Junior Year Writing, NatSci 387, Lecture 3, Group 3:

Shelby Hasu (Natural Resource Conservation), Erica Jackson (Animal Sciences/ Commonwealth College), Sidney Johnson (Environmental Sciences/ Commonwealth College), Sam Teerlinck (Pre-Vet/Natural Resource Conservation / Commonwealth College

FINAL VIDEO PROJECT TRANSCRIPT (17, April 2020)

Erica: Hi I’m Erica Jackson. I am a Pre-Vet major at UMass Amherst.

Shelby: Hi I’m Shelby Hasu. I am a NRC Wildlife major at UMass Amherst.

Sam: I’m Sam Teerlinck. I’m a Pre-Vet major with a NRC minor at UMass Amherst.

Sidney: Hi I’m Sidney Johnson and I am an Environmental Science major at UMass Amherst.

Erica: Today we as a panel are here to discuss how our lives have been affected by the recent COVID-19 outbreak. In order to convey our messages effectively we will each answer the same three questions, allowing all viewpoints to be heard.

The first question is: What was your initial response upon hearing about COVID-19?

Upon hearing about COVID-19 I did not think it would escalate as quickly as it did. Prior to this pandemic other diseases, like Ebola, had travelled the globe. DUring the Ebola spread, very few in the United States had been affected and I assumed COVID-19 would follow suit. But wow was I wrong. With over half a million people confirmed positive with the disease and tens of thousands dead, this virus is certainly a different animal. When schools began to close, the severity of the situation heightened in my mind as plans were being set into action for our safety. I never thought we wouldn’t return to UMass, but I’m okay with being home.

Shelby: I think my initial reaction to the pandemic was I didn’t think that it was going to spread as fast as it was. I understood why it spread in China because it was just so crowded there, we know there is just so many people, but for it to spread around the world so quickly was a real shock and honestly my initial reaction kind of as a joke was to buy a lot of survival stuff, but now I’m like maybe this is good stuff to have in case we are all destroyed by this virus.

 Sam: Yeah, I’m kind of on the same page, my initial reaction was I did not think much would come of the virus. I thought it would stay in Europe and Asia and I really didn’t think much of it, didn’t take it seriously at all. I think most of the U.S. really didn’t until universities started being affected and the possibility of schools would close.

 Sidney: Yeah, I had a very similar reaction to that too. I really thought this was going to be something that stayed in Asia and when I first heard about it I thought it was something that even if it did spread a little bit, it would be able to be taken out pretty easily, and I know this is naive, but because of modern medicine and stuff like that I thought it would be something that wouldn’t spread as much as it did. I guess it makes sense with the travel that we do nowadays.

 Shelby: Yeah that makes sense.

Erica: Yeah, the second question is: How has COVID-19 impacted us and the people around us? Personally, my family has not been very highly affected by the virus. Both my parents have been able to maintain their jobs, working from home,so financially I am in a very similar situation as I was in before the virus. One of my aunts did test positive for the virus as she lives in a nursing home in New York City. This is a heavily hit demographic so I wasn’t very shocked when I heard that she did test positive for it. Luckily, she is asymptomatic and we are in hopes that it stays that way. The only reason she tested positive or would have been tested at all was because her whole facility was coming down with it, so as a precaution they tested the whole facility for it, which is how her positive test was confirmed, but we are just in hopes that it remains asymptomatic.

Shelby: My parents are in the same boat as yours Erica where they are both working from home. I think my aunt is also in an assisted living situation, and a portion of her facility was devoted to COVID-19 and patients and we were all like okay she has pre-existing health conditions and she’s one of those people who are definitely higher risk of getting COVID-19 and not doing so great, but I think my family is pretty lucky so far. I know a lot of my friends have either lost their jobs because they are not essential or they work in the restaurant business and their hours are completely cut now.

Sam: Yeah, I’m kind of in the same boat. I haven’t been affected too much, but I haven’t been able to get my old job back, which kind of sucks being unemployed, but other than that being stuck at home is alright. That’s really the only complaint I have is that I can’t leave home, but I haven’t been affected too much by it.

 Shelby: Same.

Sidney: Yeah,my parents, luckily, haven’t lost their jobs, which is really good, and they’re in really good health and stuff. Actually, funny enough, at the very beginning of the pandemic, my dad travelled to Chicago, and when he came back he was sick with symptoms that are very similar to what we are seeing now and my mom got really sick, and they didn’t think anything of it. But now, looking back, they might have had it, but we’re not sure. Otherwise, not much else has changed for me, except obviously being home and having to balance school and free time. That’s kind of difficult. And having so much screen time, that’s kind of been an issue, but besides that I’ve been good.

 Erica: The final question leaves this discussion a bit open ended, as we do not know what is truly to come, but the final question is: What does the future look like in each of our eyes?

And, I am going to start by showing you guys these graphs, as I am a little concerned what the future will hold and how we will come back from such a quarantine process.

*share screen with four graphs

Lately, I have been doing a little research on the Spanish Flu, and the corona virus and Spanish Flu pandemics parallel rather closely. I find it odd that they take place exactly one hundred years apart. This is just interesting as I find that it would be strange for two diseases to have such a similar playout at such intervals in history. In the United States during the Spanish Flu, these are four popular cities. In the top left, we have Philadelphia. Philadelphia waite a while before enforcing social distancing policies and therefore had a very large initial spike of the Spanish Flu. Their death tolls were the highest amongst all cities in the United States and due to them having such a high spike, their second spike was minimal because so many people were affected by the first round. New York on the other hand, had a rather low death toll, especially being the size of the city that it is. I had one of the lowest death rates. They started social distancing very early and maintained them very late after the first spike had hit, making their second spike also low. San Francisco on the other had, waited a long time to enfore social distancing making their first spike high, anf they did not maintain them an slacked them off rather early, which shows the second spike, around sixteen weeks after the virus initially presented itslef. And finally is St.Louis.

St. Louis I find very interesting because they did not enforce socail distancing until prettylate in the game, this resulted in, it was odd that they had a low initial peak, but due to them having such a low initial peak they slacked off rather early and resulted in them having a very large second peak forcing them into a second social distancing period. Even though their death rate wasn’t very high I just find it interesting how their second peak was bigger than their first and this makes me concerned for us and our future. I understand that it is very difficult being at home for a long period of time and I know people need their jobs back, but I just hope the government enforces social distancing to a point where we don’t believe we will have a second spike, as if we have to go into a second period of social distancing, like St. Louis did, our entire summer would be affected by it, and possibly into our fall semester. By maintaining a longer social distancing period after we believe the virus is completed I think it will save us in the long run.

 Shelby:That was actually pretty interesting, I liked that. I guess for me I have two different ways that this could go, or two different things that I think could happen. One, since everyone has been quarantined, wildlife has had the opportunity to have their run of the place, and I think when everything opens up again there is going to be a lot of increased conflict and I think it is going to be hard for people to mitigate the conflict between them, and the animals are going to be confused about why the people are here again. Because, I know, in England the foxes are pretty prevalent in London and big cities and they are becoming even more crazy in their populations now because they have all this room, no cars, no people, no dogs, and I think once they come out there’s going to be a lot of conflict and we are going to see a lot of dead wildlife basically coming out of this.I think so far as I’ve seen, and China has reopened, they’ve continued to sell exotic weird animals that started this thing too.

Sam: So none of us are really sure what the future is going to hold, but I’m kind of hoping it will be a wake up call for the governments and society in general. Hopefully it will be a wake up call to better procedures and ways to deal with stuff like this, so if it ever happens again, even with modern technology and everything, we’re still vulnerable to diseases like this especially in such crowded populations. Hold on I’m going to share my screen real quick.

*shares screen with “Coronavirus pandemic leading to huge drop in air pollution” Can you guys see that?

 Sidney, Shelby and Erica: Yes.

Sam: Okay so this is aerial footage of air pollution in Asia. In 2019, it was all that pink is air pollution and I think it was nitrogen dioxide, yep, and in 2020 it was so much lower, so hopefully it will be another wake up call that we’re causing all of this pollution and us being stuck inside and not being outside is having an actual benefit on the world.

 Sidney: And kind of going along with that, I read this article by the L.A. Times, written a couple of days ago, and it was about this environmentalist named Alan Weisman, who wrote this book a while ago called “A World Without Us” and this book was kind of about what would happen to the environment in a theoretical post human world type of thing and in his book he was talking about how since all of this activity was halted, wildlife was able to take over these places we had normally been in and it’s kind of interesting because I guess he’s been getting a lot of people sending him messages being like this situation that we are in now is similar to the one in your book. Since so many people have been staying inside, wildlife has been returning to different places. Like Sam, you were saying there is less pollution. I think like what you were saying, hopefully this is a wake up call and people will see we have such a delicate connection with the environment and what we do impacts the environment a lot, so hopefully it is a call to change in the future.

 Shelby: Yeah.

Erica: Thank you guys all for watching, I hope our discussion has allowed you to reflect on your experiences during COVID-19 and what the future will be like after. Thanks!

REFERENCES

Coste, V. (2020, March 30). Tails up? Is wildlife the big beneficiary of the COVID-19 lockdown? Retrieved April 21, 2020, from https://www.euronews.com/2020/03/30/coronavirus-is-wildlife-the-big-beneficiary-of-the-covid-19-lockdown

Mcnamara, M. (2020, April 14). Column: Bears thriving at Yosemite. Clear skies. Does coronavirus reveal a ‘World Without Us’? Retrieved from https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/story/2020-04-14/coronavirus-yosemite-wild life

Strochlic, N. and Champine, R. (March 27, 2020). How some cities ‘flattened the curve’ during the 1918 flu pandemic. National Geographic. Retrieved from https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/2020/03/how-cities-flattened-curve-1918-sp anish-flu-pandemic-coronavirus/

Watts, J., & Kommenda, N. (2020, March 23). Coronavirus pandemic leading to huge drop in air pollution. Retrieved from: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/mar/23/coronavirus-pandemic-leading-t o-huge-drop-in-air-pollution

Westcott, B. (2020, March 6). China has banned eating wild animals after the coronavirus outbreak. Ending the trade will be hard. Retrieved April 21, 2020, from https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/05/asia/china-coronavirus-wildlife-consumption-ban-intl-h nk/index.html

BIOS:

• Erica Jackson is a Pre-Veterinary major at The University of Massachusetts Amherst. After she graduates in 2021, she plans to attend veterinary school where she strives to specialize in exotics, with hopes of one day working in a zoo.

• Sidney Johnson is an Environmental Science major at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. After graduation in 2021, she plans to work in wildlife conservation. 

• Sam Teerlinck is a member of the class of 2021 at UMass Amherst. He is a Pre-Veterinary major with a Natural Resource Conservation minor. After graduation he aspires to attend Vet school with the goal of focusing on wildlife.

• Shelby Hasu is a Natural Resources Conversation major at UMass Amherst, focusing on Wildlife Conservation. Post-graduation, she hopes to work on educating her community about different animal species and the natural world.