to-work programs for older workers

Necessity is the mother of reinvention : Forced to work remotely since the onset of the pandemic, millions of workers — and their managers — have learned they could be just as productive as they were at the office, thanks to videoconferencing, high-speed internet and other technologies. “This has opened a lot of corporate eyes,” says Steven Allen, professor of economics at North Carolina State University's Poole College of Management. Twitter, outdoor-goods retailer REI and insurer Lincoln Financial Group are a few of the companies that have announced plans to shift toward more remote work on a permanent basis.

Face-lift your Face-Time . Yes, many workers are tied to a location: We will always need nurses, police, roofers, machine operators, farmers and countless other workers to show up. But if you are among the people who are now able to work remotely, you may be able to live in a less expensive area than where your employer is based — or work right away from the home you were planning to retire to later on, Cohen says. As remote hiring takes hold, how you project yourself on-screen becomes more of a factor. “This puts more pressure on you to make sure you show up well in a virtual setting,” Cohen notes. And don't assume being comfortable with Zoom is a feather in your cap; mentioning it is akin to listing “proficient in Microsoft Word” on your résumé.

Self-employed workers have suffered during the pandemic — nearly two-thirds report being hurt financially, according to the “State of Independence in America 2020” report from MBO Partners — but remote work could fuel their comeback. Before the pandemic, notes Steve King, partner at Emergent Research, businesses with a high percentage of remote workers used a high percentage of independent contractors. “Now that companies are used to workers not being as strongly attached physically to a workplace, they'll be more amenable to hiring independent workers,” he says.

Travel less, stay longer . Tired of sitting in traffic to and from work? Can't stand flying across country for a single meeting? Ridding yourself of these hassles with an internet connection and Zoom calls may be the incentive you need to work longer. People often quit jobs because of little frustrations, Allen says. But now, he adds, “the things that wear you down may be going by the wayside."

Ageism remains a threat . Older workers — who before the coronavirus enjoyed lower unemployment rates than mid-career workers — have been hit especially hard by the pandemic. In December, 45.5 percent of unemployed workers 55 and older had been out of work for 27 weeks or more, compared with 35.1 percent of younger job seekers. Some employers, according to reports this fall, are replacing laid-off older workers with younger, lower-cost ones, instead of recalling those older employees. Psychological studies, Allen says, indicate that older workers have better communication and interpersonal skills — both of which are critical for successful remote work. But whether those strengths can offset age discrimination in the workplace is unknown.

Lesson 8: Our Trust in One Another Has Frayed, but It Can Be Slowly Restored

"Truth matters, but it requires messaging and patience.”

—Historian John M. Barry, author of  The Great Influenza

Even before our views perforated along lines dotted by pandemic politics, race, class and whether Bill Gates is trying to save us or track us, we were losing faith in society. In 1997, 64 percent of Americans put a “very great or good deal of trust” in the political competence of their fellow citizens; today only a third of us feel that way. A 2019 Pew survey found that the majority of Americans say most people can't be trusted. It's even tougher to trust in the future. Only 13 percent of millennials say America is the greatest country in the world, compared with 45 percent of members of the silent generation. No wonder that by June of last year, “national pride” was lower than at any point since Gallup began measuring. To trust again:

As life returns, look beyond your familiar pod. “Distrust breeds distrust, but hope isn't lost for finding common ground, especially for older people,” says Encore.org's Freedman. “Even in the era of ‘OK, boomer’ and ‘OK, millennial’ — memes that dismiss entire generations with an eye roll — divides are bridgeable with what Freedman calls “proximity and purpose.” Rebuilding trust together, across generations, under shared priorities and common humanity.” He points to pandemic efforts like Good Neighbors from the home-sharing platform Nesterly, which pairs older and younger people to provide cross-generational support, and UCLA's Generation Xchange, which connects Gen X mentors with children in grades K-3 in South Los Angeles, where educational achievement is notoriously poor. “Engaging with people for a common goal makes you trust them,” he says.

Be patient but verify facts. History also provides a guide. In the wake of the 1918 influenza pandemic that killed between 50 million and 100 million people, trust in authority withered after local and national government officials played down the disease's threats in order to maintain wartime morale. Historian Barry points out that the head of the Army's’ division of communicable diseases was so worried about the collective failure of trust that he warned that “civilization could easily disappear ... from the face of the earth.” It didn't then, and it won't now, Barry says.

Verify facts and then decide. Check reliable, balanced news sources (such as Reuters and the Associated Press) and unbiased fact-checking sites (such as PolitiFact) before clamping down on an opinion.

Perhaps most important, be open to changing conditions and viewpoints. “As we see vaccines and therapeutic drugs slowly gain widespread success in fighting this virus, I think we'll start to overcome some of our siloed ways of thinking and find relief — together as one — that this public health menace is ending,” Barry adds. “We have to put our faith in other people to get through this together.”

Lesson 9: The Crowds Will Return, but We'll Gather Carefully

"Masks and sanitizers will be part of the norm for years, the way airport and transportation security measures are still in place from 9/11."

— Christopher McKnight Nichols, associate professor of history at Oregon State University and founder of the Citizenship and Crisis Initiative

The COVID-19 pandemic won't end with bells tolling or a ticker-tape parade . Instead, we'll slowly, cautiously ease back to familiar activities. For all our fears of the coronavirus, many of us can't wait to resume a public life: When 1,000 people 65 and older were asked which pursuits they were most eager to start anew post-pandemic, 78 percent said going out to dinner, 76 percent picked getting together with family and friends, 71 percent chose travel, and 30 percent cited going to the movies.

Seeing art , attending concerts, cheering in a stadium — even going to class reunions we might have once dreaded — we'll do them again. But how will we return to feeling comfortable in groups of tens, hundreds and thousands? And will these gatherings be different? How we come together:

Don't expect the same old, same old . Just as the rationing, isolation and economic crisis caused by World War I and the Spanish flu epidemic “led to a kind of awakening of how we assembled,” Nichols says, expect COVID to shake up the nature and personality of our public spaces. Back in the 1920s, it was the rise of jazz clubs, organized athletics, fraternal organizations and the golden age of the movie cinema. As the pandemic subsides, we'll probably see more temperature-controlled outdoor event and dining spaces, more pedestrian and bicycling options, more city parks and more hybrid events that give you the option to attend virtually.

Retrain your brain . Psychologists say the techniques of cognitive behavioral therapy can help people at any age regain the certainty and confidence they need to venture into the public space post-pandemic. “Visualizing good outcomes and repeating a stated goal can help overcome whatever obstacles are holding you back,” says Gabriele Oettingen, a professor of psychology at New York University, who suggests making an “if-then plan” to reacclimate to public life. If eating indoors at a restaurant is too agitating, even if you've been vaccinated, then try a table outside first. If a bucket-list family vacation to Italy feels too daunting, then book a stateside trip together first. “There's always an alternative if something stands in the way of you fulfilling your wish,” she says. “Eventually, you'll get there.”

Lesson 10: Loneliness Hurts Health More Than We Thought

"What we've learned from COVID is that isolation is everyone's problem. It doesn't just happen to older adults; it happens to us all."

— Julianne Holt-Lunstad, professor of psychology and neuroscience at Brigham Young University

How deadly is the condition of loneliness? During the first five months of the pandemic, nursing home lockdowns intended to safeguard older and vulnerable adults with dementia contributed to the deaths of an additional 13,200 people compared with previous years, according to a shocking  Washington Post  investigation published last September. “People with dementia are dying,” the article notes, “not just from the virus but from the very strategy of isolation that's supposed to protect them.”

Isolation may be the new normal . Fifty-six percent of adults age 50-plus said they felt isolated in June 2020, double the number who felt lonely in 2018, a University of Michigan poll found. Rates of psychological distress rose for all adults as the pandemic deepened — increasing sixfold for young adults and quadrupling for those ages 30 to 54, according to a Johns Hopkins University survey published in  JAMA  in June. And it's hard to tell whether the workplace culture many of us relied on for social support will fully return anytime soon.

Those 50-plus have a leg up. “Older adults with higher levels of empathy, compassion, decisiveness and self-reflection score lowest for loneliness,” says Dilip Jeste, M.D., director of the Sam and Rose Stein Institute for Research on Aging at the University of California, San Diego. “Research shows that many older adults have handled COVID psychologically better than younger adults. With age comes experience and wisdom. You've lived through difficult times before and survived.”

Help yourself by helping others. Jeste says that when older adults share their wisdom with younger people, everyone benefits. “Young people are reassured about the future,” he adds. “Older adults feel even more confident. They're role models. Their contributions matter."

Lesson 11: When Your World Gets Small, Nature Lets Us Live Large

"For older people in particular, nature provided a way to shake off the weight and hardships associated with stay-at-home orders, of social isolation and of the stress of being the most vulnerable population in the pandemic."

— Kathleen Wolf, a research social scientist in the School of Environmental and Forest Sciences at the University of Washington

One silver lining to COVID-19's dark cloud : Clouds themselves became more familiar to all of us. So did birds, trees, bees, shooting stars and window gardens. Nearly 6 in 10 Americans have a new appreciation for nature because of the pandemic, according to one survey that also found three-quarters of respondents reported a boost in their mood while spending time outside.

By nearly every measure, the planet got more love during COVI D. And wouldn't it be nice if that continued going forward? The ins and outs on our new outdoor life:

Move somewhere greener (or at least move around more outside). How you access nature is up to you, but consider the options. Nearly a third of Americans were considering moving to less populated areas, according to a Harris Poll taken last year during the pandemic. Walking, running and hiking became national pastimes. One day last September, Boston's BlueBikes bike-share system saw its highest-ever single-day ridership, with 14,400 trips recorded. Stargazers and bird-watchers helped push binocular sales up 22 percent.

Once known mainly as a retirement activity, pickleball has been the fastest-growing sport in America, with almost 3.5 million U.S. players of all ages participating in the contact-free outdoor net game designed for players of any athletic ability. The return of the pandemic “victory garden” reflects research that finds 79 percent of patients feel more relaxed and calm after spending time in a garden.

Make the city less gritty . The University of Washington's Wolf thinks that our collective nature kick will go beyond a run on backyard petunias. Her research brief on the benefits of nearby nature in cities for older adults suggests we may rethink the design of neighborhood environments to facilitate older people's outdoor activities. That means more places to sit, more green spaces associated with the health status of older people, safer routes and paths, and more allotment for community gardens. “It's impossible to overestimate the value these outdoor spaces have on reducing stressful life events, improving working memory and adding meaning and happiness in older people's lives,” Wolf says.

If you can't get out, bring nature in . Even video and sounds of nature can provide health gains to those shut indoors, says Marc Berman of the University of Chicago's Environmental Neuroscience Lab. “Listening to recordings of crickets chirping or waves crashing improved how our subjects performed on cognitive tests,” he says.

Above all, the environment is in your hands, so take action to protect it . “We've seen a lot of older folks stepping up their activity in trail conservation, stream cleaning, being forest guides and things like that this year, which indicates a shift in how that age group interacts with nature,” says Cornell University gerontologist Karl Pillemer.

"There's an old saw that older people care less than younger people about the environment. But given this year's nature boom, I'm expecting that to change. As the generation that gave birth to the environmental movement enters retirement, we're likely to see a wave of interest in conservation among those 60 and up."

Lesson 12: You Can Hope for Stability — but Best Be Prepared for the Opposite

"COVID-19, perhaps more than any other disaster, demonstrated that we need to continue ensuring response plans are flexible and scalable. You can't predict exactly what a disaster will bring, but if you know what tools you have in your tool kit, you can pull out the right one you need when you need it."

— Linda Mastandrea, director of the Office of Disability Integration and Coordination for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)

The pandemic was among the toughest slap-in-the-face moments in recent history to remind us that everything —  everything  — in our lives can change in a moment. While older Americans may have a deep-seated desire for stability and security after all it took to get to an advanced age, we certainly cannot bank on it. Which is why the word of the year, and perhaps the coming century, is “resilience.” Not just at the individual level but at every social tier, from family to community to the nation as a whole.

Banish fear . “We don't have to live in fear” of some looming disaster, says former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Tom Frieden, now president and CEO of global public health initiative Resolve to Save Lives. “By strengthening our defenses and investing in preparedness, we can live easier knowing that communities have what they need to better respond in moments of crisis."

Preparation must start at the top . For government, that means a new commitment to plans that allow, not so much for stockpiles but for the ability to ramp up production of crucial equipment when needed. “We need increased, sustained, predictable base funding for public health security defense programs that prevent, detect and respond to outbreaks such as COVID-19 or pandemic influenza,” Frieden says.

Being creative and even entrepreneurial helps , says Jeff Schlegelmilch, director of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness at Columbia University's Earth Institute. Warehouses full of masks could have helped us initially, he says, but stockpiles of equipment aren't the answer on their own. In a free market there is pressure to sell off surpluses, so he suggests we reimagine our manufacturing capacities for times of emergency. When whiskey distillers stepped up to make hand sanitizer, and auto manufacturers switched gears to build ventilators, we saw “glimmers of solutions,” Schlegelmilch says, the sort of responses we may need to tee up in the future.

Focus on health care . Prime among the areas that need to be addressed, crisis management consultant Luiz Hargreaves says, are overwhelmed health care systems. “They were living a disaster before the pandemic. When the pandemic came, it was a catastrophe.” But Hargreaves hopes we will use this wake-up call to produce new solutions, rather than to return to old ways. “Extraordinary times,” he says, “call for extraordinary measures."

Lesson 13: Wealth Inequality Is Growing, and It Affects Us All

"It's outrageous that somebody could work full-time and not even be able to pay rent, let alone food and clothing. There's a recognition that there's a problem on both the left and right. "

— Joseph Stiglitz, Nobel Prize–winning economist, Columbia University professor and author of  The Price of Inequality

"The data is pretty dramatic,” says Stiglitz, one of America's most-esteemed economists. Government economists estimate that unemployment rates in this pandemic are less than 5 percent for the highest earners but as high as 20 percent for the lowest-paid ones. “People at the bottom have disproportionately experienced the disease, and those at the bottom have lost jobs in enormous disproportion, too."

As white-collar professionals work from home and stay socially distant, frontline workers in government, transportation and health care — as well as retail, dining and other service sectors — face far greater health risks and unemployment. “We try to minimize interactions as we try to protect ourselves,” he says, “yet we realize that minimizing those interactions is also taking away jobs.” The disparate effects of the pandemic are particularly evident along racial lines, points out Jean Accius, AARP senior vice president for global thought leadership. “Job losses have hit communities of color disproportionately,” he says. And there's a health gap, too, with people of color — who have a greater likelihood than white Americans to be frontline workers — experiencing higher rates of COVID-19 infection, hospitalizations and mortality, and lower rates of vaccinations. “What we're seeing is a double whammy for communities of color,” Accius says. “It is hitting them in their wallets. And it's hitting them with regard to their health."

Those economic and health crises, along with protests over racial injustice over the past year, says Accius, “have really sparked major conversations around what do we need to do in order to advance equity in this country."

A rising gap between rich and poor in any society, Stiglitz argues, increases economic instability, reduces opportunities and results in less investment in public goods such as education and public transportation. But the country appears primed to make some changes that could help narrow the wealth gap, he says. Among them are President Biden's proposals to raise the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour, increase the earned income tax credit for low-income workers and provide paid sick leave. Stiglitz also proposes raising taxes on gains from sales of stocks and other securities not held in retirement accounts. “The notion that people who work for a living shouldn't pay higher taxes than those who speculate for a living seems not to be a hard idea to get across,” Stiglitz says.

"Many people continue to say, ‘It's time for us to get back to normal,'” Accius says. “Well, going back to normal means that we're in a society where those that have the least continue to be impacted the most — a society where older adults are marginalized and communities of color are devalued. We have to be honest with what we are going through as a collective nation. And then we have to be bold and courageous, to really build a society where race and other social demographic factors do not determine your ability to live a longer, healthier and more productive life.”

Who Owns America's Wealth?

For Some, Hard Times Bring Opportunity

Want a positive reminder of the American way? When the going got tough this past summer, many people responded by planning a new business. In the second half of 2020, there was a 40 percent jump over the prior year's figures in applications to form businesses highly likely to hire employees, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

Significantly, no such spike occurred during the Great Recession, points out Alexander Bartik, assistant professor of economics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. “That's cause for some optimism — that there are people who are trying to start new things,” he says. One possible reason this time is different: Unlike during that recession, the stock market and home values have held on, and those sources of personal wealth are often what people draw upon to fund small-business start-ups.

High-propensity* Business Applications in the U.S.

*Businesses likely to have employees

Lesson 14: The Benefits of Telemedicine Have Become Indisputable

"The processes we developed to avoid face-to-face care have transformed the way we approach diabetes care management.”

— John P. Martin, M.D., codirector of Diabetes Complete Care for Kaiser Permanente Southern California

If there was ever any truth to the stereotype of the older person whose life revolved around a constant calendar of in-person doctor appointments, it's certainly been tossed out the window this past year due to the strains of the pandemic on our health care system. The timing was fortuitous in one way: Telemedicine was ready for prime time and has proved to be a godsend, particularly for those with chronic health conditions.

Say goodbye to routine doctor visits . Patients who sign up for remote blood sugar monitoring at Kaiser Permanente in Southern California use Bluetooth-enabled meters to transmit results via a smartphone app directly to their health records. “ Remote monitoring allows us to recognize early when there should be adjustments to treatment,” Martin says.

We need to push for more access . The pandemic underlines the need for more home-based medical help with chronic conditions. But that takes both willingness and a lot of gear, such as Bluetooth-enabled blood pressure monitors and, on the doctor side, systems to store and analyze the data. “People need access to the equipment, and health care systems have to be ready to handle all that data,” says Mirsky of Massachusetts General Hospital.

Group doctor visits may be a way forward . Mirsky is conducting virtual group visits and remote monitoring of blood sugar for his patients with type 2 diabetes. “Instead of having a few minutes with each person to talk about important issues — like blood sugar testing, diet and exercise — we get an hour or more to go over it,” he says. “At every meeting somebody in the group has a great tip I've never heard of, like a new YouTube exercise channel or fitness app. There's group support, too. I see group visits like this continuing into the future, becoming part of routine chronic disease care for all patients who want it."

Bottom line: The doctor is in (your house) . Managing chronic health conditions like diabetes “can't just be about getting in your car and driving to your doctor's office,” Martin says. Taking care of your health conditions yourself is the path forward.

Lesson 15: Our Cities Won't Ever Be the Same

"This is obviously a very big watershed moment in how we live, how we organize our cities and our communities. There are going to be long-lasting changes."

— Chris Jones, chief planner at Regional Plan Association, a New York–based urban planning organization

"When you're alone and life is making you lonely, you can always go downtown,” Petula Clark sang in her 1964 chart-topping ode to city life. Well, things change. Suddenly, crowds are the enemy, public buses and subways a health risk, packed office towers out of favor, and a roomy suburban home seems just where you want to be. But don't write off downtowns just yet.

The office and business district will look different. Many workers have little interest in returning to a 9-to-5 life. For those who do make the commute, they may find cubicles replaced with more flexible work spaces focused on common areas, with ample outdoor seating space for meetings and working lunches. And some now-empty offices will likely be converted into apartments and condos, making downtowns more vibrant. “Now you have an opportunity to remake a central business district into an actual neighborhood,” says Richard Florida, author of  The Rise of the Creative Class  and a cofounder of  CityLab,  an online publication about urbanism.

Public spaces will serve more of the public. Those areas set up for outdoor restaurant dining — some of those will likely remain. Streets and parking lots have been turned into plazas and promenades. Many cities have already opened miles of bike lanes; in 2020, Americans bought bikes, including electric bikes, in record numbers. “This idea of social space, where you can get outside and enjoy that active public realm, is going to become increasingly important,” says Lynn Richards, the president and CEO of Congress for the New Urbanism, which champions walkable cities.

Contributors to this report: Sari Harrar, David Hochman, Ronda Kaysen, Lexi Pandell, Jessica Ravitz and Ellen Stark

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• Research article
• Open access
• Published: 02 June 2021

How do you feel during the COVID-19 pandemic? A survey using psychological and linguistic self-report measures, and machine learning to investigate mental health, subjective experience, personality, and behaviour during the COVID-19 pandemic among university students

• Cornelia Herbert   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-9652-5586 1 ,
• Alia El Bolock 1 , 2 &
• Slim Abdennadher 2  

BMC Psychology volume  9 , Article number:  90 ( 2021 ) Cite this article

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The WHO has raised concerns about the psychological consequences of the current COVID-19 pandemic, negatively affecting health across societies, cultures and age-groups.

This online survey study investigated mental health, subjective experience, and behaviour (health, learning/teaching) among university students studying in Egypt or Germany shortly after the first pandemic lockdown in May 2020. Psychological assessment included stable personality traits, self-concept and state-like psychological variables related to (a) mental health (depression, anxiety), (b) pandemic threat perception (feelings during the pandemic, perceived difficulties in describing, identifying, expressing emotions), (c) health (e.g., worries about health, bodily symptoms) and behaviour including perceived difficulties in learning. Assessment methods comprised self-report questions, standardized psychological scales, psychological questionnaires, and linguistic self-report measures. Data analysis comprised descriptive analysis of mental health, linguistic analysis of self-concept, personality and feelings, as well as correlational analysis and machine learning. N = 220 (107 women, 112 men, 1 = other) studying in Egypt or Germany provided answers to all psychological questionnaires and survey items.

Mean state and trait anxiety scores were significantly above the cut off scores that distinguish between high versus low anxious subjects. Depressive symptoms were reported by 51.82% of the student sample, the mean score was significantly above the screening cut off score for risk of depression. Worries about health (mental and physical health) and perceived difficulties in identifying feelings, and difficulties in learning behaviour relative to before the pandemic were also significant. No negative self-concept was found in the linguistic descriptions of the participants, whereas linguistic descriptions of feelings during the pandemic revealed a negativity bias in emotion perception. Machine learning (exploratory) predicted personality from the self-report data suggesting relations between personality and subjective experience that were not captured by descriptive or correlative data analytics alone.

Despite small sample sizes, this multimethod survey provides important insight into mental health of university students studying in Egypt or Germany and how they perceived the first COVID-19 pandemic lockdown in May 2020. The results should be continued with larger samples to help develop psychological interventions that support university students across countries and cultures to stay psychologically resilient during the pandemic.

Peer Review reports

Only in a few month, the COVID-19 epidemic developed into a serious pandemic affecting all countries around the globe. Physical and social distancing and global lockdown of public, social, and work life was and still is a necessity in many countries to fight the pandemic without vaccine. Scientific progress in understanding the behaviour of the virus has grown rapidly since the outbreak of the pandemic, while scientific understanding of the psychological consequences of the pandemic is still at a developing stage. Empirical studies investigating mental health, well-being, subjective experience and behaviour during the COVID-19 pandemic are currently underway and several survey studies from several countries have meanwhile been published. First published surveys investigated the mental health of Covid-19 survivors or of health care professionals enrolled in the treatment of COVID-19 patients [ 1 , 2 ]. Moreover, first observations from surveys investigating psychological reactions of the general population in the hot spot countries immediately after the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 have meanwhile been published e.g., [ 3 , 4 , 5 ]. The results suggest a significant increase in mental ill health among populations during the first few months of the COVID-19 pandemic, supporting earlier observations from previous epi- and pandemics [ 6 ]. The World Health Organization (WHO) expects mental health burdens in the general population to be particularly pronounced in people who have already been at risk of or suffering from affective disorders before the pandemic (see for an overview [ 7 , 8 ]). Similarly, patients in general as well as patients with a chronic mental disorder in particular, are expected to suffer from impairments in mental health and well-being due to their medical and psychotherapeutic treatment being reduced or cancelled as a consequence of the pandemic lockdown [ 8 ]. In addition, health care professionals involved in the treatment of COVID-19 patients as well as workers with system-relevant jobs are supposed to be at special risk of developing stress-related symptoms and diseases such as post-traumatic stress disorder, chronic fatigue, anxiety, and depressive disorder [ 1 , 2 , 8 ].

However, the current COVID-19 pandemic is not just threatening specific parts of the population. On the contrary. The spread of the virus around the world, its exponential increase in infection probability, and its high lethality bear constant threats for whole societies and for each individual as the pandemic is still evident now, one year after the pandemic outbreak.

Therefore, according to the WHO, primary mental health prevention targeting either the general public or specific population groups should be an indispensable goal of crisis management of the current COVID-19 pandemic [ 8 ] comprising all age-groups from youth, adolescence to adulthood.

Notably, fighting the COVID-19 pandemic currently still requires behaviour change in everybody including daily behaviour (work, business, family, and leisure) as well as changes in health behaviour and social behaviour. In each country so far, the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns affected daily behaviour routines including work, business, family, and leisure time activities. The COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns started in China in January 2020 and only a few months later, lockdowns followed in many countries around the globe including Germany and Egypt in March 2020. Crucially, in all countries, the first lockdowns came by far and large unexpected to the population. The restrictions in daily life and behaviour may therefore not be tolerated equally well by everybody. Accordingly, health care professionals and the WHO have suggested that counseling programs supporting and assisting people in behaviour change need to become part of the COVID-19 pandemic prevention initiatives [ 8 , 9 ] to avoid unnecessary mental health burdens in the general public.

However, in order to successfully support mental health, well-being, and behaviour in those social domains of life most seriously affected by the current COVID-19 pandemic, a better scientific understanding is required of how individual people experience and psychologically react to the current COVID-19 pandemic, how they think, feel, suffer and cope with the situation, and how they are handling threat perception, how they perceive and regulate emotions and behaviour [ 10 ].

Academia and education are two social and public domains that have been seriously affected by the pandemic lockdown in every country. Concerning Germany, in March 2020 the different states of Germany decided to postpone all academic teaching at higher education institutions to an indefinite period. The universities’ infrastructure including libraries were closed and students were not allowed to come to the university. Similarly, concerning Egypt, public and private universities responded in a similar manner as mandated by the government by closing the campus for students and switching all teaching activities to e-learning. Teaching courses including classes, laboratory courses, seminars, preparatory and induction courses were suspended for the summer term 2020. Teaching during the summer term was announced to be offered as online e-learning format. The lockdown situation in the two countries was thus almost identical for university students concerning the aspects of their social and academic life.

Working at home without any possibility of coming to the university campus and not being able of attending to lectures and courses face-to-face together with peers, tutors, and teachers require from students to learn and adapt to new behaviour rules. Psychologically, pandemics increase uncertainty [ 11 ]. Uncertainty causes stress and increases the risk for mental ill health if it conflicts with behaviour routines and habits [ 11 ]. Despite most of the students being digital natives, the abrupt switch from face-to-face communication to digital, computer-assisted forms of teaching and sole reliance on digital interaction as the only means of social interaction might not be tolerated mentally and physically equally well by all students. Whether the current pandemic situation and its consequences are experienced as a threat may depend on the students’ individual character, i.e., the student’s personality and self-concept as well as his/her current cognitive, affective, and motivational state.

Recent observations from published survey studies among Chinese students after the lockdown reported an increase in general anxiety within about 25% of the student participants. Anxiety symptoms ranged from mild to moderate to severe anxiety [ 3 ]. Moreover, pandemic self-isolation was found to be associated with complex patterns of psychopathology amongst students including an increase in symptoms of obsessive–compulsive disorder, hypochondria, depression, and neurasthenia [ 4 ]. Meanwhile published survey studies from several countries in Europe and across the world support negative changes in mental health among university students immediately after the first lockdowns in 2020, specifically in relation with quarantine and self-isolation [ 12 , 13 , 14 , 15 , 16 ].

Nationwide surveys conducted before the COVID-19 pandemic already reported elevated mental health problems and stress-related symptoms including anxiety and depression among university students [ 17 , 18 , 19 , 20 , 21 ], and this, although university students across countries might belong to the young educated low-risk population. In a recent online study including N = 185 university students studying in Germany, 36.6% of the students (women and men) reported to experience depressive symptoms, 41.83% (women and men) reported high levels of state anxiety, and mental stress due to excessive demands and uncertainty in finances, job, or social relationships [ 21 ]. This prevalence of academic stress and mental health burdens have been found among university students all over the globe [ 17 , 18 , 19 , 20 ], including Egypt [ 22 , 23 ].

Thus, as a population group, university students may be particularly vulnerable to stress-related lifestyle changes affecting mental health that are associated with the current COVID-19 pandemic. Individual differences in mental health may also exist and influence how the students perceive and how well they adapt and cope with the current COVID-19 pandemic situation and to what degree they are motivated to change their behaviour in response to the pandemic consequences in social and academic life and teaching. Psychological theories and models of behaviour change, e.g., Health Belief Model, Transtheoretical Model, or Social Cognitive Theory [ 24 , 25 , 26 ], all agree in that individual factors, specifically those related to emotion- and self-regulation can explain how people perceive themselves, whether and why they change their behaviour and why others do not. Threat perception has been suggested to play an outstanding role [ 27 ], because pandemics threaten the whole person, i.e. our self and the self-concept. Personality traits although considered stable may play a critical role in threat perception, in mental health and behaviour because they influence and modulate the person’s feelings, beliefs, and the person’s trust in one’s own self-regulatory abilities required to change one’s own behaviour [ 27 ]. Moreover, stable personality traits and a positive self-concept are considered general important stress buffers and protectors of mental health, whereas neuroticisms, trait anxiety, difficulties in describing and identifying feelings as well as an overall negative self-concept are considered significant risk factors of mental ill-health, specifically of anxiety disorder and depressive disorder [ 28 , 29 , 30 ].

These examples underscore the complexity and dynamics of how individual traits and state-like individual psychological factors as well as characteristics of the situation interact and influence subjective experience and behaviour. Methodologically, this raises questions of how interactions between situation, person and behaviour can best be assessed, investigated, modeled and predicted in relation to the COVID-19 pandemic in which little empirical evidence is available so far and different aggregated data measures of qualitative and quantitative origin might be used to best capture the internal personal variables of interest (e.g., feelings, worries, self-concept, or personality traits) that provide insight into the subjective experience and the perceived changes in health and behaviour of individual persons behaving in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Computational modeling and machine learning have been already successfully applied in the field of pandemic research to predict transmission rates of the virus based on global behavioural changes of the general population [ 31 ]. These approaches require huge data sets (big data). In health behaviour research, first attempts have been made to apply computational models to data sets comprising smaller sample sizes to model behaviour of individuals, for instance, in response to behavioural interventions supporting health prevention [ 32 ]. These computational models build on psychological theories of human behaviour. Character Computing is one of these psychologically-driven approaches, whose computational models include stable character traits (e.g., personality, self-concept) and cognitive, affective, and motivational state variables and behavioural indicators as input to take into consideration the dynamic interactions between situation (S), person (P) and behaviour (B) (for an overview, see [ 33 , 34 , 35 ] and Fig.  1 ). The computational models are not fixed but can be improved and extended, e.g., by ontologies [ 36 ] or automated data processing, the more empirical evidence and data is available [ 32 , 33 , 34 , 35 ].

Illustration of the dynamic relationships between situation, a person’s character (traits and states), and behaviour change

Aim of this online survey study

Based on the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic outlined above, this online survey study is aimed at contributing to the scientific understanding of the psychological consequences of the pandemic by investigating mental health, subjective experience, and behaviour among university students studying in Egypt or Germany after the first pandemic lockdown in May 2020. As outlined above, university students may be particularly sensitive to lifestyle changes related to the COVID-19 pandemic, negatively affecting the students’ mental health, their subjective experience and behaviour. Moreover, as also explained above, the students’ personality traits and self-concept might constitute important stable psychological variables that could influence mental health as well as subjective experience and behaviour related to the COVID-19 pandemic. Therefore, to fully capture these psychological aspects, psychological assessment included a number of psychological variables ranging from stable personality traits and self-concept to state-like psychological variables sensitive to situational change and related to (a) mental health (current depressive symptoms and state anxiety), (b) pandemic threat and emotion perception including current feelings, (c) worries about health including perceived changes in paying attention to bodily symptoms, and (d) self-reported perceived changes in health behaviour (weight, eating, sleeping, physical activity), social and learning behaviour (difficulties in self-regulated learning). To capture all aspects summarized under (a)–(d), the assessment methods comprised a mix of self-report tools (survey items, standardized psychometric scales, psychological questionnaires, and linguistic self-report measures).

Data analysis included (a) descriptive analysis for prevalence estimation of mental health variables, (b) linguistic analysis of self-concept, personality and feelings during the pandemic and (c) correlational analysis and machine learning tools. Machine learning tools were used for exploratory purpose only to further explore the idea of whether machine learning algorithms could despite small sample sizes be trained to predict stable personality traits from the self-report data of the students. Knowing whether stable personality traits (that due to their stability cannot easily be changed by health care interventions) can be predicted from the students’ self-report data could help develop individualized health care interventions that take the students’ personality development into account. The online survey was distributed among university students studying at universities in Egypt and also in Germany. Both countries were equally affected by the lockdowns in May 2020. With respect to the already published survey studies (see above), all attesting an increase in mental ill health among university students during the COVID-19 pandemic the following main research questions were addressed:

RQ1 Mental health: Can the present online survey study confirm high state anxiety and depressive symptoms reported in previous studies in the current sample of university students during the time period of the first COVID-19 pandemic lockdown in May 2020? Crucially, are the self-reported symptoms of anxiety and depression when assessed on standardized psychological screening and assessments tools beyond the cut off scores of clinical samples, and comparable or even higher than the prevalence rates reported in pre-pandemic surveys?

RQ2 Threat perception and worries about health: Do university students report to experience threat, negative feelings and worries about health during the COVID-19 pandemic?

RQ3 Emotion perception: Do university students report to perceive difficulties in emotion perception in the time period of the first pandemic lockdown relative to before the pandemic?

RQ4 Health behaviour, social behaviour and learning: Do university students report to perceive changes in health behaviour (e.g., weight, eating, sleeping, physical activity, paying attention to bodily symptoms), and do they report to experience difficulties in self-regulation during learning (teaching), and in social behaviour in the time period of the first pandemic lockdown?

RQ5 Self-concept and personality: Do university students report a positive or a negative self-concept? Are mental health variables correlated with the students’ personality?

RQ6 Exploratory analysis: Can machine learning despite small data sample sizes predict stable personality traits from the self-report data of the students?

Participants

The survey study was designed and conducted by the Department of Applied Emotion and Motivation Psychology of Ulm University and administered via Ulm University and LimeSurvey software ( https://www.limesurvey.org/de/ ). The survey was advertised among others via the university’s international office to reach specifically students studying in Egypt. The survey was provided in English language (i.e., the academic language), and proficiency in English language was a prerequisite for taking part in the study. Participants were fully debriefed about the purpose of the survey, participation was voluntary and anonymous (see ethics statement). After registration, participants answered questions about their language proficiency, age, gender, their university, study year, and their living situation (alone, with friends or family). Only university students who were aged 18 years and older, and who provided informed consent were able to participate in the study. The survey items were structured in blocks of items and questionnaires: sociodemographic (1), personality (Big-Five) and anxiety (state and trait) (2), survey items about teaching, survey items about health including the linguistic task (self-concept) (3–4), and finally, emotion perception and depression screening (5). The blocking of the serial order of these topics lead to partial drop-outs across the survey, particularly across blocks (see below).

An overview of the complete study-design is provided in the flow-diagram in Fig.  2 . An overview of the online survey items and questionnaires can be found in the Additional file 1 .

Design of the survey including data collection and recruitment of participants and data analytics. Please see sections ““ Aim of this online survey study ” and “ Methods ” for detailed explanation

Study sample, survey drop-out and missing data

In total, N = 453 university students registered for the study and answered the inclusion and exclusion criteria. Of these, n = 3 were pilots and n = 11 participants did not give informed consent or did not explicitly state that they want to get their data published in scientific research, and were therefore excluded from the study sample. N = 439 volunteers (n = 215 men, n = 219 women, n = 5 did prefer not to name their gender; mean age : 20.69 years, SD  = 2.87 years) completed the sociodemographic questions. Of these, n = 19 (4.3%) did not report to study in Germany or Egypt and were excluded. Of the 420 university students who reported to study in Egypt or Germany, n = 325 participants (n = 167 men, n = 156 women, n = 2 did prefer not to name their gender; mean age : 20.38 years, SD  = 1.76 years, range: 18–33 years) filled in the personality and anxiety questionnaires only, while n = 220 participants (n = 112 men, n = 107 women, n = 1 did prefer not to name the gender; mean age : 20.45 years, SD  = 1.88 years, range: 18–33 years) completed the entire survey. This corresponds to a survey completion rate of 0.49 (division of the number of participants who complete the entire survey (n = 220) by the total number of participants who register for the survey (n = 453)). This rate falls within the rate expected for online surveys (20–50%).

Analysis of the drop-outs (including e.g., univariate measures of variance (ANOVA)), showed no difference in age between the groups (i.e., the sample who filled in the sociodemographic items only (n = 95) versus the sample who filled in the personality and anxiety questionnaires only (n = 105) versus the final sample (n = 220), F (417,2) = 1.72, p  = .18. In addition, the student samples did not differ with respect to gender, i.e., the % of the number of women and men. Analysis of anxiety and personality scores likewise suggests that the final sample and the sample who dropped-out after filling in the personality or anxiety questionnaires (n = 220 versus n = 105) did not differ in state anxiety or in the scores on any of the Big-Five personality dimension. (state anxiety: F (323,1) = 1.77, p  > .18; Openness: F (323,1) = 0.16, p  > .69; Conscientiousness: F (323,1) = 2.82, p  > .13; Extraversion: F (332,1) = 0.94, p  > .33; Agreeableness: F (323,1) = .062, p  > .43; Neuroticism: F (323,1) = 1.22, p  > .27). Mean scores of trait anxiety differed between the final sample and the sample who dropped out (n = 220: mean : 46.02, SD  = 11.2, range : 26–79 vs. n = 105: mean : 49.02, SD  = 10.98, range : 26–77, F (323,1) = 5.78, p  = .017). However, using median tests (which are less susceptible to outliers) showed no significant difference in the distribution of trait anxiety scores between the samples (median-test = 1.59, p  = .21), see Fig.  3 for an overview.

State and Trait Anxiety distributions across the final sample and drop outs (left upper column). Mean state and trait anxiety scores in women and man in the final sample (left lower column), significant results ( p  < .05) are illustrated by lines and cross. Percentage of students reporting depressive symptoms (middle column). Right column: Percentage of students reporting changes in emotion perception on the TAS-20 questionnaire and subscales after the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak

The survey was programmed such that it produced as little missing data as possible. Therefore, missing data of single items in a questionnaire or in a block of open items could be excluded and missing scores were therefore not imputed. Regarding the self-generated prompts, participants were free to answer the prompts (self-concept and feeling descriptions). Inspection of the data shows that in the full sample, 5 participants did not fill in all of self-descriptive prompts, leaving open 1, 2 or 3 of the descriptions, respectively.

Measures: survey items and questionnaires

The online survey included several self-report measures comprising a mix of single items with open and closed questions, standardized psychometric scales, and standardized psychological questionnaires. The section below and Table  1 provide an overview of the survey items, questionnaire measures and hypotheses grouped according to the psychological domains and research questions of interest (for an overview, see also RQ1–RQ6 in the section “ Aim of this online survey study ”).

Mental health: anxiety (trait/state), current depressive symptoms (last 2 weeks)

As illustrated in Table  1 , the participants anxiety proneness including trait and state anxiety as well as their current self-reported depressive symptoms (last 2 weeks) were assessed with psychological questionnaires including the Spielberger Trait and State Inventory (STAI, [ 37 ]), and the Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-2, [ 38 ]). The STAI is available in many different languages and has shown similar values of internal consistencies among university students from European and Arabic countries [ 39 ]. Whereas the trait scale of the STAI asks for how one generally feels, the instruction of the state scale of the STAI asks for how one feels right now. The PHQ-2 has proven to be a robust screening for depressive symptoms across different cultures including European and Arabic countries [ 40 ]. It asks for the presence of depressive symptoms over a time period of the last two weeks.

Threat perception, feelings, and perceived difficulties in emotion perception during the COVID-19 pandemic

Threat perception as well as discrete emotions and feelings in response to the COVID-19 pandemic situation were assessed by single survey items. Specifically, these items asked the participants about how the current COVID-19 pandemic situation makes them feel in terms of valence (positive/pleasant-negative/unpleasant), arousal (low/calm-high/aroused), and dominance (feeling in or out of control of the situation). The 9-point Self-Assessment Manikin scales (SAM, [ 41 ]) were used for valence, arousal and dominance assessment. The SAM scales are one of the most robust and frequently used scales for the unbiased, non-verbal assessment of emotions and feelings on the three dimensions of emotions including valence, arousal and dominance [ 41 ]. In accordance with the literature [ 41 ], the SAM scales ranged from 1 (negative/unpleasant, low arousal/calm, out of control) to 9 (positive/pleasant, high arousal/aroused, in control). In addition, we asked the participants to indicate which kind of discrete emotions they experienced in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Participants could choose among six discrete emotions (sad, anxious, angry, disgusted, happy, surprised, or neutral). In addition, participants were given five prompts to describe their current feelings in response to the COVID-19 pandemic situation (“I feel ….”). In order to assess potential difficulties in emotion perception, participants filled in the Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20; [ 42 ]), which comprises the three subscales “Difficulty Describing Feelings”, “Difficulty Identifying Feelings”, and “Externally-Oriented Thinking”. Since we were interested in perceived changes since the pandemic outbreak, participants were instructed to answer each item of the TAS-20 questionnaire relative to before the pandemic.

Worries about health and perceived changes in behaviour during the COVID-19 pandemic

Worries about health, perceived changes in paying attention to bodily symptoms (e.g., taste, smell, cardiovascular, respiration/breathing, appetite/eating/drinking), as well as perceived changes in health behaviour (weight, eating behaviour, sleep and physical activity behaviour) as well as perceived difficulties in social behaviour (social distancing) and self-regulatory learning (i.e., difficulties in paying attention to the content provided by e-learning, difficulties in studying with the same effort as before the pandemic situation) were assessed via single survey items. The single item questions that asked for worries and perceived changes in behaviour could be answered with “yes” or “no”; “yes” meaning an increase and “no” meaning no change in relation to before the pandemic. The items on health behaviour included items asking in both directions, e.g., whether one eats more or less, sleeps more or less, exercises more or less than before the pandemic. The single item questions of paying attention to bodily symptoms could be answered on 10-point Likert scales such that change scores could be calculated based on the participants’ answers allowing evaluation of the degree of change as increase, decrease or no change during the pandemic situation in relation to before the pandemic (see Table  1 for an overview).

Personality and self-concept

As illustrated in Table  1 , the participants’ personality traits were assessed with the Big Five Personality Inventory (BFI-40, [ 43 ]). The BFI-40 is a standardized self-report measure that has been validated in different cultural populations and age groups [ 44 ]. The self-concept was assessed using a modified short version of the twenty statements tests (TST, [ 45 ]). The TST is a cross-cultural tool for the assessment of different facets of the self-concept including actual, ideal, and ought selves. In the present study, participants had to generate self-descriptions for the actual self only. In line with the instruction of the TST [ 45 ], participants were asked to provide five words to the prompts “I am ….” in order to describe themselves.

Mental health: anxiety (trait and state) and current depressive symptoms

In line with previous pre-pandemic surveys among university students (see Background for an overview), we expected a high prevalence of anxiety and depressive symptoms in the present sample of university students irrespective of their culture or country in which they study. Prevalence rates for self-reported current depressive symptoms assessed with the screening tool of the PHQ-2 asking for depressive symptoms in the last 2 weeks (PHQ-2 items: item1: “little interest or pleasure in doing things”; item 2: “feeling down, depressed or hopeless”) and state anxiety (asking for how one feels right now) might be expected to be even higher than prevalence rates reported in previous surveys before the pandemic situation.

Threat perception, feelings, and difficulties in emotion perception

We expected threat perception to the COVID-19 pandemic to be associated with self-reported unpleasantness, feelings of moderate to high levels of arousal, self-reported perceived lack of dominance (feeling less in control of the situation) on the Self-Assessment Manikin (SAM) scales. In addition, we expected self-reports of feelings of anger, sadness, and anxiety towards the pandemic as assessed by the survey items assessing discrete emotions. We also explored whether students report to perceive changes in emotion perception since the pandemic outbreak relative to before the pandemic outbreak. Specifically, we explored whether participants report difficulties in describing and identifying feelings and report externally oriented thinking on the TAS-20 as potential maladaptive adaptions in coping with the pandemic lockdown. As mentioned above, the instruction of the TAS-20 items asked the participants to answer the items in relation to before the pandemic.

Worries about health, perceived changes in behaviour during the COVID-19 pandemic

We expected that the majority of students will report to be more worried about their mental and physical health than before the pandemic. Moreover, we expected a higher awareness of bodily symptoms (i.e., paying more attention to perceived changes in smell, taste, cardiovascular functions, breathing/respiration, and appetite/eating/drinking) relative to before the pandemic. Given that the lockdown in every country had effects on the students’ work and leisure time activities, we also expected that participants will report changes in health behaviour including a decrease in regular physical activity compared to before the pandemic lockdown including self-reported changes in eating- and sleeping behaviour and weight. We also expected difficulties in learning and social behaviour (see Table  1 ).

Moreover, we examined how university students see themselves (self-concept). In particular, we explored whether the students would report a positive or negative self-concept and compared their linguistic descriptions of the self to their descriptions of their current feelings pandemic-related feelings (“I feel …) and their personality. Regarding personality, we explored whether stable psychological personality traits (Big Five and trait anxiety) would be correlated with state anxiety and depressive symptoms and the students’ perceived changes in emotion perception. Finally, we examined for exploratory purpose, whether machine learning could predict the students’ personality traits from their reports (for details see “Data Analysis” section).

Descriptive analyses and statistics

To answer the hypotheses outlined above, the participants’ answers (questionnaires, single items) were analysed descriptively to provide insight into how many students on average reported anxiety and depressive symptoms as well as how many students reported to perceive changes in subjective experience (threat perception, difficulties in emotion perception, worries about health, bodily symptoms) and behaviour (health, social, learning). Analysis of the questionnaires (PHQ-2, STAI, TAS-20, BFI-40) followed the guidelines and manuals and were calculated as sum scores or mean scores (non-normalized). For the PHQ-2, STAI and TAS-20, cut off scores are available from the literature (see “ Results ” section). These cut off scores were also used in the present study to discriminate between high versus low trait anxiety, high versus low state anxiety, depressive symptoms, and difficulties in emotion perception. Means and standard deviations were calculated for all questionnaire data and for the closed survey items using Likert scales or the SAM scales. The questionnaire data and answers to the survey items were tested statistically for significance by means of non-parametric or parametric statistical tests as appropriate. The respective test statistics are presented in brackets in the “ Results ” sections. Given the drop-out across blocks of the survey (see section about Sample size, survey drop-out and missing data), the results for each scale, item or questionnaire were calculated for the available sample who filled in the questions and the final sample (n = 220) who filled in the complete survey and who reported to study in Egypt or Germany. P values are reported uncorrected and two tailed if not otherwise specified. The SPSS software (IBM SPSS Statistics Software, Version 27) was used for all statistical testing including correlation analysis (see below).

Correlational analysis

Correlation analyses (Pearson) were used to assess the relationships between the Big Five personality traits (BFI-40), mental health variables (STAI: trait and state anxiety, PHQ2: screening for depressive symptoms), and difficulties in emotion perception (TAS-20). P values are reported uncorrected and two tailed if not otherwise specified.

Linguistic analysis of self-concept and feelings

The open-ended linguistic answers assessing the self-concept (“I am …”) and feelings in response to the pandemic (“I feel …”) were analysed with computer-assisted text analysis tools including Linguistic Inquiry of Word Count (LIWC; [ 46 ]). The dictionary of the LIWC software contains words and word stems, grouped into semantic categories related to psychological constructs. The categories provided by the LIWC allow the assessment of the polarity of words (positive or negative). The LIWC analysis produces reliably results with about 500 words and more. Therefore, in the present study, words generated by each participant were accumulated across participants and entered as a whole text corpus for words generated for the prompts “I am …” (self-concept) or for the prompt “I feel …” (feelings in response to the pandemic), respectively. This allows the evaluation of the self-concept and current pandemic feelings of the university sample as a whole. For the linguistic analysis no statistic testing was performed.

Machine learning (exploratory analysis)

Machine learning (ML) was used for exploratory purpose only and the ML algorithms were chosen to combine the different psychological variables that were descriptively analysed in order to explore whether individual personality traits including the Big Five and trait anxiety can be predicted and classified by automated machine learning tools. To this end, the questionnaire scores and answers to the different survey items were preprocessed according to the following procedure: the participants’ Big Five personality traits from the BFI-40, the state and trait anxiety scores (from the STAI including for each individual, a difference score for self-reported trait and state anxiety), depression (PHQ-2), perceived changes regarding difficulties in emotion perception (TAS-20) as well as the participants’ answers on the SAM scales for threat perception (e.g., valence, arousal, dominance) were normalized (z-scores). The participants’ answers to the discrete emotions elicited during the pandemic, difference scores assessing increase in current anxiety (difference score comparing STAI state vs. STAI trait) as well as the participants’ answers to the survey items asking for worries and perceived changes in health and behaviour were labeled as positive or negative or set to zero if the students reported no change. The answers to the survey items asking for perceived changes in paying attention to bodily sensations/symptoms were combined to a total score denoting the total perceived changes in attention towards bodily sensations/symptoms and the total change was labeled as positive or negative depending on whether attention increased or decreased relative to before the pandemic or set to zero if there was no change. Sociodemographic variables such as country or university were no contribution factors in prediction and classification. After data preprocessing and data labeling, the dataset for machine learning comprised continuous features and discrete categorical features. The whole dataset was denoted “X” and the continuous or discrete features were denoted “y” in the feature matrix. The machine learning libraries of the Python software package ( https://www.python.org/ ) were used for automated data analysis. Data analysis was based on regression models. Gradient Boosting Regression (GBR) and Support Vector Regression (SVR) were chosen for the regression models. The principle of Gradient Boosting Regression is to build multiple regression models based on decision trees. Decision tree models are supervised machine learning algorithms that have tree structures that recursively break down the dataset into smaller datasets through branching operations while comparing the final node results with the target values. Decision tree models provide the best fit for small sample sizes to avoid overfitting the data. The same holds true for support vector machine algorithms. Support Vector Regressions (SVR) aim at finding the best fitting line in continuous data within a predefined threshold error. The evaluation of the accuracy of the prediction is evaluated based on the root mean squared error (RMSE). Depending on the type of data to be predicted, RMSE within 10–20% of the range is considered a good result. Especially with human self-report, data accuracies are usually much lower than in other more deterministic domains of machine learning e.g., natural language processing or bioinformatics. One reason for the lower accuracies in human behaviour data is the higher variance in the data itself [ 47 ]. To account for this, we accepted a RMSE of up to 16.6% as sufficient for the decision that the data can be predicted by the model accurately.

We used the classical train/test split approach with a ratio of 8:2. Train/test split is a common validation approach frequently used in ML studies including those with smaller sample sizes [for a critical review see [ 48 ]). No k-fold cross validation (CV) approach was chosen as it has been shown that k-fold CV can lead to overestimation especially with small sample sizes, whereas train/test split and nested CV approaches have been shown to be equally reliable even with small sample sizes [ 48 ]. We also performed hyperparameter tuning, an algorithm frequently used and recommended in machine learning to choose and select during training the best model while avoiding biasing the data, and the number of features and the feature-to-sample ratio) was kept in an optimal range (less features than samples) for avoiding overfitting [ 48 ].

Descriptive data analytics

Mental health: anxiety (trait and state) and depressive symptoms.

The mean state and trait anxiety scores of the university students who completed the entire survey and who studied in Egypt or in Germany (n = 220) were above the cut off scores that according to the literature distinguishes between high versus low anxious subjects [ 49 ]. The mean state anxiety score as measured with the STAI inventory was significantly above the cut of score of 40 (n = 220, mean : 50.04, SD  = 3.77; T  = 39.47, df  = 219, cut off: 40, p  < 0.001). A cut off score below or above a score of 44 in the trait STAI scale differentiates between low trait anxious and high anxiety prone individuals [ 49 ]. The mean score for trait anxiety was significantly higher than this cut off score (n = 220, mean: 46.02, SD  = 11.56; T  = 2.60, df  = 219, cut off: 44, p  < 0.01). Given the drop-out of n = 105 students, the analysis of the mean state and trait anxiety scores were recalculated for the final sample including those students who dropped out. The analysis showed that also in this larger sample of n = 325 students the cut off scores were significantly above the cut off scores (state anxiety: n = 325; mean : 50.23, SD  = 3.75; T  = 49.13, df  = 324, cut off: 40, p  < 0.001; trait anxiety: n = 325; mean : 47.08, SD  = 11.52; T  = 4.72, df  = 324, cut off: 44, p  < 0.001) and in addition, trait anxiety scores (trait) did not differ significantly between women and men in this sample (trait anxiety: n = 325; mean-woman : 47.94, SD  = 11.82; men: 45.96, SD  = 10.91; F (321,1) = 2.45, p  > 0.12). However, women reported higher state anxiety scores than men. This difference in state anxiety scores between women and men was significant (state anxiety: n = 325; mean-woman : 50.81, SD  = 3.62; men: 49.63, SD  = 3.79; F (321,1) = 8.08, p  < 0.005) and was also significant in the n = 220 sample. There was no significant difference in state anxiety scores between students studying in Egypt or Germany, neither in the n = 220 sample nor in the sample comprising n = 325 students (n = 220, state anxiety: Egypt- mean : 50.16, SD  = 3.75, Germany- mean : 49.08, SD  = 3.86, Mann – Whitney-U  = -1.39, p  = 0.16; n = 325, state anxiety: Egypt- mean  = 50.32, SD  = 3.70, Germany- mean : 49.45, SD  = 4.22, Mann – Whitney-U  = -1.24, p  = 0.22). However, students studying in Egypt reported higher trait anxiety compared to the students studying in Germany (n = 325, trait anxiety: Egypt- mean : 47.62, SD  = 11.60, Germany- mean : 42.24, SD  = 9.75, n = 220, trait anxiety: Egypt- mean : 46.49, SD  = 11.57, Germany- mean : 42.40, SD  = 10.93), but this difference was not significant in the final sample (n = 220, Mann – Whitney-U  = − 1.39, p  = 0.16). The results are illustrated and summarized in Fig.  3 .

For the PHQ-2 screening for depressive symptoms a sum score greater than 3 on both items is associated with depression proneness [ 38 ]. In the sample of university students who completed the entire survey and therefore had filled in the PHQ-2 depression screening, the mean sum score was mean: 3.48, SD  = 1.58, and significantly above the cut off score ( T  = 4.51, df  = 219, cut off = 3, p  < 0.0001). 51.82% (n = 114) of the students had sum scores greater than the cut off (> 3), and 19.09% (n = 42) had a sum score of 3 (cut off). Only 26.82% (n = 59) of the sample scored below the PHQ-2 cut off score (< 3), and only 2.27% (n = 5) did report to not suffer from loss of interest or pleasure in doing things (PHQ-2 item 1) or from feeling down, depressed or hopeless during the last two weeks (PHQ-2 item 1) (see Fig.  3 for an overview on state anxiety and depressive symptoms). The PHQ-2 scores did not differ between students studying in Egypt or Germany (n = 220, Egypt- mean : 3.51, SD  = 1.56, Germany- mean : 3.24, SD  = 1.79, Mann – Whitney-U  = − 0.643, p  = 0.52) nor did they differ between women and men (n = 220, woman- mean : 3.48, SD  = 1.54, men- mean : 3.47, SD  = 1.63, F (217,1) = 0.00, p  = 0.98).

Descriptive analysis of the items assessing threat perception (SAM; Self-Assessment Manikin scales ranging from 1 (unpleasant, not aroused, or no control) to 9 (pleasant, very highly aroused, in control)) showed that, the students (n = 220) felt slightly unpleasant ( mean : 4.19, SD  = 1.97). In addition, 55% (n = 120) of the final study sample (n = 220) reported a score from 1 to 4, i.e., from high unpleasantness to moderate unpleasantness on the 9-point SAM valence scale. On average, the students did not feel much in or out of control of the situation ( mean : 5.07, SD  = 2.41) on the 9-point SAM scale for dominance. Nevertheless, 37.55% of the study sample reported a score from 1 (no control) to 4 (loss of control) on the SAM scale for dominance. Mean physiological arousal was rated as moderate ( mean : 5.40, SD  = 2.22). However, 50% of the university students (n = 110) reported an arousal score of 6 (aroused) to 9 (very high arousal) on the SAM arousal scale. Given the drop-out of students, comparisons of the ratings (valence, arousal, or control) were performed between samples (n = 220 and n = 59 who completed the ratings but did not fill in the entire survey). This showed that the ratings did not differ between the samples ( Mann – Whitney-U -tests, all p  > 0.70). From the set of discrete emotions (including sadness, anger, fear, disgust, happiness, surprise, or neutral emotions), 66.8% reported to feel not neutral, 93.2% reported to feel not happy, 56.4% reported to feel sad, 75.9% reported to feel angry, 92.3% reported to feel surprised, 87.7% reported to feel disgusted, and 52.7% reported to feel afraid by the current pandemic situation. The distribution of “yes” versus “no” answers differed significantly for the categories feel neutral, happy, surprised, disgusted, or angry, respectively, (non-parametric test for binomial distribution: all p  < 0.001). From all students who completed these items (n = 277) the same significant results were obtained for the answers concerning discrete emotions.

16.88% of the students of the final sample (n = 220) had a total TAS-20 score greater than the critical TAS-20 cut off score (TAS-20 cut off > 60, [ 30 ]). From the three subscales of the TAS-20 questionnaire, changes in self-reported difficulties in emotion perception in relation to the pandemic as compared to before the pandemic were reported by 62.27% (n = 137) for items belonging to the subscale “Difficulty describing feelings”, and by 71.82% (n = 158) for the items belonging to the subscale “Difficulty identifying feelings” and by 50.91% (n = 112) for the items belonging to the subscale “Externally Orienting Thinking”. The distributions of the TAS-20 scores of the three subscales did not differ between students studying in Egypt or Germany ( Mann – Whitney-U , all p  > 0.50). However, woman (n = 107) reported higher scores on the subscales “Difficulties identifying feeling” compared to men (n = 112), F (217,1) = 217.1, p  = 0.035.

Worries about health

In the final sample who completed the survey (n = 220), 65.5% (n = 144 students) of the study sample reported to worry about their mental health more due to the COVID-19 pandemic than before the pandemic, whereas 34.5% (n = 76) answered to worry not more than before the pandemic. 71.4% (n = 157) of the students reported to worry more about their physical health than before the pandemic, whereas 28.6% (n = 63) answered to worry not more about their physical health than before the pandemic. The distributions of “yes” versus “no” differed significantly for both, worries about mental and physical health, respectively (non-parametric test for binomial distribution: all p  < 0.001) and this also held true when considering all students who filled in these items (n = 227). Self-reported worries about mental health and physical health were significantly related (χ2 = 100.43, df  = 2, p < 0.001). 65% (n = 143 of n = 220) reported to worry in both domains (mental health and physical health) more than before the pandemic and this also held true when considering all students who filled in these items (n = 227), see Fig.  4 a.

a Worries about mental health or physical health or both (mental and physical health). The cross represents significant results, p  < .05. b Perceived changes in health behaviour including weight, eating, sleeping, and physical activity. The cross represents significant results, p  < .05

Behaviour: health

Across health behaviour domains (weight, eating, sleep, physical activity), 52.3%, 58.2%, 31.8%, and 76.4% of the study sample (n = 220) reported to have gained weight, to eat more than before the pandemic and to not sleep more or exercise more than before the pandemic situation. The distributions of “yes” versus “no” answers were significantly different for the domains of eating, sleep and exercise/physical activity (non-parametric test for binomial distribution: eat, sleep, exercise/physical activity all p  < 0.001) and this again held true when considering all students who filled in the items (n = 227). Paying attention to bodily sensations and symptoms (i.e., changes in taste, smell, appetite/eating/drinking, cardiovascular functions, breathing/respiration) did however not change significantly relative to before the pandemic outbreak. On average, on Likert scales ranging from 1 (“decrease”) to 5 (“no change”) to 10 (“increase”), participants reported not to pay more attention to or to be more aware of bodily sensations and symptoms than before the pandemic (smell: mean : 5.18, SD  = 1.21, taste: mean : 5.15, SD  = 1.27, bodily symptoms: mean : 5.84, SD  = 1.74, cardiac symptoms: mean : 5.78, SD  = 1.66, breathing: mean : 5.77, SD  = 1.64, eating and drinking/appetite: mean : 5.52, SD  = 2.09). The answers on these rating scales did not differ between students studying in Egypt or Germany (all p  > 0.16), but comparisons between women and men showed that women scored significantly higher on the scale asking for attention to bodily symptoms than men (woman- mean : 6.18, SD  = 1.90, men- mean : 5.50, SD  = 1.53, F (217,1) = 8.50, p  > 0.002). This again held true when considering all students who filled in the items (n = 227).

Behaviour: social distancing and learning

Being asked about their social situation of self-isolation, teaching and learning behaviour, 54% of the student sample (n = 220) replied to have difficulties in not going out during the pandemic. 76.4% replied to have difficulties in self-regulated learning, being unable of focusing their attention on the teaching content. Of these students, 60.9% replied to have difficulties in studying with the same self-regulatory effort because of being anxiously preoccupied with the current pandemic situation (see Fig.  4 b). The distributions of “yes” versus “no” answers were significantly different for the domains of learning (non-parametric test for binomial distribution: eat, sleep, exercise/physical activity all p  < 0.002) and this again held true when considering all students who filled in these items (n = 305, all p  < 0.001).

Linguistic self-concept and self-descriptions of current feelings

Linguistic self-descriptions (“I am …”) showed a positivity bias. Overall, more positive words than negative words were used by the students to describe themselves (see Fig.  5 ). As mentioned above, linguistic analysis of the university students’ self-descriptions about how the current COVID-19 pandemic situation makes them feel (“I feel …”) showed the reverse pattern with more negative words than positive words being used by the study sample to complete the prompt “I feel ….” (see Fig.  5 ). In addition, Fig.  6 shows the most prominent examples, i.e., the words most often used by the students to describe their feelings during the pandemic.in the prompt “I feel …”.

Percentage of negative and positive words. Left column: Self-concept: “I am …”. Right column: Current feelings during the pandemic “I feel …”

Summary of the words most often used by the university students to describe their feelings in response to the pandemic

Personality: Big Five

The final student sample (n = 220) scored low on the BFI-40 subscales for extraversion ( mean : 24.5, SD  = 5.65), neuroticism ( mean : 25.37, SD  = 6.51), and reported moderate scores on the conscientiousness scale ( mean : 30.69, SD  = 6.07), the openness scale ( mean : 36.85, SD  = 5.07), and the agreeableness scale ( mean : 33.42, SD  = 4.50) and as described earlier (see section “ Study sample, survey drop-out and missing data ”), the BFI-40 scores of the samples (n = 220 vs. n = 105 who dropped-out) did not differ in the five personality dimensions. The Big Five personality traits were significantly correlated with self-reported depressive and anxiety symptoms as well as with the self-reported difficulties in emotion perception. Table  2 shows a summary of the correlations between measures of personality traits (BFI-40), trait anxiety (STAI-trait scale), state anxiety (STAI-state scale), self-reported depressive symptoms (PHQ-2), and perceived difficulties in emotion perception (TAS-20) as obtained from the final sample (n = 220).

Automated data analytics, machine learning (exploratory)

The university students’ personality traits (Big Five) and trait anxiety could be predicted from the psychological variables (trait and state) summarized in Table  3 through feature importance extraction by Support Vector Regression. The table and the numbers in percent show the major contributing factors to the prediction of the respective trait listed in the left column (under “Measure”). Table  4 shows the prediction accuracy suggesting that prediction of all trait attributes have similar error rates.

The COVID-19 pandemic is taking its toll. Concerns have been raised by the WHO (2020) [ 8 ], that the COVID-19 pandemic will cause “a considerable degree of fear, worry and concern in the population” (cited from WHO, 2020 [ 8 ]) and that stress and anxiety as well as depression will increase considerably during the COVID-19 pandemic, rendering affective disorders a public mental health concern of the COVID-19 pandemic [ 8 ]. In the present survey, mental health (depressive symptoms, state and trait anxiety), subjective experience (threat perception, current feelings, perceived difficulties in emotion perception, worries about health during the pandemic) as well as perceived changes in behaviour (related to health, social behaviour and learning/teaching) was assessed among university students studying in Egypt or Germany, respectively. The survey was administered in May 2020, shortly after the lockdown in these countries. Going beyond previous surveys, the students’ self-concept and the Big Five of human personality were additionally assessed to explore psychological patterns between personality traits, mental health, and perceived changes in subjective experience by means of correlation analysis and machine learning.

Mental health among university students

Regarding pandemic risk groups, previous cross-cultural pre-pandemic surveys have shown high prevalence rates of anxiety and depression among university students across countries [ 17 , 18 , 19 , 20 , 21 , 22 , 50 , 51 , 52 , 53 ]. Therefore, the WHO’s concerns about the psychological consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic on mental health and well-being might affect university students as a population group as well. The results obtained from this sample of university students who study in Egypt or Germany during the first lockdown period confirm these concerns. In particular, the results confirm previous pre-pandemic results about mental health of university students and they seem to confirm the concerns of the WHO regarding mental health and threat perception during the current pandemic. The mean state anxiety score (assessed with standardized questionnaires including the Spielberger Trait-State Anxiety Inventory, STAI) was significantly above the cut off score that, according to the literature [ 34 ], discriminate high from low anxious subjects. In addition, state anxiety scores were significantly higher in woman than man. Moreover, 51.82% (n = 114) of the students had sum scores greater than the cut off (> 3), and 19.09% (n = 42) had a sum score of 3 (cut off). Only 26.82% (n = 59) of the sample scored below the PHQ-2 cut off score (< 3), and only 2.27% (n = 5) did report to not suffer from loss of interest or pleasure in doing things (PHQ-2 item 1) or from feeling down, depressed or hopeless during the last two weeks (PHQ-2 item 1), and self-reported depressive symptom did not differ among students studying in Egypt or Germany or in woman or men (see Fig.  3 for an overview on state anxiety and depressive symptoms). Thus, in total, 51.82% and 19.09% of the final student sample (n = 220) reported depressive symptoms at and above the cut off score for depressive symptoms [ 38 ], thus feeling depressed or hopeless and reporting a loss of interest and pleasure in the items of the PHQ-2 questionnaire during most of the days of the last 2 weeks of the COVID-19 pandemic. Prevalence rates from previous surveys among university students reported a prevalence of anxiety symptoms or depressive symptoms above 35% among university students before the pandemic (e.g., for depression or anxiety [ 17 , 18 , 19 , 20 , 21 , 22 , 50 , 51 , 52 , 53 ]). A recent online study [ 21 ], including N = 185 university students studying in Germany found that 36.6% of the university students (women and men) report experiencing depressive symptoms, 41.83% (women and men) reported experiencing high levels of state anxiety, and all students reported experiencing stress due to excessive demands and uncertainty in finances, job, or social relationships. These prevalence rates have actually been found in cohort studies including university students all over the globe, irrespective of culture before the outbreak of the pandemic [ 17 , 18 , 19 , 20 , 21 , 22 , 50 , 51 , 52 , 53 ]. In relation to these pre-pandemic prevalence rates, the prevalence of state anxiety and of depressive symptoms in the current sample seem to have more than doubled during the pandemic time period.

The scores for state anxiety need to be seen in relation to the results obtained for trait anxiety. As mentioned above, trait anxiety scores were even higher in those students who dropped-out, however state anxiety scores did not differ across students who completed the survey and those who did not. Students with high state anxiety during the pandemic may be at special risk of suffering from anxiety proneness in the long run. Therefore, surveys among university students should be continued to further explore the development of anxiety and particularly also of depressive symptoms during the current pandemic as well as the comorbidity of anxiety with depressive symptoms as a consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic. Very recent surveys among university students from Greece (Europe) and the United States conducted in a similar time period (during the first lockdowns in these countries) report similar high percentage numbers of anxiety, depression and mental health burdens [ 12 , 13 ]). Given that the STAI asks for feelings of stress, worry, discomfort, experienced on a day to day basis one could expect changes in other psychological domains as well (see below).

Threat perception and perceived difficulties in emotion perception

Being asked about their feelings during the pandemic, 55% of the students reported unpleasantness and 37.55% of the students rated to be in loss of control of the situation, and about 50% reported moderate to high physiological arousal. Moreover, university students reported a mix of discrete emotions in response to the pandemic. In particular, there was a significant loss of happiness, and a change in feelings of surprise, disgust and anger. In line with this, as illustrated in Fig.  5 , linguistic analysis of the participants’ answers to the questions “I feel …” also suggest a negativity bias in the linguistic descriptions of the students’ feelings: In summary, there was more intense use of negative than positive words to describe one’s feelings in response to the pandemic. Thus, feelings of threat and negative emotions were also reflected in the self-generated linguistic answers of the students, supporting a general increase in anxiety during the first period of the COVID-19 pandemic among university students. Similarly, and in line with the scores obtained from the depression screening instrument (PHQ-2), linguistic analysis of the questions “I feel …” revealed a high percentage of words such as feeling depressed, down or hopeless (see Fig.  6 ). Thus, anxiety and depression related words were amongst the most frequently used words when participants were asked to describe in their own words, how the current COVID-19 pandemic situation makes them feel. The study sample also reported to have perceived difficulties in emotion perception during the pandemic. Using the three subscales of the Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20), the participants were instructed to rate whether they experience difficulties in emotion perception relative to before the pandemic situation. Especially difficulties in identifying and describing feelings were reported. Moreover, the sum scores of the TAS-20 were significantly correlated with the students’ anxiety scores and the intensity of self-reported depressive symptoms (see Table  2 ). Taken together, these results are of particular interest in light of discussions which mental health interventions might help university students to cope with the threat provoked by the pandemic situation. Given that previous research has shown that high scores on the TAS-20 promote psychopathology [ 28 , 29 ], the reports of the students about them perceiving difficulties in identifying one’s feelings in response to the pandemic situation relative to before the pandemic outbreak should be taken seriously and investigated in further studies in larger student cohorts.

Worries about health and health behaviour during the COVID-19 pandemic

Moreover, the university students’ worries about health should be taken seriously. Chronic worrying is a sign of chronic distress and constitutes a risk factor of later development of general anxiety disorder [ 54 ]. In the current study, 65.5% of the final student sample (n = 220) reported being worried about their mental health and 71.4% reported to worry about their physical health more often than before the pandemic. The majority of the student sample did, however, not report to pay more attention to bodily sensations or symptoms (taste, smell, cardiovascular, respiration/breathing) than before the pandemic. However, worries about mental and physical health were accompanied by perceived changes in health behaviour. The percentage of “yes” and “no”-answers differed significantly for changes in health behaviour related to eating and physical activity behaviour since the outbreak of the pandemic. We did not ask the students for their eating behaviour or their physical activity level before the pandemic. Thus, the questions asking for perceived changes during relative to before the pandemic might have the potential of a memory bias. Nevertheless, pre-pandemic surveys report that up to 30% of university students do not exercise at a regular basis and do not meet the WHO’s weekly or daily physical activity recommendations (for an overview see [ 55 ]). The present results suggest a reduction in physical activity during the pandemic and physical inactivity and sedentarism are among the major risk factors promoting negative lifestyle-related diseases in the long run [ 55 ].

Learning behaviour during the COVID-19 pandemic

The pandemic might have negative effects on student’s teaching and learning behaviour. In the present sample of university students, difficulties in teaching and learning were reported by the majority of students. One interpretation of these results is, that pandemic situations such as the current COVID-19 pandemic are characterized by uncertainty, fear, and threat, i.e., factors that are known to impact self-regulation. Previous research has shown that self-regulation is negatively related with threat perception [ 27 ] because responding to fear, anxiety and to threatening events depletes top-down control and self-regulatory resources [ 56 , 57 ] that are also required for academic performance. In line with this, students reported having difficulties in focusing and concentrating on the teaching content during the current COVID-19 pandemic situation (see Fig.  4 b). Self-learning formats such as e-learning may accentuate these effects.

Self-concept and personality of university students, and machine learning

When asked to describe themselves with a modified version of the TST asking for descriptions of the students’ “actual self”, positive word use outweighed negative word use. When the student sample was considered as a whole, linguistic analysis of word use (see Fig.  5 ) supported a clear bias towards positivity that also accords with previous results that seeing yourself in a positive light correlates with positive self-descriptions and preferential processing of positive words [ 58 , 59 , 60 , 61 ]. Although this result must be seen in relation to a general positivity bias in written and spoken language (most languages having more positive than negative words [ 62 ], the analysis of word use suggests that the pandemic situation at the time of the survey did not provoke a threat to the self-concept of this university student sample and this, although linguistic analysis of the answers to the prompt that asked for feelings during the pandemic (see also Fig.  5 ) revealed a negativity bias as immediate negative responses to the pandemic situation in line with the results observed for the survey items asking for threat perception. Symptoms of state anxiety and current depressive symptoms may therefore reflect temporary changes of the university students to the pandemic situation that however occur immediately in response to the pandemic lockdown.

Psychological theories agree that individual factors such as one’s personality are correlated with subjective experience, well-being, mental health, and behaviour, e.g., [ 63 , 64 ]. In line with this, analyses showed correlations between the Big Five (BFI-40) personality traits and the university students’ self-reported symptoms of anxiety, depression and their perceived difficulties in emotion perception. Statistically, correlation analysis, linear regression analysis, multivariate structural equation models, mediator analysis, or moderator analysis may all be feasible statistical methods to describe the relationship between psychological variables. However, in the present study we attempted to apply supervised machine learning algorithms that are built on regression models to further explore whether personality traits were not only correlated with mental health variables but could be predicted from the self-reported subjective experience of the participants obtained from this survey’s multimethod assessment. The observed results are promising despite the relatively small datasets used for training and prediction. The algorithms provided relatively accurate models for the prediction of personality traits from self-report data. As illustrated in Table  3 , neuroticism as one of the big five personality traits (shown to be related to mental ill health [ 63 , 64 ]) and in the present study sample significantly correlated with both, self-reported anxiety and depressive symptoms (see Table  2 ) could best be predicted by changes in current anxiety (threat perception, difference scores state vs trait anxiety), by the students’ self-reported trait and state anxiety, by their self-reported perceived difficulties in emotion perception (describing one’s feelings reported on the TAS-20), by self-reported changes in physical health behaviour (eating) and by self-reported difficulties in social distancing. Very recent results from surveys investigating the role of personality factors during the current COVID-19 pandemic also found that people’s self-reported psychological perceptions of and reactions towards the pandemic also depend on stable personality traits including the Big Five (for an overview [ 65 ]). Interestingly, there is also evidence that expression on personality traits such as the Big Five can change in conjunction with mental ill health [ 66 ]. Our results and these recent results suggest that future studies exploring the psychological consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic should include the assessment of personality traits in their anamnestic exploration of mental health and self-reported experience.

Limitations

The present study adds to the evidence reported in the literature about the negative consequences of the current COVID-19 pandemic on mental health and well-being of university students. By using a mix of self-report measures it allows detailed insight into the subjective experiences associated with the pandemic in this population group in the psychological domains of mental health, health behaviour change and learning. However, some limitations already discussed in the sections above should be stressed. First, there was a high drop-out whose percentage was within the upper range of the expected drop-out rates for online surveys (20–50%). Although drop-outs were statistically assessed and compared to the final sample as far as appropriate, suggesting no bias by age or gender or the student’s personality, the drop-out reduced the final sample size reducing the power of the study. Thus, further data is required to demonstrate the generalizability of the present observations and to further explore possible cultural differences. In the present study sample, the reported significant differences between gender and students studying in Egypt or Germany might be tentative due to the small study samples. Power calculations suggest an ideal sample size of about N = 271 (90% confidence) or N = 385 (95% confidence) participants (margin of error of 5%). Although this sample size was reached in the beginning, it was reduced by the successive drop-out across the blocks of survey items. Second, statistics revealed significant results for the quantitative measures, however, the results of the linguistic tasks (self-concept and feeling prompts) could be reported only descriptively. The LIWC software was used for linguistic analysis. This allowed word categorization with high accuracy and validity [ 46 ] providing interesting insight that otherwise might have gone unnoticed and confirmed the results obtained from quantitative measures. Third, due to the small sample size the machine learning approach is exploratory and challenged by limitations. While machine learning tools have already been applied in many domains of psychology (e.g., in the domain of Affective Computing and Health Psychology), their use is still relatively under investigated in studies using psychology data obtained from multimethod approaches as the current one [ 67 ]. Existing studies using machine learning for analyzing personality- and behaviour-related data, mainly target personality prediction from larger datasets (e.g., [ 68 ]). In the present study, we followed guidelines and recommendations from existing machine learning studies discussing possible solutions for application of machine learning tools with small sample sizes (see for an overview [ 69 , 70 , 71 ]), using sample size of about 200 and support vector machines (SVM similar to SVR used in our study) for estimation of depressive symptoms, for personality trait and perceived stress prediction based on sample sizes ranging from 150 to 250 participants [ 69 , 70 , 71 ], as in the present study. In line with these previous studies applying machine learning tools to smaller sample sizes, we applied machine learning to a mix of measures that captured subjective experience in relation to the current COVID-19 pandemic situation in line with the recommendations from psychologically-driven computational approaches that suggest to include trait and state measures for prediction [ 25 , 26 ]. Nevertheless, the present approach is exploratory and application of machine learning to small sample sizes need to be critically discussed, e.g., for a detailed discussion see [ 48 ], as it can lead to overfitting or overestimation. One recommendation to avoid such problems with small sample sizes is to use nested cross validation and control feature-to-sample ratio [ 48 ]. It will be interesting to follow-up the present ML results in future COVID-19 survey studies and use additional data collected during the course of the pandemic for validation and training in order to confirm the results from ML in hopefully larger samples, supporting the combination of machine learning and classical data analytics in the domain of psychology.

This survey investigated the subjective experience of university students studying in Egypt or Germany during the COVID-19 pandemic in May 2020, i.e., in the time period after the first pandemic lockdown in the countries. Perceived changes in all psychological domains including state anxiety, depressive symptoms, threat perception, emotion perception, worries about health and behaviour (health, social distancing, and learning) were reported in the majority of students taking part in the survey. Recent COVID-10 surveys report similar high prevalence rates among university students across the globe [ 3 , 4 , 12 , 13 ]. Although the results of this survey are tentative, the multimethod approach of this survey, using multiple scales, descriptive, correlational, and linguistic analysis, provides a valuable contribution to previously published COVID-19 studies. Moreover, the approach of combining descriptive analysis with machine learning should and could be followed-up in larger samples during the second period of the current pandemic. Crucially, despite the small sample size, the present results of self-reported anxiety and depressive symptoms among university students, that also seem to be supported by recent surveys including university students from other countries [ 3 , 4 , 12 , 13 ] should be taken serious as they suggest that there is an urgent need to develop interventions that help prevent mental health among university students in order to avoid negative consequences in health and learning behaviour in response to the pandemic and provide health care to those students who might be at special risk of mental ill health.

Questionnaire/survey

The questionnaires and self-assessment scales used in this study are standardized questionnaires and standardized scales whose references are cited in the manuscript in brackets. The single survey questions e.g., health and teaching have been developed for the purpose of this survey and are summarized in Table  1 in the manuscript. An overview of the online survey can be found in the supplement of this manuscript.

Availability of data and materials

The datasets used and/or analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request. Due to the informed consent form in which the possibility of raw data being published online was not explicitly stated, the raw data cannot be made accessible in online repositories.

Abbreviations

BFI five inventory [ 43 ]

Decision tree regression

Gradient Boosting Regression

Linguistic inquiry of word count [ 46 ]

Personal Health Questionnaire 2 [ 38 ]

Root mean squared error

Self-Assessment Manikin scales [ 41 ]

Spielberger Trait State Anxiety Inventory [ 37 ]

Support Vector Regression

Toronto Alexithymia Scale [ 42 ]

World Health Organization

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Open Access funding enabled and organized by Projekt DEAL. This study was funded by the DAAD/BMBF (principal investigators: CH, SA) and by the budgetary resources of the Department of Applied Emotion and Motivation Psychology, and the open access publication fund of Ulm University. The funding bodies played no role in the design of the study and collection, analysis, and interpretation of data and in writing the manuscript.

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CH conceptualized and designed the study and the survey. CH was involved in data recruitment, in data preprocessing and CH performed data analytics for descriptive and correlational data and results (descriptive data analytics, statistical analysis), and CH interpreted the result, CH supervised the machine learning part, created figures and tables and drafted and wrote the manuscript and revised it for scientific content. AB helped in the survey, performed the machine learning part, the machine learning part was also supervised by SA. All authors read and approved the manuscript.

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The present survey follows ethical guidelines: all students took part voluntarily in the survey. They gave written informed consent prior to filling out the survey. The participants were fully debriefed about the purpose of the study. They were informed that they will be questioned about their health, teaching and learning behaviour, and their subjective experience with the current COVID-19 pandemic situation. They were informed that they can withdraw from the study at any time during the survey without giving reasons or without negative consequences on confidentiality. They were debriefed in detail about data privacy. No individual ethics approval was submitted before the start of the survey. The survey contains questionnaires that are part of online studies that had received approval in previous studies of the corresponding author by the local ethics committee of Ulm University.

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Additional file 1.

. An overview of the online survey items and questionnaires.

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Herbert, C., El Bolock, A. & Abdennadher, S. How do you feel during the COVID-19 pandemic? A survey using psychological and linguistic self-report measures, and machine learning to investigate mental health, subjective experience, personality, and behaviour during the COVID-19 pandemic among university students. BMC Psychol 9 , 90 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1186/s40359-021-00574-x

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Seven short essays about life during the pandemic

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

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

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

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

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

Nakia Hill, Boston

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

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

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

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

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

Nancy S. Taylor, Boston

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

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

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

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

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

“It’s me,” said my husband.

“It’s me,” said my father-in-law.

“I love you,” said my husband.

“I love you,” said my father-in-law.

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

Lucia Thompson, Wayland

Would racism exist if we were blind?

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

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

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

Faizah Shareef, Boston

My Family is “Out” There

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

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

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

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

Barbara Anderson, Raynham

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

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

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

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

Melissa Lee, Waltham

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

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

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

Precious child. I pray, safeguard her.

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

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

Kirstan Barnett, Watertown

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

Writing about COVID-19 in a college admission essay

by: Venkates Swaminathan | Updated: September 14, 2020

Print article

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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How to Stay Positive During the Pandemic

Our anxiety can lead us into some dark mental spaces..

Posted March 29, 2020 | Reviewed by Matt Huston

If you told me a year ago I’d be writing an article entitled “How to Stay Positive During the Pandemic,” I’d probably laugh it off as a hyperbolic framework to talk about positivity. Who knew this is where we’d be?

If you’re like me, your life has been turned upside down by the COVID-19 outbreak. Work is different. Any social life has ground to a halt. “Social Distancing” is suddenly a word that we know and hear daily. Fear and uncertainty are rampant.

Anxiety thrives on the unknown. By and large, despite all the ups and downs geopolitically, we’ve all become accustomed to relative stability and predictability. Now, however, our changing world all but ensures waking up to a new set of rules, limitations, and changes.

After a certain point, our anxiety can lead us into some dark mental spaces. The anxious brain, in a desperate effort to attain some sense of certitude, fills in the uncertainty with worst-case scenarios, even if these scenarios are based on the flimsiest information. While it does this to keep us alert to potential dangers, hoping we’ll see them coming and avoid them, it can very often lead us into panic, avoidance, rash decisions, or falling into a hole of sadness.

If you’re like me, you might sometimes fall into the latter camp. Depression and anxiety go hand-in-hand. If all we can think of are terrible outcomes, failure, and struggle with no sense of escape or agency, of course we feel depressed. It saps our energy to work, it constrains our sense of hope that things will get better, and it overpowers our rational state of mind.

There is hope. Despite your anxious brain’s effort to highlight the terrible, and despite your depression sucking any sense of optimism from the day, you can find hope in the midst of the pandemic. With some intentional effort, you can learn and practice several skills that will boost your sense of confidence despite the crisis, nurture optimism, and build emotional flexibility so you can handle instability.

Focus on what you can control

Fear and depression can make you feel powerless. Additionally, your anxious brain and depression can conspire against you to highlight how your life is worse and limited. “You can’t see your friends.” “The stock market is taking a nose-dive along with your retirement .” “I’m so scared I can barely breathe!”

While you cannot control your feelings, your thoughts, or the actions of others, you are not powerless. Shifting your attention toward those aspects of life that you can control can help restore your sense of agency and self-confidence .

Things in your control can be as simple as your daily and nightly routine, what you eat, and what you wear each day. They can also be as profound as how you speak to yourself, how you’ll pursue your beliefs and goals , and how you’ll respond under pressure. Whether they be big or small, mundane or extraordinary, challenge yourself to make a list of all the things within your control. I bet you’ll surprise yourself with how much will be on that list.

Limit your media intake

In order to get ahead of the virus and be up-to-date on the CDC’s and WHO’s recommendations, you may be glued to your phone, TV, or computer. Of course, we all want information and guidance on what we can do to keep ourselves and family safe, but the amount of information can be a double-edged sword.

My mom used to say, “Beware, little eyes, what you see. Beware, little ears, what you hear.” She’s never been righter. Surrounding yourself with infection rate statistics and stories of hospitals being short on medical supplies because of selfish hoarders can take its toll. If that’s 100 percent of the information in our head, that’s 100 percent of the truth to you.

Limiting how much time you spend watching the news, listening to the radio, and scrolling through social media can help restore a sense of normalcy while reducing your sense of dread. This doesn’t mean putting your head in the sand, but being knowledgeable and respectful of your own emotional and psychological limits.

If you start to notice yourself getting agitated, fearful, or depleted when you’re seeking news, then it’s time for a break. Very likely, the general guidelines of “wash your hands” and “maintain social distance” will not change if you take a few hours to disconnect.

Remember that people are still working to make it get better

After some time in quarantine and being surrounded by bad news, you can start to believe that nothing is getting better, thinking things like: “The government isn’t helping,” “Doctors don’t know what they’re doing,” or “People don’t respect the health guidelines.”

At the risk of sounding like a cliché, we can find hope in the oft-quoted line from Mister Rogers, “When I was a boy, I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.’”

There are stories of police officers shopping for the elderly, doctors coming out of retirement to lend a hand, and families sharing their food and toilet paper (that’s right, even their coveted toilet paper!) with those in need. Your anxiety and depression can minimize these stories, so it’s your job to seek them out and remind yourself that there are helpers and people who care to make the situation better.

Invest in the uplifting

Surrounding yourself with uplifting media, people, activities, and thoughts can help encourage a more optimistic and joyful mindset, even in the face of stress and loss. For many, this can be difficult, and you should not expect to magically change your thoughts and feelings. But, the more you see, think, and do that reflects peace, happiness , and positivity, the more it can influence your mood and outlook.

I’m sure you’ve heard of “comfort food.” It’s used to help promote a feeling of warmth, joy, and frivolity. It’s not health food, that’s not the point. So, who and what are your “comfort food” people, movies, TV shows, books, or activities? Now’s the time to enjoy them.

Set a personal schedule and goals

Using your time wisely, sticking to a routine, and being productive help promote a sense of hope that you and life are progressing. In the face of occupational and social change, you may lose your productivity and tenacity while falling into idleness and subsequent discouragement.

Instead, take some time to create a new schedule and routine in light of the changing times. While you may be socially isolating and working remotely, you can still get up and get ready for work as you normally had and “commute” to your newly designated home workspace in the corner of the apartment. Make space in your schedule for breaks, lunch, and chatting at the water cooler (texting with friends).

Continuing to take steps toward your personal and career goals can also help you maintain hope throughout all this. This may be through exercise, reading, writing, honing old skills, or acquiring new skills. While the pandemic may have put some things on hold, you should continue to take reasonable steps toward becoming your ideal self.

Do your part

Lastly, if you’re reading this and looking for hope, remember that you are doing your part. You, along with the rest of society, have been asked to come together under extraordinary circumstances to do something out of the ordinary. Participating in the specified safety measures joins you with millions of other people as we work together to protect others and get back to business as usual.

If you’re feeling powerless and hopeless, remember that you can do your part to wash your hands, resist the urge to hoard unnecessarily, stay home unless absolutely necessary, and encourage others to do the same. It may not feel like superhero-level work, but it is superhero-level work to protect your neighbors and those most vulnerable. Your seemingly small efforts add up and make a tremendous impact on your community. They add up. They mean something. Keep moving forward, and together we’re going to all come out of this.

Kevin Foss is a licensed therapist and the founder of the California OCD and Anxiety Treatment Center in Fullerton, CA.

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Covid 19 Essay in English

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

100 Words Essay on Covid 19

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

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

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

My Experience of COVID-19

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

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

Effects of CoronaVirus on Education

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

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

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

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

Effects of CoronaVirus on Economy

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

Effects of CoronaVirus on Health

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

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12 Ideas for Writing Through the Pandemic With The New York Times

A dozen writing projects — including journals, poems, comics and more — for students to try at home.

By Natalie Proulx

The coronavirus has transformed life as we know it. Schools are closed, we’re confined to our homes and the future feels very uncertain. Why write at a time like this?

For one, we are living through history. Future historians may look back on the journals, essays and art that ordinary people are creating now to tell the story of life during the coronavirus.

But writing can also be deeply therapeutic. It can be a way to express our fears, hopes and joys. It can help us make sense of the world and our place in it.

Plus, even though school buildings are shuttered, that doesn’t mean learning has stopped. Writing can help us reflect on what’s happening in our lives and form new ideas.

We want to help inspire your writing about the coronavirus while you learn from home. Below, we offer 12 projects for students, all based on pieces from The New York Times, including personal narrative essays, editorials, comic strips and podcasts. Each project features a Times text and prompts to inspire your writing, as well as related resources from The Learning Network to help you develop your craft. Some also offer opportunities to get your work published in The Times, on The Learning Network or elsewhere.

We know this list isn’t nearly complete. If you have ideas for other pandemic-related writing projects, please suggest them in the comments.

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How COVID-19 has changed public policy

From the end of austerity policies to the worrying rise of compulsory digitalization, Harvard Kennedy School faculty see a world changed by the coronavirus pandemic.

For months, the coronavirus has crawled across the globe. One person at a time, it has passed through millions, reaching every corner of the earth. And it has not only infected people, but every aspect of our human cultures. Policymakers and the public sector face their biggest test in generations—some say ever—as lives and livelihoods hang in a terrible, delicate balance. Facing health crises, economic collapse, social and political disruption, we try to take stock of what the pandemic has done and will do. We asked Harvard Kennedy School faculty, in fields ranging from climate change to international development, from democracy to big power relations, to tell us how this epochal event has changed the world.

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Democratizing Work

As the United States and countries around the world consider re-opening after COVID-19, we are faced with a crucial question: Is our current societal model working and, if not, what kind of societal model do we want for tomorrow? Staying the course would be a recipe for disaster. The current levels of social and economic inequality both globally and locally have become untenable, and the current pandemic only reinforces these inequalities. Moreover, we are pushing the limits of what our natural world can endure. The status quo must change if we hope to survive the combined health, social, economic, political, and environmental crises at hand.

In May, Isabelle Ferreras, Dominique Méda, and I joined forces to ask a simple question: What can we learn from the crises that we are facing? At the time, admittedly, our thinking was focused on making it through the COVID-19 period only. And yet, the solution we put forth in a joint manifesto , which has now been signed by 5,000 academics around the world, outlines a solution—democratizing work— that we hope can contribute to fighting the health, economic, social, and political crises stemming from COVID-19, as well as the longstanding crisis of anti-Black racism, for which calls for change have intensified in the wake of the tragic murder of George Floyd at the hands of the Minneapolis Police Department.

What these crises are first and foremost teaching us is that humans never were and are not resources. They invest their lives, their time, and their sweat to serve the organizations that they work for and their customers. As we say in the manifesto itself, workers are not one type of stakeholder among many: they hold the keys to their employers’ success. Without workers, there would be no manufacturing plant, no deliveries, no production. All workers are essential. They are thus the core constituency of the firm. And, yet they remain excluded from participating in the government of their workplaces—a right that is still monopolized by capital investors. This exclusion is unfair and unsustainable and it prevents organizations from reaping the benefits of workplace democracy.

What I have seen in my research is that workplace democracy may well be critical to the success of corporations in the future. I have been studying organizations that pursue social and environmental objectives alongside financial ones for more than a decade. It is time we turn to these organizations and learn from their work as the economy as a whole transitions towards setting clear goals for employee well-being, and environmental and social metrics, alongside financial performance. My research reveals a critical link to workplace democracy: organizations that are more democratic—that give a voice to their workers—are better at staying the course and pursuing these multiple objectives.

Finally, democratizing workplaces is one of the most promising avenues for creating more just (including more racially just) workplaces where all workers—workers of color, women, workers with disabilities—have real control over resources, and an actual say, as equals in the governance of their organizations. By giving employees representation in decision-making bodies and the right to participate and control their organization’s strategic decisions, we can collectively build institutions that are truly equitable and fair.

Julie Battilana is Alan L. Gleitsman Professor of Social Innovation, Harvard Kennedy School; Joseph C. Wilson Professor of Business Administration, Harvard Business School; and the founder and faculty chair of the Social Innovation and Change Initiative .

The Rainy Day Is Here

The single best way to strengthen the national economy right now is to help reboot local economies, which are reeling from the economic fallout of the pandemic. The United States has 90,000 jurisdictions—including cities, towns, school districts, and transit systems—that together provide the public with schools, water, sanitation, trash collection, fire safety, emergency medical response, and infrastructure. 

Local governments are now on the front line in fighting the pandemic: responsible for organizing local testing, contact tracing, treatment and isolation programs, buying protective equipment, and setting up a system to eventually deliver a vaccine. But their revenues have collapsed—and will be hit even harder in the new fiscal year that started July 1.  

State revenues are a mixture of sales and income taxes, federal aid and user fees. Following the 2008 financial crisis, most states prudently set aside “rainy day funds” in order to improve their balance sheets. This time the revenue shortfall will be far deeper and will quickly deplete these funds. Many revenue-producing activities—such as tourism, international airports, conventions, and sporting events—are unlikely to return to pre-pandemic levels for years. States that entered the pandemic in a poor fiscal position are especially vulnerable. And, unlike the federal government, states must balance their budgets. 

Meanwhile, local communities face an existential crisis. Revenues from sales taxes and user charges (tolls, parking fines, hotel and restaurant taxes, and the like) have dried up. And across America, small businesses—many of which are minority and women owned—are failing. Local governments will face a second fiscal crisis if property values fall, leading to a decline in property taxes.

State and local governments have already laid off 1.5 million employees, most of them teachers. A further 1.5 million are in danger of losing their jobs next month. Congress has provided some $200 billion in aid to states, but this is no match for the estimated $1.3 trillion revenue shortfall expected over the next three years. The Federal Reserve’s $500 billion Municipal Lending Facility is welcome, but it is only available to states and very large jurisdictions and must be repaid within three years. This will not help thousands of medium-sized communities that wish to issue longer-term debt to finance critical infrastructure projects that generate jobs.

States and municipalities are already taking steps to mitigate the damage. These include restructuring their balance sheets, entering into regional recovery efforts, carefully examining operating costs, adopting job-shares, monetizing fixed assets, pruning overheads and working closely with community banks. But at the end of the day, these efforts alone will not be enough to prevent cuts in vital local services that often fall on the most vulnerable. If night bus routes are curtailed, the night-shift nurse will be left standing outside the hospital waiting longer to get home.

Studies conducted in the 2008 crisis showed that each dollar invested this way produced a return to GDP of $1.3 to $1.55. In the current environment, we need to strengthen local communities by providing a flexible program of cash-flow assistance and long-term liquidity to states and localities.

Linda Bilmes is Daniel Patrick Moynihan Senior Lecturer in Public Policy.

Everyone Stays Home

The nexus between work and home has raised some interesting questions about how we prioritize “care,” mainly child care, as a critical infrastructure that needs to be prioritized in any crisis management response. We often think about a disaster, such as a hurricane or earthquake, as impacting water or food supply, or an electrical gird. But what if the response to the crisis is everyone—absolutely everyone—stays home. We can wish for an “opening up” but if our kids are home—if we haven’t figured out the school and even college issue—then it all seems rather besides the point.

Juliette Kayyem is Belfer Senior Lecturer in International Security.

The End of Austerity?

The economic response to the pandemic by the United States and other advanced economies has been faster and larger than anything we have ever seen before, including both dramatic policies by central banks and extraordinary actions by fiscal policymakers. As a result, household incomes are actually up not down in many countries, and while consumer spending has fallen, at least in the United States it has fallen by a lot less than it did in the financial crisis. If policymakers follow through (in the United States this means extending) the assistance after its slated expiration, this could be a real demonstration that early, large and sustained fiscal policy responses can be successful in protecting families from the worst ravages of recessions and getting the economy back on track more quickly. Instead of the debates over austerity in the wake of the financial crisis, we might have broad agreement on the critical role of fiscal and monetary expansions after this crisis.

Jason Furman is Professor of the Practice of Economic Policy.

The Perfect Storm

COVID-19 is causing the biggest economic downturn that developing countries have ever seen. Governments and the international community have prepared for a tropical storm, but it increasingly looks like a Category 5 hurricane. They need to act and they need to act fast to assure that the government is adequately financed to withstand the collapse in tax revenues and the need for increased health and social expenditures. Absence of such action will lead to a combination of currency, debt, and banking crises. Recovery from such avoidable events is slow and painful. 

Ricardo Hausmann is Rafik Hariri Professor of the Practice of International Political Economy.

It Will Never Be the Same

COVID-19 is the most important development in my professional lifetime. The 1918 pandemic, the 1929 economic decline, the 1968 social implosion and the Andrew Johnson presidency all at once is how it’s been described. Labor markets, financial markets and international relations will never be the same.

Lawrence Summers is Charles W. Eliot University Professor.

The Tide Is Rolling Back

COVID-19 is a game-changer for much of the developing and emerging countries of the world, and not in a good way. 

COVID-19 hotspots are flaring up in many low-income countries. And, while it is challenging to combat the disease in developed countries, developing ones face even graver challenges. Combatting spread is difficult. Social distancing remains near impossible in the dense mega-cities. The lack of clean water in many poorer towns and villages prevents effective handwashing techniques. For those who do become ill, health systems are less developed, with fewer hospital beds and medical personnel per citizen, less technology, and less equipment and personal protective equipment.

But, it is not just the disease that will have a human toll. The corresponding slowing of the global economy from the pandemic is leading to unemployment and food insecurity. For the first time in over 20 years, we expect that global poverty will rise. This, in turn, may roll back gains in nutrition, education, and preventative health.

Rema Hanna is Jeffrey Cheah Professor of South-East Asia Studies.

A Dangerous Turn

We are facing the most consequential set of challenges since the Great Depression and World War II. The United States, in particular, is at a dangerous turning point facing four fundamental crises:

• The Coronavirus Crisis: With more than 120,000 Americans dead, inadequate testing and irresolute federal leadership, we are not well organized for a possible second wave;
• The Economic Crisis: More Americans are unemployed now than any time since 1933 with no clear administration plan to encourage a recovery;
• The Racial Crisis: There is nothing more dangerous to our future than continued domestic dysfunction, especially denial of justice to African Americans and other minority groups;
• The Leadership Crisis: President Trump has failed to address these and other crises. His active attempt to divide Americans on race is the most disgraceful act by an American president in our lifetime. On this issue alone, he should be defeated on November 3.

There is hope. Americans have taken to the streets in the largest peaceful demonstrations in recent decades. Our businesses and universities lead the world in the digital age. The courts, career public servants in Washington, and the military leadership are defending democracy. Our students are ready to lead and to write the next chapter in the American story.

Nicholas Burns is Roy and Barbara Goodman Family Professor of the Practice of Diplomacy and International Relations

Global Trends and Foreign Policy

Will the COVID-19 pandemic change or accelerate pre-existing global trends? Many commentators predict the end of the era of globalization that prospered under U.S. leadership since 1945. Some see a turning point at which China surpasses the United States as a global power. Certainly, there will be major changes in many economic and social dimensions of world politics, but humility is in order. One must be wary of assuming that big causes have predictable big effects. For example, the 1918–1919 flu pandemic killed more people than World War I, yet the major global changes were a consequence of the war, not the disease.

Globalization—defined as interdependence across continents—is the result of changes in the technologies of transportation and communication which are unlikely to stop. Some aspects of economic globalization such as trade will be curtailed, but while economic globalization is influenced by the laws of governments, other aspects of globalization such as pandemics and climate change are determined by the laws of biology and physics. Walls, weapons, and tariffs do not stop their transnational effects.

Thus far American foreign policy has responded by denial and blaming others rather than taking the lead on international cooperation. On a speculative counterfactual, imagine an American administration taking its cue from the post-1945 U.S. presidents I describe in Do Morals Matter? Presidents and Foreign Policy from FDR to Trump . For example, the United States could launch a massive COVID-19 aid program—a medical version of the Marshall Plan. Instead of competing in propaganda, leaders could articulate the importance of power with rather than over others and set up bilateral and multilateral frameworks to enhance cooperation. Recurrent waves of COVID-19 will affect poorer countries less able to cope and a developing-world reservoir will hurt everyone if it spills northward in a seasonal resurgence. In 1918, the second wave of the pandemic killed more people than the first. Both for self-interested and humanitarian reasons, the United States could lead the G-20 in generous contributions to a major new COVID-19 fund that is open to all poor countries. If a U.S. president were to choose such cooperative and soft-power-enhancing policies, it might create a geopolitical turning point to a better world. More likely, however, the new coronavirus will simply accelerate existing trends toward nationalist populism, authoritarianism, and tense relations between the United States and China. 

Joseph S. Nye, Jr. is Harvard University Distinguished Service Professor, Emeritus.

Sounding a Retreat

The COVID-19 pandemic is the most disruptive global event since the Great Depression and World War 2. More than 7 million people have been infected in less than six months, more than 400,000 people have died, and many more deaths will occur even if effective vaccines or treatments are eventually found. The economic costs are staggering: much of the world has fallen into recession, public debt levels are soaring, and future growth prospects have dimmed.

Yet despite these far-reaching effects, the current pandemic will not transform the essential nature of world politics. The territorial state will remain the basic building-block of international affairs, nationalism will remain a powerful political force, and the major powers will continue to compete for influence in myriad ways. Global institutions, transnational networks, and assorted non-state actors will still play important roles, but the present crisis will not produce a dramatic and enduring increase in global governance or significantly higher levels of international cooperation.

Instead, COVID-19 is more likely to reinforce divisive trends that were underway before the first case was detected. In particular, it will accelerate a retreat from globalization, raise new barriers to international trade, investment, and travel, and give both democratic and non-democratic governments greater power to track and monitor their citizens’ lives. Global economic growth will be substantially lower than it would have been had the pandemic not occurred. Relations among the major powers will continue the downward trend that was apparent before the pandemic struck.

In short, the post-COVID-19 world will be less open, less free, less prosperous, and more competitive than the world that many people expected to emerge only a few years ago.

Stephen Walt is Robert and Renee Belfer Professor of International Relations .

A New Energy Landscape?

The coronavirus and the immobilization of much of the global economy that followed have created enormous challenges for energy markets. These challenges have been most pronounced in oil, in large part due to the fact that the majority of the world’s oil consumption is for transportation. Constraints on the mobility of billions of people around the world resulted in a drop in oil demand of approximately 25 million barrels a day, out of a pre-COVID demand of 100 million. This cratering of demand led to a dramatic decrease in prices, including a day in which the American benchmark for oil went into negative price territory.

These developments, and fear that such volatility in one of the world’s largest and most strategic industries could further exacerbate a teetering global economy, led to an unprecedented mobilization of international actors. In an extraordinary shift from past positions, the G20, the United States, and even President Trump personally became actively involved in brokering a deal among OPEC members and other allied producers to agree to the largest oil production cut in history. This cut, and market forces which brought several million more barrels of oil off-line in the United States, Canada, and elsewhere, has helped stabilize oil markets, albeit from historic lows.

But critical questions remain, and debates are raging about whether the energy landscape will ever return to pre-COVID parameters. One of the most important, questions revolves around whether this abrupt rupture in energy markets can be translated into a boost for the transition to a more environmentally sustainable global energy mix. The answer to this question depends on how durable changes in consumer behavior are (particularly around travel), and whether governments seize the opportunity that pumping economic stimulus into their economies gives them to advance the energy transition. Europe has already demonstrated a willingness to use its stimulus packages to further the transition; China’s actions demonstrated a mixed intent, and—thus far—there has been little indication that advancing a clean energy transition is high on the list of U.S. policymakers’ priorities. The world has at least one opportunity to create a silver lining from the COVID crisis, but it will require vision and action to realize.

Meghan O’Sullivan is Kirkpatrick Professor of the Practice of International Relations.

Good and Bad News for Climate

The coronavirus pandemic will likely have profound effects on both climate change and climate change policy.  These impacts are mainly—but not exclusively—due to the severe economic downturn that has been brought about by the response of governments, firms, and individuals to the pandemic. With depressed economic activity, there has been and will continue to be a net reduction of emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases linked with the observed net decrease in energy demand. Without the pandemic, overall, global emissions might have peaked in 2024. Instead, it now appears that global emissions may have peaked last year, in 2019. That’s good news for climate change, but economic recession is surely not a desirable approach to mitigating emissions.

The impact of economic recession is surely less positive for the course of environmental and climate change policy. Political will for environmental policies and regulations always decreases during economic downturns. However, the financial responses by governments to the recession can compensate for this, at least partly. Short-term financial assistance and economic relief have reasonably been focused on helping economies recover as rapidly as possible, as well as targeting relief to those in society who have been particularly disadvantaged. But long-term economic stimulus can include elements that help move the economy in a green, climate-friendly direction—less reliance on fossil fuels, greater reliance on renewable sources of energy, and greater efficiency in the production and use of energy. In the last recession, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 included abundant use of such green incentives. And now the European Union’s proposed Economic Recovery Plan does likewise. Whether such an approach is used this year and next year in the United States, however, depends upon difficult domestic politics, not to mention the outcome of the November election.

Robert N. Stavins is A.J. Meyer Professor of Energy and Economic Development.

A New Look at Business and Government

Coronavirus and other health pandemics will happen again, and sooner than we think because of climate change. COVID-19 provides an opportunity to seriously examine the roles of business and government in society, to figure out what each is best at doing, to figure out what each is not well-suited to deliver, and what they must do more of together. These determinations must be made in a clear-eyed manner with data, incentives, and a tremendous sense of social-justice for the poor and vulnerable.

Amitabh Chandra is Ethel Zimmerman Wiener Professor of Public Policy, Harvard Kennedy School; Henry and Allison McCance Professor of Business Administration, Harvard Business School.

The Worrying Rise of Digitalization

In times of crises, such as pandemics, all of society’s underlying vulnerabilities lie bare: the long history of injustice, of not respecting people’s rights as citizens and as human beings, lifts its ugly head one more time. We hardly need reminders that not all is well in the human rights domain, but COVID-19 definitely is one. Also, many of the responses to this pandemic, in one way or another, have rather forcefully driven along the digitalization of our lifeworlds. The possibilities for surveillance as practiced by both governments and private sector will increase enormously. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was formulated in responses to centuries of hardship in a thoroughly analog world. COVID-19 is one more, very big step into an increasingly digital world in which human rights not only need to be rethought in their new context, one by one, but also need to be defended in ways that themselves make use of the compulsory digitalization that happens all around us.

Mathias Risse is Lucius N. Littauer Professor of Philosophy and Public Administration.

Rebuild What? And How?

Our work on sustainable development invites a long-term perspective on today’s overlapping crises, of which the coronavirus, racism, and climate heating are only the most visible faces. From that intergenerational perspective, shocks and surprises are the norm, not the exception. Sometimes they stem from wars, sometimes from environmental degradation, sometimes from technological innovations, sometimes from revolutionary ideas … and sometimes from pandemics.  Such disruptions invariably impoverish or kill some people, while opening opportunities for others. They can also lay bare underlying social inequalities that incumbent regimes have ignored or papered over. This is certainly the case today, where it has become starkly clear how the burden of our overlapping crises is falling disproportionately on people who are Black or poor or otherwise socially marginalized.

The long-term perspective of the quest for sustainable development also highlights the reality that—however terrible the immediate impacts of history’s cataclysmic disruptions—their ultimate consequences for human well-being are not foreordained, but rather depend on how we choose to rebuild in their wake.

But rebuild what? And how?

Research suggests that the prospects for rebuilding a more just and prosperous world—and a world better prepared to weather the next shocks that will inevitably come along—depend on long-term programs of action to strengthen and maintain the following six interdependent social capacities:

• The capacity to conserve and enhance the natural and anthropogenic resources that constitute the productive base of society.
• The capacity to assure greater equity in access to that resource base and the flow of goods and services produced from it.
• The capacity to adapt to unexpected shocks through identification and provisioning of essential reserves and through practice in mobilizing them.
• The capacity to transform unsustainable development pathways into more sustainable ones through disempowerment of incumbents vested in unjust aspects of the status quo.
• The capacity to link knowledge with action in ways that enhance the effectiveness of political agitation aimed at equitable improvements in well-being.
• The capacity to govern—to work together to achieve what we can’t achieve alone—and thus to develop and implement all the other capacities in an integrated and mutually supportive fashion.

An integrated strategy of capacity building is no substitute for immediate action to meet the basic needs and redress the violent injustices facing us in today’s crises. But such a strategy is a historically informed alternative to the temptations facing each of us to focus exclusively on the single ill or capacity about which we feel most strongly. The capacities we list here are complementary, not competitive. Society has already built a significant understanding of how to foster each of them, and has sometimes learned to integrate them in sustained programs that support deep and long-lasting social change. Such programs should be put into action today by diverse actors at multiple scales in concerted efforts to rebuild a more just and sustainable world from the wreckage of our current crises.

William C. Clark is Harvey Brooks Professor of International Science, Public Policy and Human Development; Alicia G. Harley is Post-Doctoral Fellow, Sustainability Science Program.

A Just and Democratic New Normal

A perfect storm of three crises is battering America: a public health crisis of the COVID-19 pandemic; a civic crisis of widespread protests sparked by racist police abuse; and an economic crisis of record unemployment and dislocation. Between now and November, we may well face a fourth political crisis surrounding the presidential election, its conduct, and perhaps even its outcome. These crises have vanquished all sense of normalcy for now. But, in the longer term, will we be able to create a better new normal? What world will COVID-19 leave behind?

Writing in the Financial Times , Peter Atwater foresees a ”K”-shaped recovery . The upward part of the “K”—people who will do better than before these crises—consists of professionals and others in others at the top end of the income distribution. The bottom part of the “K” consists of “have-nots” who may fare even worse than they did before the crisis: essential but sometimes disposable workers, sometimes lacking health care, sick leave, employment, and low-income and people of color whom we now know suffer much more from damage of COVID-19.

If the future is this “K,” COVID will merely have accelerated the trends toward economic, social, political, and health inequities that have been widening in the United States for the past forty years: a quickening of the old normal as we knew it.

But perhaps it is within our grasp to create a different new normal, one that is more equitable and democratic. We can see shoots of this better new normal in the civic federalism of local responses to COVID-19’s damage. Many governors and mayors stepped up with energy and creative solutions to protect public health and map the way to recovery. Some businesses and nonprofits took costly action early to protect their employees and communities. Labor and community advocates organized immediate aid, but also spoke up for the least advantaged.

There are more shoots visible in the huge protests following George Floyd’s killing. People of many races and classes have awakened to the reinforcing harms of economic inequality, disease, and racism. Himself an avatar of this intersectionality, Floyd lost his job as a security guard because of the pandemic, contracted COVID-19 in April, and was killed several weeks later by Minneapolis police.

Will these shoots multiply into a robust new American democracy? Or, will they be mowed down by the juggernauts of racism and plutocracy that preceded this pandemic? The answer is up to us.

Archon Fung is Winthrop Laflin McCormack Professor of Citizenship and Self-Government.

Information Is Survival Gear

This pitiless spring of 2020 has exploited the forces that already weakened us: our political divisions, our doubts, and our intersecting injustices. Partisan division turned public health measures into performance art; distrust of institutions deepened as they struggled to respond; and the weight of suffering, physical and economic, on communities of color has inspired people all around the world to risk their own health and safety to come into the streets in solidarity.

Early in this crisis, the World Health Organization warned of an “Infodemic”— people overwhelmed by information, some of it true, much of it not, that made it harder for anyone to know what to believe. In the months since we’ve seen just how viral conspiracy theories can be, spread by those looking to divide us even further or profit from our fears. So both the media and the platforms that control so much of our information ecosystem face a reckoning that was long overdue. We are seeing that play out in real time, from the serial policy adjustments at Facebook and Twitter to the soul searching at our largest newsrooms to the desperate efforts to save what remains of local news.

Good information is more than a democratic value; it is survival gear. When people show up in emergency rooms after drinking bleach in hopes of preventing infection, or blame 5G, GMOs, or Bill Gates for the spread of the virus, we have failed to protect our information streams from lethal toxins. So out of this crisis, for all our divisions and distrust, should come a deep and broad debate over rules and norms about speech: who controls what we read and see and hear; how do we honor both freedom and fairness; what can we do to promote reliable information even as we prevent misinformation from spreading? We aren’t likely to agree on the way forward; so the next test is how well we create the conditions for debate, listening with open minds, putting the public interest first and realizing that the tension between values can be a source of strength, not an excuse for surrender.

Nancy Gibbs is Lombard Director of the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy; Visiting Edward R. Murrow Professor of Practice.

When Misinformation Mobilizes

As a researcher of critical internet studies who specializes in media manipulation and disinformation, I am often asked about how social media impacts society. When it comes to thinking about health misinformation on tech platforms, we must recognize how quickly people’s behaviors change when exposed to new information. Questions about how to protect yourself and family from COVID-19 became a breeding ground for misinformation, where political polarization exacerbated an already contentious issue. To wear a mask or to not became a show of partisanship as the relatively innocuous recommendation became a political discussion on social media.

As the pandemic hit, like a slow-moving hurricane, many took shelter indoors and followed along closely online, where social media platforms amplified both truth and misinformation about COVID-19. Rumors and conspiracy about medical recommendations sit alongside data about potential risk and harm, which are difficult for public health professions to address. Some health misinformation underpins in-person rallies to reopen the economy in the United States, where activists claimed COVID-19 was a grand hoax by Democrats to hijack the election. When misinformation mobilizes, it can endanger the public.

For the last decade, we have witnessed social media platforms, like Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube, become the most indispensable conduits of information during social upheaval, elections, and natural disasters. But, if we look back to their origins, they were not designed for such critical communication infrastructure: YouTube began as a dating site; Facebook was a place for college students to network; and Twitter’s purpose as a microblog was described by CEO Jack Dorsey as “a short burst of inconsequential information.” How things have changed!

The lessons we learn today about how to handle health misinformation may hold the key to developing public policy on other forms of disinformation, especially as it relates to the role social media companies will play in curating content online.

Tech companies are slowly coming to the realization that it’s not just their corporate reputations at stake; it’s also our lives.

Joan Donovan is Research Director at the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy.

Banner photo by REUTERS / Eric Gaillard.

Faculty portraits by Martha Stewart.

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Investigating the Link Between Semaglutide and Suicidal Ideation

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