essay writing about quarantine

One Student's Perspective on Life During a Pandemic

• Markkula Center for Applied Ethics
• Ethics Resources
• Ethics Spotlight
• COVID-19: Ethics, Health and Moving Forward

The pandemic and resulting shelter-in-place restrictions are affecting everyone in different ways. Tiana Nguyen, shares both the pros and cons of her experience as a student at Santa Clara University.

person sitting at table with open laptop, notebook and pen

Tiana Nguyen ‘21 is a Hackworth Fellow at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics. She is majoring in Computer Science, and is the vice president of Santa Clara University’s Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) chapter .

The world has slowed down, but stress has begun to ramp up.

In the beginning of quarantine, as the world slowed down, I could finally take some time to relax, watch some shows, learn to be a better cook and baker, and be more active in my extracurriculars. I have a lot of things to be thankful for. I especially appreciate that I’m able to live in a comfortable house and have gotten the opportunity to spend more time with my family. This has actually been the first time in years in which we’re all able to even eat meals together every single day. Even when my brother and I were young, my parents would be at work and sometimes come home late, so we didn’t always eat meals together. In the beginning of the quarantine I remember my family talking about how nice it was to finally have meals together, and my brother joking, “it only took a pandemic to bring us all together,” which I laughed about at the time (but it’s the truth).

Soon enough, we’ll all be back to going to different places and we’ll be separated once again. So I’m thankful for my living situation right now. As for my friends, even though we’re apart, I do still feel like I can be in touch with them through video chat—maybe sometimes even more in touch than before. I think a lot of people just have a little more time for others right now.

Although there are still a lot of things to be thankful for, stress has slowly taken over, and work has been overwhelming. I’ve always been a person who usually enjoys going to classes, taking on more work than I have to, and being active in general. But lately I’ve felt swamped with the amount of work given, to the point that my days have blurred into online assignments, Zoom classes, and countless meetings, with a touch of baking sweets and aimless searching on Youtube.

The pass/no pass option for classes continues to stare at me, but I look past it every time to use this quarter as an opportunity to boost my grades. I've tried to make sense of this type of overwhelming feeling that I’ve never really felt before. Is it because I’m working harder and putting in more effort into my schoolwork with all the spare time I now have? Is it because I’m not having as much interaction with other people as I do at school? Or is it because my classes this quarter are just supposed to be this much harder? I honestly don’t know; it might not even be any of those. What I do know though, is that I have to continue work and push through this feeling.

This quarter I have two synchronous and two asynchronous classes, which each have pros and cons. Originally, I thought I wanted all my classes to be synchronous, since that everyday interaction with my professor and classmates is valuable to me. However, as I experienced these asynchronous classes, I’ve realized that it can be nice to watch a lecture on my own time because it even allows me to pause the video to give me extra time for taking notes. This has made me pay more attention during lectures and take note of small details that I might have missed otherwise. Furthermore, I do realize that synchronous classes can also be a burden for those abroad who have to wake up in the middle of the night just to attend a class. I feel that it’s especially unfortunate when professors want students to attend but don’t make attendance mandatory for this reason; I find that most abroad students attend anyway, driven by the worry they’ll be missing out on something.

I do still find synchronous classes amazing though, especially for discussion-based courses. I feel in touch with other students from my classes whom I wouldn’t otherwise talk to or regularly reach out to. Since Santa Clara University is a small school, it is especially easy to interact with one another during classes on Zoom, and I even sometimes find it less intimidating to participate during class through Zoom than in person. I’m honestly not the type to participate in class, but this quarter I found myself participating in some classes more than usual. The breakout rooms also create more interaction, since we’re assigned to random classmates, instead of whomever we’re sitting closest to in an in-person class—though I admit breakout rooms can sometimes be awkward.

Something that I find beneficial in both synchronous and asynchronous classes is that professors post a lecture recording that I can always refer to whenever I want. I found this especially helpful when I studied for my midterms this quarter; it’s nice to have a recording to look back upon in case I missed something during a lecture.

Overall, life during these times is substantially different from anything most of us have ever experienced, and at times it can be extremely overwhelming and stressful—especially in terms of school for me. Online classes don’t provide the same environment and interactions as in-person classes and are by far not as enjoyable. But at the end of the day, I know that in every circumstance there is always something to be thankful for, and I’m appreciative for my situation right now. While the world has slowed down and my stress has ramped up, I’m slowly beginning to adjust to it.

Essays in Quarantine

In This Series

How embracing uncertainty might make me a better journalist.

As a journalist, it’s my job to find answers and tell the truth. But right now the truth is I feel like I have fewer answers than ever.

Practicing joy (and social distancing) in nature

When lockdown hit, I found myself suddenly with more free time than I’d had since childhood. To fill it, I started to take walks.

Starting a new job during COVID is lucky … and lonely

There were no handshakes, no in-person introductions. Leaving work is the equivalent of signing out of an app.

Obligations and graduations: What my time as a farmworker taught me about sacrifice

Many farmworkers not only miss family graduations, but also birthdays, anniversaries, and holidays to support their families.

Parenting may never be the same post-COVID. Maybe that’s a good thing.

While part of me is mourning the loss of my bubble, I realize nostalgia is not sustainable. At some point, it’s the same as regression.

Reflections on Father’s Day a decade after losing my dad

The COVID-19 pandemic is turning many people's parents into full-time patients. I know how that feels.

Social distancing while black? Let your community lift you up.

We spend the first hour of our weekly Zoom happy hour just catching up and making each other laugh — we need it.

Planning for my grandkids’ future

"I am more determined than ever to leave them a brighter, more hopeful future to look forward to."

Coronavirus canceled my favorite sports. Here’s why we need them more than ever.

Once it’s safe, sports can’t return fast enough for this fan.

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I tried to write an essay about productivity in quarantine. It took me a month to do it.

Americans feel pressured to work under the best of times. What happens during a pandemic?

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In the early days of the coronavirus pandemic, when it was just beginning to become clear that people who could stay at home would be doing so for a very long while, an argument began to emerge. It mostly played out on social media, but after a while it moved to news outlets, too: the New York Times, HuffPost, Forbes. It concerned working at home, because it is disproportionately easy for people like me who work in digital media to work at home, and the question it revolved around was: Is a pandemic the time to get extremely productive? Or is it the time to take a break?

First, there was the King Lear argument. Shakespeare, as people reminded each other, wrote King Lear when he was quarantined during a plague. And it soon became clear that Shakespeare was just one of the many geniuses of history who accomplished miraculous things while confined to his house. Sir Isaac Newton discovered the laws of gravity and invented calculus under quarantine . Mary Shelley, well, was not under quarantine when she wrote Frankenstein and invented science fiction, but she was at least cooped up in the house because of the year without summer , so truly, can’t she serve as an inspirational figure as well ? After a period, it began to seem somewhat astonishing that anyone ever managed to accomplish anything without some global catastrophe confining them to their home.

Just a reminder that when Shakespeare was quarantined because of the plague, he wrote King Lear. — rosanne cash (@rosannecash) March 14, 2020

And then, inevitably, came the whispered implication: Shouldn’t you yourself be using this time at home — dare we say this gift — because you are at home and not working in an essential field? Shouldn’t you be using this time to become more productive? Shouldn’t you be buckling down and writing a masterpiece or inventing a genre or discovering fundamental laws of the universe? At the very least, shouldn’t you be taking up a new hobby, mastering a skill, or perhaps be reaching your fully fledged form as what Forbes termed a “ coronapreneur ?”

But then came the backlash. The push to be productive while sheltering in place during a once-a-century global catastrophe was the latest sign, critics argued, of capitalism corrupting our minds.

“Please don’t be guilted into being more productive during the coronavirus,” wrote Monica Torres at HuffPost .

“This mindset is the natural endpoint of America’s hustle culture — the idea that every nanosecond of our lives must be commodified and pointed toward profit and self-improvement,” wrote Nick Martin at the New Republic .

“I, too, am declining to write the next King Lear as protest against capitalism,” proclaimed Rosa Lyster at the Outline .

Since Lyster’s March 18 article, the Outline’s staff has been entirely laid off as a result of the pandemic’s toll on the economy. While I was working on this article, CNBC reported that Vox Media, Vox’s parent company, was planning to furlough multiple employees . That’s another layer of this fight: Many of the people who are arguing over how productive anyone should be right now are doing so with the knowledge that layoffs or furloughs or pay cuts are hanging over their heads. With that knowledge comes the whisper developing in the back of everyone’s minds that perhaps this is the time to get very productive indeed, because how else can they show their employer how valuable they are and ensure their continued employment?

Perhaps this is also the time to make our off hours very productive, because you never know when you’ll need a new hobby you can turn into a side hustle. At the very least, staying busy and using your time meaningfully will be the virtuous thing to do, and it will keep your mind off everything else that is happening ... right?

Unless that line of thought is yet another sign of capitalism getting into our heads, and we really need to process and mourn and deal with the overwhelming and exhausting anxiety of living through a once-a-century pandemic. Maybe?

In the end, it all boils down to one question: Under these very peculiar circumstances, should we be trying to be productive?

Time-oriented productivity was invented by industrial capitalism

The idea of productivity as we currently understand it — doing as much as possible, as efficiently as possible — is a product of industrial capitalism. In non-industrialized societies , human beings tend to organize their sense of time around how long it takes to complete certain tasks, measuring time not by hours but by how long it takes to boil a pot of rice, for instance. And instead of keeping to a strict work schedule from 9 am to 5 pm and reserving the rest of their lives for leisure, people in non-industrial societies tend not to establish strict divisions between their working lives and the rest of their lives.

Instead, they work on a task for as long as it takes to do it, with plenty of rest mixed in. Often they fall into what we might call the college student work system: long periods of idleness, and then sprees of frantic work as a deadline approaches (think harvest time, market time, or other similar markers). This way of thinking about work is called task-orientation .

As the West industrialized over the course of the 18th and 19th centuries, the rising capitalist bourgeoisie developed new ways of thinking about time, which, in turn, it passed on to the working class. A factory’s machines must be turned on at the same time every day, and so workers, it followed, must be at their posts at the same time every day. And as factory work became more common, workers learned to think of part of their time as their own, and part of it as belonging to the people they worked for. To the capitalist, time is money, and specifically, the worker’s time is the employer’s money.

But the great switch from task-orientation to time-orientation did not happen overnight. It took centuries of social conditioning and moralizing, centuries of discussion of the importance of punctuality and the wickedness of idleness.

Moralizers wrote adages about how Satan finds work for idle hands. Factories instituted harsh punishments against lateness and loitering. Schools were designed to teach students that their time was not their own : If schools could manage to give poor students activities to work on for at least 12 hours a day, declared Bishop William Turner in 1770, “we hope that the rising generation will be so habituated to constant employment that it would at length prove agreeable and entertaining to them.” And over time, young children could become “habituated, not to say naturalized to Labour and Fatigue,” wrote the reformer John Powell in 1772.

The economist E.P. Thompson developed the ideas and examples I’ve outlined here in his classic 1967 essay, “Time, Work-Discipline, and Industrial Capitalism,” which examines England’s shift from task-orientation to time-orientation. Thompson argued that as capitalism and Puritanism rose together in the West, the pair taught human beings a different relationship to time from the one they had before: one in which time had a value, in which it was literally equivalent to money. And for Thompson in 1967, the rise of task-orientation prompted a new question: How were capitalist human beings going to handle leisure time?

“If Puritanism was a necessary part of the work-ethos which enabled the industrialized world to break out of the poverty-stricken economies of the past,” Thompson wrote, “will the Puritan value of time begin to decompose as the pressures of poverty relax?”

Put differently: Now that more people are living out of poverty than ever before , now that we have, once again, the concept of leisure time, is it possible for us to break away from the idea that productivity is a moral good and idleness evil?

In the 21st century, people work even when they’re not supposed to be

In the US, it looks as though the answer to Thompson’s question is no. Americans are not learning to treat productivity as anything but a moral good, or idleness as anything but wicked. Many people spend their time working, even when they are ostensibly off work. Even rich American men — theoretically the people with the opportunity for the most leisure time, since they have plenty of money and fewer household obligations than women do — spend more time working than their peers in other countries . One economist postulated to the Atlantic in 2016 that wealthy American men, like the children William Turner wanted to educate in the 18th century, are so habituated to the accumulation of wealth that they treat it as a form of recreation: It’s the closest thing they have to fun.

But even those of us who are not wealthy and who are not men spend most of our time working. This is especially true for millennials. As BuzzFeed News’s Anne Helen Petersen pointed out in her viral 2019 essay on millennial burnout , the youth of today’s workforce spent their childhoods optimizing to become more effective workers, only to graduate into a job market that had been decimated by the 2008 recession. Raised to be problem solvers, millennials like me responded by optimizing ourselves en masse, becoming ever more efficient and ever more committed to their work, while that work, in turn, seeped invisibly into even more corners of their lives, carried by smartphones and push alerts and long hours at the office.

But that constant work, which was supposed to bring millennials a measure of the job security our parents took for granted, was unsuccessful.

“The more work we do, the more efficient we’ve proven ourselves to be, the worse our jobs become,” Petersen wrote: “lower pay, worse benefits, less job security. Our efficiency hasn’t bucked wage stagnation; our steadfastness hasn’t made us more valuable. If anything, our commitment to work, no matter how exploitative, has simply encouraged and facilitated our exploitation. We put up with companies treating us poorly because we don’t see another option. We don’t quit. We internalize that we’re not striving hard enough. And we get a second gig.”

Millennials work; they cobble together side hustles and temporary jobs into something approaching a living wage; they post the result on social media for their friends to admire. But then social media, too, becomes a form of work, a place on which millennials are reminded that they must always continue optimizing their lives for clicks . Marie Kondo your home , cook your Alison Roman shallot pasta , organize your books by color , and post a picture of the shelf on Instagram.

We spend our time locked into the endless, infinite scroll of Twitter and Tumblr and Facebook and Instagram, all of which reward constant immersion and monitoring until they begin to feel like duties rather than products to use for fun. We listen to podcasts and audiobooks at 1.5 speed to consume them more efficiently; Netflix floated the idea of letting us speed up our binge-watches, too . We consult lists of the TV shows we must watch and the books we must read which come, over time, to look more and more like homework. Leisure today is not truly leisure; it is labor.

We have become a society in which people feel constant pressure to work and to be productive, even when they are theoretically resting. And that’s under normal circumstances.

So what happens during a pandemic?

It took me almost a month to write this essay. But I wanted desperately to produce something for that entire month.

My editor assigned this essay to me on March 19. “People keep talking about King Lear ,” she said. “Could you write something about that?”

“No problem,” I said. I started a file labeled “You don’t have to write King Lear ,” and then instead of writing anything in it I sat and stared at it for some time. Then I opened Twitter in another tab.

My mind felt as though it had been shattered. I couldn’t sustain a thought long enough to analyze anything. I just stared in a blank fury at that Rosanne Cash tweet reminding me that Shakespeare wrote King Lear during quarantine.

“What a stupid thing to say,” I thought. “We’re already dealing with a global emergency and now I’m supposed to write King Lear on top of that? Well, fuck you.”

Rosanne Cash was probably not trying to pressure anyone into writing King Lear . Probably she was just trying to remind us that great art can come out of very dark times, and that this too shall pass, and perhaps when it is over, it will have given us some great artistic gift. But I was in no place to think of her tweet that way.

Like nearly everyone else who is living through this, I was grieving. The world was a certain way, and then the pandemic came and changed things, and now that old world will never come back in quite the same way again: It’s dead. That’s a loss, and one we have to work through.

I was also angry. I am still angry. I am furious at the leadership in our government that has abdicated responsibility for handling this crisis. I’m furious that essential workers are putting their lives on the line without medical-grade protection. Looking at one industry and one city alone, at least 62 New York City transit workers are dead and over 6,000 more are in quarantine with suspected Covid-19 after management told them not to wear masks on the subway to prevent customers from panicking. How can anyone not be angry and afraid and sad right now? And how can anyone do meaningful work under those conditions?

I am also living through my second major financial crisis as a working adult at age 31. Those first few weeks, whenever I wasn’t listening to the sirens outside my apartment or trying to figure out safe ways to see my 72-year-old parents again, I was thinking about all the reports that said that traffic throughout digital media was high, but ad revenue was way down ; reports that showed layoffs and pay cuts and furloughs spreading through one media company after another.

I am a good well-behaved, high-achieving millennial. Every instinct I had said that now was the time to buckle down and put myself to work, to try to outwork whatever would come. But I couldn’t sustain a thought long enough to work on long-form analysis.

Still, I wanted to lose myself in a project, something I could finish, something that would give me a sense that I had produced something — and that I had thus been virtuous. I baked bread, and then bread pudding. I sewed masks. I started an advice column . I started a book club .

I felt like I still wasn’t being productive enough. I felt like I couldn’t ever be productive enough. The thought of this unfinished essay assignment haunted me every time I sat down to work.

“The thing is,” I told myself every time I looked at the empty file, “the thesis of this hypothetical piece is that capitalism is fake and you don’t actually have to be productive during a global crisis. So, capitalism is fake. Don’t be productive.”

But the thought felt like cheating. It felt lazy and hackneyed. All I wanted was to produce something, and I knew where the desire came from, what historical and economic factors lent it moral weight and what quirks of my own brain chemistry made me internalize them so completely, but that didn’t make the desire less real. I wanted to produce something, and I couldn’t do it, and the failure felt monumental.

Eventually, I pulled myself together enough to be able to hold a thought in my head. I put this essay together, section by section, and the work felt soothing.

But I don’t have a good answer to the question of how hard you should be working or how productive you should be during a pandemic. We’re in a global crisis, and if we are extremely lucky, we’re sitting in our homes and trying to work through it. Taking on big and absorbing projects might be soothing right now, because we have been taught to experience labor as soothing and this is not the ideal moment to start deprogramming capitalism from our brains. But it also might feel impossible to take on any additional labor right now, because dealing with the loss we’re feeling is monumental enough.

Those are both perfectly reasonable, understandable reactions. Be kind to yourself. Do what feels good to you, and what you have to do to make it through this.

You don’t have to sit around and do nothing if the idea is scary to you. But also: You really don’t have to write King Lear .

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Essay on Quarantine Experience

Students are often asked to write an essay on Quarantine Experience in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on Quarantine Experience

Introduction.

Quarantine is a time when people stay away from others to prevent the spread of diseases. This essay will share the experiences of different people during their quarantine period, which was a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Staying at Home

Staying at home was the main part of the quarantine experience. People could not go out except for essential needs. Schools were closed, and students had to study online. Many people also had to work from home. This was a new experience for everyone.

Impact on Mental Health

Quarantine had a big impact on people’s mental health. Many people felt lonely and stressed because they could not meet their friends or family. Others felt anxious because of the fear of the disease. It was a tough time for everyone.

Learning New Skills

On a positive note, many people used this time to learn new skills. Some learned cooking, others took up gardening. Many students took online courses on topics they were interested in. Quarantine gave people time to explore their hobbies.

In conclusion, the quarantine experience was a mix of challenges and opportunities. It was a difficult time, but it also taught us the importance of health, family, and learning. It showed us that we can adapt to new situations and find joy even in tough times.

250 Words Essay on Quarantine Experience

What is quarantine.

Quarantine is a time when people stay away from others to stop the spread of diseases. This usually happens when a person is sick or has been near someone who is sick. It’s a way to keep everyone safe.

Life During Quarantine

Quarantine can be a strange time. It feels like everything has stopped. Schools are closed. Parks are empty. Friends and family are far away. It’s like the world is on pause.

Quarantine can be hard because it’s different from our usual life. We can’t go out and play. We can’t meet our friends. We have to stay at home all the time. But it’s not all bad. There are still many things we can do.

Activities in Quarantine

Quarantine is a good time to try new things. We can read books. We can draw and paint. We can learn to cook. We can watch movies and play games. We can even learn new things online. It’s a time to be creative and have fun at home.

Lessons from Quarantine

Quarantine teaches us many things. It teaches us to be patient. It teaches us to be kind to others. It teaches us to take care of our health. It also teaches us to value the things we have. It makes us realize that even simple things like going to school or playing in the park are very special.

In conclusion, quarantine can be a tough time, but it also gives us a chance to learn and grow. It’s a time to be safe, to be creative, and to appreciate the things we have. It’s a unique experience that teaches us important lessons about life.

500 Words Essay on Quarantine Experience

Quarantine is a term we’ve all become familiar with due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It’s a period when people stay away from others to prevent the spread of diseases. This essay shares the unique experience of quarantine.

Life at Home

Quarantine means a lot of time at home. Most people are not used to staying indoors for such long periods. In the beginning, it felt like a long holiday. People got time to rest, catch up on hobbies, and spend time with family. But, as days turned into weeks and weeks into months, the reality set in. The same walls that once felt cozy started to feel like a prison.

Online Schooling and Work

With quarantine in place, schools and offices shut down. But learning and work didn’t stop. They moved online. Kids started attending school through video calls. Parents worked from their living rooms. It was a new experience for everyone. At first, it was fun. Wearing pajamas to school or work was a dream come true. But, the charm faded away soon. People missed their friends, classmates, and colleagues. They missed the chatter in the hallways and the lunch breaks.

Mental Health

Quarantine has also affected people’s mental health. Being away from friends and not being able to go out can make people feel lonely and sad. It’s important to talk about these feelings. It’s okay to feel low sometimes. But, if these feelings don’t go away, it’s important to seek help. Many helplines and online counseling services are available to help.

On the bright side, quarantine gave people time to learn new skills. Many learned to cook, paint, or play a musical instrument. Some even started their own small businesses from home. It was a time to explore interests outside of school or work.

Quarantine is a unique experience. It has its ups and downs. It has taught us the importance of simple things like going out for a walk or meeting a friend. It has also shown us that we can adapt to new situations. As we move forward, let’s take these lessons with us. Let’s value the little things in life and never stop learning.

That’s it! I hope the essay helped you.

If you’re looking for more, here are essays on other interesting topics:

• Essay on Quilt Of A Country
• Essay on Race As A Social Construct
• Essay on Race And Ethnicity

Apart from these, you can look at all the essays by clicking here .

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A Quarantine Essay — Navigating the Landscape

April 25, 2020 Covid-19 Quarantine Essay, by Lynda Suzanne Wright.

Table of Contents

The Last Normal Day

March 6 was the last “normal” day I remember in recent history. We went downtown for an art show opening in which I had two pieces. We picked up our friends and were happy to see all the crowd that night.

Knowing that there might be some more illness here than we imagined, most people, although socializing probably less than 6 feet apart (no directives then), were not hugging, kissing, etc., and I did see one person with a mask.

We dropped off our friends at the end of the evening, and that was the last time I had an in-person conversation with them. I counted down the next 14 days for myself, as a precaution. No illness. As I am over 70 and have mobility issues, my husband makes most of the grocery runs, since he can get in and out more quickly.

Tears to Rage and Back Again

The only superpower we have in this life is to navigate the landscape as best we can. For me, emotions have run rampant over this past seven weeks or so. As my dear husband can attest, I have run from tears to rage and back again.

A Sea of Change

In the past two weeks or so, I began to feel a bit of a sea change. I realized that our best recourse is to keep trying to do the best thing we can, one situation at a time, even if it is only trying to keep the squirrels off the bird feeder!

“Our best recourse is to keep trying to do the best thing we can, one situation at a time.” ~ Lynda Suzanne Wright , retired teacher, artist, writer, photographer

Evolving Emotions

Feelings begin to evolve from reacting to trying to figure it all out — and guess what — we can’t. We realized all the ways we gather information and we see how truly perplexing it all is right now.

There are all the influences: news, analysis, sad stories, terrifying statistics, and every damn theory we can imagine, and some we can’t. There have been stones thrown and reactions recorded. There has been hope — and hope dashed.

Some of my friends have lost loved ones in this pandemic. Others have simply hunkered down and hoped for the best. Jobs and confidence have been lost. Some have learned that they can pray at anytime, and others have continued to press for open worship services.

There have been silent protests, angry protests, and all are legal and fine. Our only reaction is that none of us has the right to endanger others, and we hope not to see that happen. We choose NOT to adopt the “as long as I get to do what I want, I don’t care what happens to you” attitude. So — in our house, we concentrate on doing what we CAN do.

RELATED: Symbol of water as human emotions .

What We Can Do

What have we been doing? We have been drinking a lot of coffee. I am an artist, and although there are some who would assume that I am glad that I have lots of unfinished projects and should get right to ‘em, that doesn’t seem to be me right now. I have put a great deal of energy into meal planning, and shifting from my list-making mentality to re-thinking dishes after seeing what is available in the store this week.

Supporting Local Businesses

We also made a plan to order takeout from at least one of our neighborhood favorites once a week in a meager attempt to help them. We tip more generously when we can, because we get what they are experiencing right now. We’ve seen our friends who own retail, non-essential businesses, like antique stores, transform to online/virtual outlets in extremely efficient ways. They, like we, long for the personal interactions, but we know we are probably not there yet.

RELATED: Finding the good in the bad.

Great Conversations… Friends and Family

Our days are filled with (too much) television, but we are switching over to movies and series, rather than steady diets of news and fractious stories. We are weary of fact-checking but we still do it. Every morning we have great conversations. We check-in with family members and as of now, all are safe and well. Some are still working. Others are working remotely. All are doing what we are: navigating the landscape in the best way for them.

We have a cupboard full of board games, but not all are appropriate for just two people. Then — all of a sudden, it seemed — our life opened up to us and we began to see not only the reality of situations, but their contexts. How did this happen so suddenly and precipitously? We BOUGHT A PUZZLE.

1000 Pieces

It was astonishing to see how expensive jigsaw puzzles could be, but I know the demand for them is UP right now. I ordered a 1000-piece puzzle, and adding more difficulty to the situation, it is a reproduction of an antique map (because Jeff loves maps).

We spent the first of our evenings with it on the dining table, sorting through all those pieces for the edges and corners, and we celebrated each find — needle in a haystack doesn’t begin to describe that — but we were proud of sticking with it.

For the next few days, we tended to work on it sporadically, one at a time, but we made some progress. Then we didn’t work on it. We covered it with placemats and had dinner. Sometimes I covered my placement with silk scarves and headbands (new project as my hair grows out).

Once I moved all the other materials and sat down to work at it again, I realized we had “missed” some crucial pieces that we needed, so I sat down in front of the television and sifted through the pieces in the (big) box. Again. I found some that I thought we needed, and Jeff took them back to the table. We did that for about 2 hours.

Lovely Pieces

But something derailed me. I was trying to keep the pieces right-side-up as I placed them back into the box, so I could scan them quickly, when I realized these minuscule bits of something were beautiful. I began to turn them over in my hands, looking at the subtle depths of ochre in some, and the bright splash of crimson in others. I started photographing them, realizing they did not need to be set in place to tell a story or to make a lovely picture. They were already lovely.

These—puzzle pieces—minuscule bits of something were beautiful and did not need to be set in place to tell a story or to make a lovely picture. They were already lovely. ~ Lynda Suzanne Wright , retired teacher, artist, writer, photographer

Revelations

Quarantine — not lovely, but revealing. We are building the jigsaw puzzle that is our quiet existence right now — and thank goodness we have each other. I have cried many times, but I am fortunate to live with someone who understands. This strange time is a new landscape to navigate, but all its pieces can be beautiful, even before they have been assembled.

COVID QUARANTINE REFLECTIONS: “ We are building the jigsaw puzzle that is our quiet existence right now .” ~ Lynda Suzanne Wright , retired teacher, artist, writer, photographer

Thanks to Lynda Suzanne Wright for sharing her quarantine essay! You may also enjoy this related article on finding the good in the bad .

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What inspires my creations is my history as a hunter-gatherer of sorts.  I travel, read, collect, observe. When the light is right and the colors and shadows draw me in, I photograph, paint, or scan an antique autograph, all of which find roles to play in my art. The act of visually diving into each image through its layers is the sort of alchemy that compels me to come back to creating, day after day.

As a retired educator and professional singer, I have always known there are myriad avenues of communication, and through the years, my body of visual art emerges to be a great part of my true voice. Bottom Line: I can no more separate the facets of my artistic life than I can the aspects of my family and personal life. They are organic and they are one. Looking back, the only “stuck” moments in my artistic journey occurred when I allowed myself to listen to those who did not understand my journey. There is always someone who wants you to “just focus on ONE thing”. I’m not wired that way. Enjoy Lynda’s awesome article on prompts for drawing here.

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Effectiveness of 14 day quarantine strategy: Chinese experience of prevention and control

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• Hongwei Tu , public health physician 1 ,
• Keqi Hu , research assistant 2 ,
• Meng Zhang , public health physician 1 ,
• Yali Zhuang , public health physician 1 ,
• Tie Song , deputy director 1
• 1 Guangdong Provincial Centre for Diseases Control and Prevention, Guangzhou, China
• 2 State Key Laboratory of Organic Geochemistry, Guangzhou Institute of Geochemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guangzhou, China
• Correspondence to: T Song tsong{at}cdcp.org.cn

Tie Song and colleagues argue that a 14 day quarantine of inbound passengers is an effective and proportionate measure to control imported covid-19

Quarantine for inbound travellers has been considered an important measure to prevent imported cases of covid-19. The World Health Organization recommends that all contacts of people with confirmed or probable covid-19 should be quarantined in a designated facility or isolate at home for 14 days from their last exposure. 1 However, the quarantine period for travellers has varied across different countries and regions. In countries such as the US and Greece travellers are required to isolate at home for just seven days, whereas in May 2021 Vietnam required arrivals to spend 21 days in a designated quarantine facility plus seven days of isolation at home (this was reduced to seven days at a designated facility and seven days at home in July 2021).

Countries with no or low local viral transmission such as China, Korea, and Singapore may benefit more from a 14 day quarantine rule than those with higher rates. 2 In China, a 14 day quarantine is combined with nucleic acid tests performed once on days 1, 4, and 7 and twice on day 14, and the samples are tested by two different institutions using two types of detection reagents. The quarantine can be lifted if all test results are negative. If the test result is positive or relevant symptoms develop, the individual will be transferred to a designated hospital.

As the pandemic continues to rage, local outbreaks caused by people with an extended incubation period or asymptomatic disease have been reported and more infectious strains (such as alpha and delta variants) have been found in multiple countries. As a result, some countries strengthened the controls of inbound passengers—for example, increasing quarantine from 14 days to 21 or even 28 days. Such extended quarantine measures are probably an over-reaction to the risk, but the looser controls in some countries or districts, where only social distance and simple protection measures were applied, may have contributed to the spread. We examine whether quarantine measures are effective and proportionate to control imported cases and prevent spread of the covid-19 epidemic.

Incubation period of SARS-CoV-2

SARS-CoV-2 seems to be most contagious around the time of symptom onset. 3 Infectiousness starts two to three days before symptoms appear, peaks around a day before symptom onset, and falls rapidly within seven days after symptom onset. 4 The incubation period of this virus is therefore a key factor in setting the duration of quarantine.

An early study in Hubei, China, estimated that the incubation period of SARS-CoV-2 was 5.1 days (95% confidence interval 4.5 to 5.8 days), and 97.5% of infected people who developed symptoms did so within 11.5 days (8.2 to 15.6 days). However, the study also indicated that about 1% of infected people might take more than 14 days to develop symptoms. 5 Another study found the best fitting distribution of the incubation period was a Weibull distribution, which showed a marked skewed distribution with a mean period of 6.4 days (median 5.7, interquartile range 3.2–8.8). 6 A meta-analysis of peer reviewed studies of SARS-CoV-2 infection estimated the mean incubation period was 6.3 days (median 5.4, 95% quantile 13.1). 7 These studies have been used to inform the duration of quarantine.

Asymptomatic infections also account for around a third of all PCR (polymerase chain reaction) positive cases. 8 A meta-analysis showed that the summary relative risk of secondary infection among contacts of asymptomatic people was 0.35 (95% confidence interval 0.10 to 1.2 7) compared with symptomatic patients. 9 This suggests that people with asymptomatic infections are unlikely to contribute greatly to the spread of covid-19. However, the clinical, immunological, and viral characteristics of asymptomatic people remain unclear, and further analyses are needed. China therefore continues to manage asymptomatic people in the same way as those with symptoms.

As understanding of SARS-CoV-2 grew, more attention was paid to the epidemic characteristics of different strains. Early epidemiological data show that SARS-CoV-2 strains with the mutated D614G amino acid in the spike protein have more efficient replication and higher infectivity than the original virus, and these became the dominant form in several countries during the early stages of the epidemic (March-April 2020). 10 11 Subsequently, variants with new mutations in the spike protein developed with stronger infectivity and adaptability, including alpha, beta, gamma, and delta. Evidence is increasing that these variants have shorter incubation periods and longer viral shedding. The median incubation period seems to be about three days for the alpha variant 12 and four days for the delta variant, 13 14 for example. However, information on these variants is still insufficient and more evidence is needed to provide data to set the quarantine time.

China’s experience of quarantine strategy

Travel into China was restricted during the pandemic, and passengers entering Guangdong province accounted for around 90% of all Chinese arrivals. From 1 May 2020 to 7 March 2021 there were 1868 imported cases of SARS-CoV-2 infection identified, but only 33 (1.8%) people tested positive after 14 days’ quarantine. Only three of these 33 people developed symptoms. Four were not tested for IgG antibody, but the positivity rate in the rest was 97% (28/29). This suggested these cases were not likely to be new infections but that the people had been infected while abroad and were testing positive again in China. Two of the three people with symptoms were IgG positive when they arrived in China and their cycle threshold values on nucleic acid testing were 30 and 38.4, respectively. Therefore, they were considered to be reinfections. As the positive results could be due to detection of degraded virus fragments and high levels of antibodies were observed, the infectivity of these cases may be extremely low. 15

Epidemiological investigation revealed that the third confirmed case lived with someone who was PCR positive and developed covid-19 symptoms during the quarantine period. Therefore, this case was evaluated as a secondary infection of SARS-CoV-2 during the quarantine period. As those identified cooperated with other prevention and control measures, no local epidemic was induced by these three cases. This experience suggests the 14 day quarantine is sufficient.

Some researchers have also found longer quarantine times are not necessary to control the covid-19 pandemic. Ashcroft and colleagues found that 10 days’ quarantine can prevent 99.9% (95% confidence interval 98% to 100%) of local transmission caused by returned travellers. 16 Another analysis suggested that a 14 day quarantine would result in fewer than one infectious traveller entering Britain from the EU or the US each week. 17 These analyses suggest that although extending the 14 day quarantine may be worth considering in some extreme cases, a longer quarantine time may not add benefit when social-psychological and economic effects are taken into consideration. 18

Management of vaccinated travellers

Several types of vaccines, including mRNA vaccines, inactivated vaccines, and adenovirus vaccines, have been listed for emergency use by WHO and are widely used around the world. However, no vaccine provides 100% protection against the SARS-CoV-2 virus, and vaccinated people still have the potential to carry the virus. 19 20 Studies based on the SARS-CoV-2 vaccine in macaques have shown that past infection or vaccination can protect from severe disease, but individuals may have similar potential to transmit the virus as those who have never been exposed to the virus. 21 Moreover, recent modelling studies suggest that under the conditions of low vaccination coverage, detection and quarantine of inbound passengers needs to be maintained to avoid local outbreaks and overloading of healthcare facilities. 22 As there is insufficient evidence to support a reduction in the quarantine period for fully vaccinated people, a 14 day quarantine period is still required for inbound travellers.

As the pandemic continues, an appropriate duration of quarantine can help countries with low transmission rates to keep infections at a low level and protect economic and social benefits. A challenge for countries with high risk is to balance the control of local epidemic, the management of imported cases, and the economic recovery. Thus, some counties have shortened the quarantine period to reduce the cost of quarantine and increase the mobility of the population.

Based on scientific evidence and Guangdong’s experience, we believe that China’s 14 day quarantine period for inbound travellers has been an appropriate cost to control local outbreaks, one of the country’s successes in managing the covid-19 pandemic. At the same time, it is necessary to establish effective identification of reinfected and newly infected people to evaluate the risk of local epidemics from inbound travellers with infections that may not have been identified (such as through infection during quarantine or missing a patient). Moreover, the characteristics of SARS-CoV-2 variants (including the incubation period, virus proliferation, herd susceptibility, and vaccine resistance) and the infectivity of vaccinated people need to be monitored to provide data to guide future quarantine strategy.

Key messages

14 day quarantine of inbound travellers has been an important part of China’s prevention and control strategy

The incubation period of SARS-CoV-2 was estimated at 5-6 days, but is shorter for some variants

Most people who develop symptoms will do so within 14 days, and asymptomatic people have weaker infectivity than those with symptoms

Individuals who test positive after 14 days’ quarantine account for less than 2% of imported PCR positive cases in China

Vaccinated people can still become infected with SARS-CoV-2 and still require quarantine

Acknowledgments

We thank the Key Research and Development Program of Guangdong Province (2019B111103001) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (82041030) for financial support.

Contributors and sources: TS developed the original concept, designed the outline of the paper. MZ and HT collected the epidemiological data on covid-19 in China and performed primarily analysis. HT, KH, and YZ collected relevant information. HT and KH wrote the first draft. MZ and YZ reviewed the manuscript and contributed to editing. HT and TS completed the writing of the entire manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Competing interests: We have read and understood BMJ policy on declaration of interests and have no relevant interests to declare.

Provenance and peer review: Commissioned; externally peer reviewed.

This article is part of a collection proposed by the Peking University Center for Public Health and Epidemic Preparedness and Response. Open access fees were funded by individual institutions.  The BMJ  commissioned, peer reviewed, edited, and made the decision to publish. Li-Ming Li advised on commissioning for this collection. Jin-Ling Tang, Di Wang, and Kamran Abbasi were the lead editors for  The BMJ .

This is an Open Access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ .

• ↵ World Health Organization. Considerations for quarantine of contacts of COVID-19 cases: interim guidance, 19 August 2020. WHO, 2020.
• Russell TW ,
• Clifford S ,
• Edmunds WJ ,
• Kucharski AJ ,
• Centre for the Mathematical Modelling of Infectious Diseases COVID-19 working group
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• Richterman A ,
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Essays on Quarantine

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Crafting a bunch of Quarantine papers is an implicit part of modern studying, be it in high-school, college, or university. If you can do that unassisted, that's just awesome; yet, other learners might not be that savvy, as Quarantine writing can be quite laborious. The database of free sample Quarantine papers presented below was assembled in order to help lagging learners rise up to the challenge.

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COVID-19, or coronavirus disease, is a highly infectious disease caused by the novel (newly discovered) virus of the Corona family. The first cases were registered in the Chinese city of Wuhan late in 2019 (hence the “19” in the name), but soon through human-to-human transmission, the virus spread globally causing the pandemic.

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Research Paper: Quarantine

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The following paper is aimed at studying and intercepting the laws governing quarantine. Even though formulated for the benefit of the masses, quarantine has been under scanner because of its misuse concerning prejudice against particular sect, religion, ethnicity etc. The paper has been written with an open mind and aims to understand the underlying benefits of quarantine and how its successful implementation will benefit human race in general.

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How To Prepare An Essay On Productivity In Quarantine?

essay writing is something that you must have done numerous times before. In fact, we won’t be surprised if you say that you have also prepared an essay on “productivity” in the past. However, an essay about "productivity in quarantine" is not something that you usually get to write. The opinion essay is about a unique situation, which certainly calls for a unique approach.

When a majority of the world population is spending days in lockdown, it can be difficult to maintain productivity. Perhaps, you can draw inspiration from your experience in the lockdown and come up with some strategies for staying productive during COVID-19 crisis. If you can do that, writing an essay about it won’t be a problem. Just remember these following tips:

Narrow down the productive essay topic:-

The topic "productivity in quarantine" can be addressed in several ways. So, your first job will be to take a slant and narrow down the essay topic. Here are some suggestions that you can work on:

• The importance of staying productive in quarantine
• Tips for staying productive during COVID-19
• Factors that affect productivity in quarantine
• Effects of coronavirus pandemic on productivity
• How to maintain business productivity in COVID-19 crisis?

You can find a slant of your own or get some inspiration from the ones mentioned above and get started.

Do some research:-

If you want your essay on productivity in quarantine to stand out, you need to make it insightful. Putting generic information on the essay won’t work in your favor. To make your paper insightful, add empirical data. Instead of using just your personal experience, use your researching skill to add more depth to your arguments using best research topic examples .

Social media is a great place to connect with people and learn about their activities. You can even find communities and groups where people share their experiences and discuss different matters with other members. You can observe relevant groups of active people or take part in the conversation to learn how quarantine-life is treating them and how it is affecting their productivity.

Create an outline:-

Depending on the slant you have chosen, you need to prepare an outline for the essay. This outline should clearly define what goes where in the essay. This helps you organize the essay before you start drafting its content.

Having the outline of the essay will make it easier for you to prepare well-structured content. Also, you do not need to waste time deciding what to write in the next paragraph. In a way, the essay outline helps you stay on track.

Draft the content:-

If you don’t consider yourself to be a good writer, you can still produce an impressive essay paper. There are a few tricks that can help you improve your writing style. You will require practice to master effective writing. But for the time being, try the following measures:

• Use shorter sentences to avoid errors and enhance readability.
• Don’t discuss different points in the same paragraph.
• Write the introduction after finishing the body paragraph.
• Use bullet points to improve the readability.
• Do not introduce any new point in the conclusion

Also, maintain the same tone throughout the essay.

Proofread and edit:-

It is essential to revise the content once you are done drafting the essay. This will help you identify the errors in the paper. You can also find several areas in the essay that can be improved further. Make the necessary rectification in the content as soon as you detect an error.

You also need to ensure that the essay does not have any traces of plagiarism in it. Use online plagiarism tools to check your paper. If you find any plagiarized content in it, replace it with fresh content without changing the essence of the content.

These tips can help you prepare a good quality essay paper on “productivity in quarantine”. For further reference, you can study the following example:

The factors that affect productivity in quarantine

The spread of Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) has made an unprecedented impact on people around the world. As a majority of the population is staying indoors and maintaining social distancing, students and working people are being asked to continue their work in quarantine. However, there are a number of factors that are affecting the productivity in quarantine.

Firstly, there is a huge difference between a school or an office and home. A home does not provide the ideal environment where a person can focus on his work and be productive. The students in seventh grade at XYZ High School shared on an online forum that they couldn’t finish their studies at home as their pets kept interrupting, they had to help their parents with something or their neighbors were loud.

Secondly, a lot of houses lack the infrastructure that schools or offices have, making it all the more difficult for individuals to be as productive as they used to be at school or the workplace. A lot of people on social media complain about the slow internet, which is restricting a lot of people from finishing their work on time. Reports suggest that due to the lockdown, there has been a surge in traffic on the internet, causing it to slow down.

Lastly, working from the comfort of home is causing lethargy among people as no one is physically present around them to monitor their activities. Even though a lot of people don’t admit to the fact, the productivity graph of ABC Pvt. Ltd. shows a significant fall since they have allowed work from home.

It is quite evident that productivity has taken a hit in the quarantine. Sadly, a majority of these problem-causing factors cannot be avoided. So, students and working people need to find some other way to make their quarantine life more productive, despite the obstacles.

Hopefully, this example has helped you understand how to use the   essay writing tips on “being productive in quarantine” in your piece. However, if you still cannot get the essay done, seek professional paper writing service from experts.

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7 Tips on How to Write Essay During Quarantine

Being quarantined with a deadline to write an essay is a challenging experience. However, you can make it fun and educational by learning what works best during the process. Quarantine is sometimes unavoidable, but you can make the best of your time instead of wasting it. Here are tips you can incorporate to write an interesting, factual, and correct essay during the process.

Do Not Panic

The first thing you need to do is relax before starting the writing process. If you are panicked, you will produce substandard essays full of mistakes. You can find ways to remain calm during quarantine before starting the essay writing process. Get relaxed by talking to someone or listening to your favorite songs using earphones.

Be Relaxed Before Writing

Quarantine means restricting yourself from activities such as working or attending school because it may infect others around you, especially if they are ill. Therefore, find ways to relax, like talking to someone or listening to favorite songs using earphones, reading a book, or doing yoga.

Use the Internet to Get Information

Many websites provide information about anything you want to learn more about. Therefore, get information using at least five sources you can use during quarantine and ignore duplicates if they exist. Note down all sources carefully to avoid losing them. The internet is the best place to find information because most people use it for everything from work to getting news about breaking events.

Get Your Thoughts Organized

Organizing your thoughts before you start writing is advisable. Determine the main points to include in your essay, supported by examples and evidence. These will enable you to develop a detailed explanation of every point. You can skip unnecessary details during this process, but make sure important ones are included so readers cannot miss them.

Address Your Audience

Writing an essay during quarantine is not as simple as it sounds because you need to make it interesting for your audience who reads it before submitting it to teachers or professors online. Think of ways to connect with your readers by including details about their daily lives, such as entertainment channels they watch, websites they visit, places they go to celebrate special occasions, and other things that interest them. Remember not to offend anyone, especially if you are writing about religious or political topics, because it may lead to the dismissal of your work.

Ask Someone You Trust To Review Your Work

Do not expect perfect results at the end of the process if you do not know what to listen for during reading. This person can be a family member or professionals offering quick essay writing service because they have broad knowledge in this field. They will point out mistakes easily during the review process while giving helpful suggestions on improving the final product. If possible, get two people to review your essay, so you have different opinions about every aspect before submitting it for quarantine purposes.

Quarantine lasts for a period that varies depending on the illness and its symptoms. But it is important to note that your essay may be below expectations if you are not careful about what you write. You should implement the tips given here, so writing during quarantine becomes easier without affecting the quality of your final product.

The post 7 Tips on How to Write Essay During Quarantine appeared first on 360PRWire .

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A bitingly funny, extremely online novel about sisterhood

Alexandra tanner’s ‘worry’ tells the story of two sisters sinking into mutual isolation in the months before the covid pandemic began.

“ Worry ,” Alexandra Tanner’s debut book, is not a covid novel, but you’d be forgiven for mistaking it for one. A 2019 period piece set in the dwindling months before the virus paralyzed the world, “Worry” opens with the newly single and nominally employed Jules preparing for her younger sister Poppy to move in. Poppy promises to crash for just a few weeks — she stays the year. The Brooklyn apartment that Jules once shared with her longtime boyfriend becomes the claustrophobic backdrop for the sisters’ codependence. Together they regress, and Tanner’s domestic novel is a study in the conditions that might prompt a person to self-isolate, even in a pandemic-free world: internet addiction, delivery and dating apps, an epidemic of loneliness, the bare fact of anxiety.

“Worry” is paced like the internet: petty micro-dramas create a sense of movement, but mostly nothing happens. Jules is an aspiring writer who works remotely for a SparkNotes rip-off and has a quasi-boyfriend she credits with being a “marginally better kisser” than her dozens of other dating app matches. This passes for bona fide adulthood to Poppy, who, isolated by a mental health crisis and long-standing chronic illness, is struggling to find a job and new apartment. Jules, meanwhile, spends her days scrolling, developing an obsession with Mormon mommy bloggers. She stalks and screenshots the “mommies” (her term of choice) in pursuit of an essay about “America, and Jews, and assimilation, and militancy, and god, and conspiracism, and whatever” (an essay Tanner did in fact write for Jewish Currents but that Jules never does).

Really, Jules has to admit, what she’s after is “an excuse to feel like the way I looked at the internet was different than the way everyone else looked at the internet,” but the algorithm doesn’t distinguish between ironic followers and real ones. The friends she once kept up with have been replaced by the mommies, to whom she means little more than a fraction of ad revenue. Sometimes her journalistic distance falls away and she replies to their antisemitic conspiracies in anonymous, heated exchanges that comprise her daily dose of interaction. She logs in, like so many of us, with aspirations of playing cultural critic but finds herself stuck as a hapless consumer, hypnotized by the sparkling pixels and their attendant jealousies. In “Worry,” Tanner posits that we were doomed to social isolation long before the virus spread, non-playable characters in our virtually mortgaged lives.

Health anxieties, coupled with social ones, and the tantalizing convenience of online shopping, mean that the sisters rarely interface with the outside world. Poppy grows increasingly depressed by the outbreaks of full-body hives she has suffered since childhood; Jules lives in constant fear of infection, whether from improperly cooked food at trendy restaurants or sex with her dating app matches. Worry is an ouroboros: anxiety breeds illness, and illness more anxiety. Their apartment complex used to be a Jewish hospital, and for these two afflicted Jewish American Princesses, it sort of still is.

Tanner, adept in the argot of the hyper-online inert (she’s now adapting her bitingly funny dialogue for television), skewers the girls’ lassitude while remaining sensitive to the inevitable ennui of modern life. “Our great-grandparents fled Europe for what?” Poppy cries. “So one day we could buy thirty-dollar tubes of organic aluminum-free deodorant and sit on our asses making content ?” Poppy adopts a three-legged dog named Amy Klobuchar, but neglects to give her enough water so she must rush Amy to the vet not once but twice. To borrow from a tweet , “You people can’t do anything.”

The sisters’ airless apartment may become cause for concern, but it’s also the stage where Tanner blocks out their manic intimacy. Sisterhood, not unlike the internet, is its own universe. It has its own language (the sisters speak of their “Mommy and Daddy,” monikers they might avoid in the presence of outside company), and quotidian dramas that explode and diffuse without warning. For a week, a paper towel sits on the kitchen floor because neither sister will admit to having dropped it. But against the fleeting ephemera of online projections, their relationship offers moments of genuine self-recognition; when Jules picks on Poppy, it’s only because looking at her sister can be like catching herself in the mirror at an unflattering angle.

The world is only about to get worse for Poppy and Jules: The job market will collapse, their effective quarantine will be made law. But while “Worry” documents the ways we’ve slid toward a culture of loneliness, Tanner has crafted, in Poppy and Jules, a relationship fleshy enough to endure the online vortex. “I can’t build my whole life around my sister,” Jules yells at Poppy after an argument. “Why not?” Poppy asks, but Jules can’t come up with an answer.

Ariella Garmaise is an assistant editor at the Walrus. Her writing has been published in the Los Angeles Review of Books, LitHub and other publications.

By Alexandra Tanner

Scribner. 291 pp. $27

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Writers guild of canada calls for strike-authorization vote against canadian media producers, npr editor resigns in aftermath of his essay criticizing network for bias.

By Ted Johnson

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UPDATE: The NPR editor who penned an essay criticizing the network for what he saw as bias in its coverage of Donald Trump and a host of other issues has resigned.

Uri Berliner , who had been a senior business editor and reporter, posting his resignation letter to NPR CEO Katherine Maher on his X/Twitter account.

A spokesperson for the network declined to comment.

Berliner had been temporarily suspended from NPR after publishing on essay for The Free Press that called out the network for losing “an open minded spirit” and lacking viewpoint diversity. He cited, among other things, audience research showing a drop in the number of listeners considering themselves conservative.

While Berliner’s essay was immediately seized upon by right wing media as evidence of NPR’s bias, some of his colleagues criticized him for making mistakes in his piece in for using “sweeping statements” to make his case, in the words of NPR’s Steve Inskeep. Maher criticized the essay in a note to staffers, writing, “Questioning whether our people are serving our mission with integrity, based on little more than the recognition of their identity, is profoundly disrespectful, hurtful, and demeaning.”

But Berliner’s essay did trigger some discussion within NPR, as some voices on the right, including Trump, called for defunding the network.

PREVIOUSLY: NPR has put on temporary suspension the editor who penned an essay that criticized the network for losing the trust of listeners as it has covered the rise of Donald Trump and coverage of Covid, race and other issues.

Uri Berliner has been suspended for five days without pay, starting last Friday, according to NPR’s David Folkenflik.

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“That wouldn’t be a problem for an openly polemical news outlet serving a niche audience. But for NPR, which purports to consider all things, it’s devastating both for its journalism and its business model,” Berliner wrote. He also wrote that “race and identity became paramount in nearly every aspect of the workplace,” while claiming that the network lacked viewpoint diversity.

His essay set off a firestorm on the right, with Trump blasting the network and Fox News devoting extensive coverage to the criticism, along with calls for ending government funding for NPR.

In his essay, Berliner wrote that “defunding isn’t the answer,” but that its journalism needed to change from within. The network’s funding has been a target of conservatives numerous times in the past, but lawmakers ultimately have supported public radio.

Berliner shared his suspension notice with Folkenflik, who wrote that it was for failure to seek approval for outside work, as well as for releasing proprietary information about audience demographics.

Katherine Maher, who recently became CEO of the network, published a note to staff last week that appeared to take issue with Berliner’s essay, writing that there was “a criticism of our people on the basis of who we are.”

“Asking a question about whether we’re living up to our mission should always be fair game: after all, journalism is nothing if not hard questions,” Maher wrote. “Questioning whether our people are serving our mission with integrity, based on little more than the recognition of their identity, is profoundly disrespectful, hurtful, and demeaning.”

Maher herself has become a target on the right, with some figures citing her past social media posts, including one from 2020 that referred to Trump as a “deranged racist sociopath.” At the time, she was CEO of the Wikimedia Foundation. In a statement to The New York Times , Maher said that “in America everyone is entitled to free speech as a private citizen.” “What matters is NPR’s work and my commitment as its C.E.O.: public service, editorial independence and the mission to serve all of the American public,” she said.

An NPR spokesperson did not immediately return a request for comment. The network told The Times that Maher is not involved in editorial decisions.

Some of Berliner’s colleagues have been vocal in their own criticism of his essay. Eric Deggans, the network’s TV critic and media analyst, wrote that Berliner “set up staffers of color as scapegoats.” He also noted that Berliner “didn’t seek comment from NPR before publishing. Didn’t mention many things which could detract from his conclusions.”

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NPR editor Uri Berliner resigns with blast at new CEO

David Folkenflik

Uri Berliner resigned from NPR on Wednesday saying he could not work under the new CEO Katherine Maher. He cautioned that he did not support calls to defund NPR. Uri Berliner hide caption

Uri Berliner resigned from NPR on Wednesday saying he could not work under the new CEO Katherine Maher. He cautioned that he did not support calls to defund NPR.

NPR senior business editor Uri Berliner resigned this morning, citing the response of the network's chief executive to his outside essay accusing NPR of losing the public's trust.

"I am resigning from NPR, a great American institution where I have worked for 25 years," Berliner wrote in an email to CEO Katherine Maher. "I respect the integrity of my colleagues and wish for NPR to thrive and do important journalism. But I cannot work in a newsroom where I am disparaged by a new CEO whose divisive views confirm the very problems at NPR I cite in my Free Press essay."

NPR and Maher declined to comment on his resignation.

The Free Press, an online site embraced by journalists who believe that the mainstream media has become too liberal, published Berliner's piece last Tuesday. In it, he argued that NPR's coverage has increasingly reflected a rigid progressive ideology. And he argued that the network's quest for greater diversity in its workforce — a priority under prior chief executive John Lansing – has not been accompanied by a diversity of viewpoints presented in NPR shows, podcasts or online coverage.

Later that same day, NPR pushed back against Berliner's critique.

"We're proud to stand behind the exceptional work that our desks and shows do to cover a wide range of challenging stories," NPR's chief news executive, Edith Chapin, wrote in a memo to staff . "We believe that inclusion — among our staff, with our sourcing, and in our overall coverage — is critical to telling the nuanced stories of this country and our world."

Yet Berliner's commentary has been embraced by conservative and partisan Republican critics of the network, including former President Donald Trump and the activist Christopher Rufo.

Rufo is posting a parade of old social media posts from Maher, who took over NPR last month. In two examples, she called Trump a racist and also seemed to minimize the effects of rioting in 2020. Rufo is using those to rally public pressure for Maher's ouster, as he did for former Harvard University President Claudine Gay .

Others have used the moment to call for the elimination of federal funding for NPR – less than one percent of its roughly $300 million annual budget – and local public radio stations, which derive more of their funding from the government.

NPR names tech executive Katherine Maher to lead in turbulent era

Berliner reiterated in his resignation letter that he does not support such calls.

In a brief interview, he condemned a statement Maher issued Friday in which she suggested that he had questioned "whether our people are serving our mission with integrity, based on little more than the recognition of their identity." She called that "profoundly disrespectful, hurtful, and demeaning."

Berliner subsequently exchanged emails with Maher, but she did not address those comments.

"It's been building up," Berliner said of his decision to resign, "and it became clear it was on today."

For publishing his essay in The Free Press and appearing on its podcast, NPR had suspended Berliner for five days without pay. Its formal rebuke noted he had done work outside NPR without its permission, as is required, and shared proprietary information.

(Disclosure: Like Berliner, I am part of NPR's Business Desk. He has edited many of my past stories. But he did not see any version of this article or participate in its preparation before it was posted publicly.)

Earlier in the day, Berliner forwarded to NPR editors and other colleagues a note saying he had "never questioned" their integrity and had been trying to raise these issues within the newsroom for more than seven years.

What followed was an email he had sent to newsroom leaders after Trump's 2016 win. He wrote then: "Primarily for the sake of our journalism, we can't align ourselves with a tribe. So we don't exist in a cocoon that blinds us to the views and experience of tens of millions of our fellow citizens."

Berliner's critique has inspired anger and dismay within the network. Some colleagues said they could no longer trust him after he chose to publicize such concerns rather than pursue them as part of ongoing newsroom debates, as is customary. Many signed a letter to Maher and Edith Chapin, NPR's chief news executive. They asked for clarity on, among other things, how Berliner's essay and the resulting public controversy would affect news coverage.

Yet some colleagues privately said Berliner's critique carried some truth. Chapin also announced monthly reviews of the network's coverage for fairness and diversity - including diversity of viewpoint.

She said in a text message earlier this week that that initiative had been discussed long before Berliner's essay, but "Now seemed [the] time to deliver if we were going to do it."

She added, "Healthy discussion is something we need more of."

Disclosure: This story was reported and written by NPR Media Correspondent David Folkenflik and edited by Deputy Business Editor Emily Kopp and Managing Editor Gerry Holmes. Under NPR's protocol for reporting on itself, no NPR corporate official or news executive reviewed this story before it was posted publicly.

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It’s Time to End the Quiet Cruelty of Property Taxes

By Andrew W. Kahrl

Dr. Kahrl is a professor of history and African American studies at the University of Virginia and the author of “The Black Tax: 150 Years of Theft, Exploitation, and Dispossession in America.”

Property taxes, the lifeblood of local governments and school districts, are among the most powerful and stealthy engines of racism and wealth inequality our nation has ever produced. And while the Biden administration has offered many solutions for making the tax code fairer, it has yet to effectively tackle a problem that has resulted not only in the extraordinary overtaxation of Black and Latino homeowners but also in the worsening of disparities between wealthy and poorer communities. Fixing these problems requires nothing short of a fundamental re-examination of how taxes are distributed.

In theory, the property tax would seem to be an eminently fair one: The higher the value of your property, the more you pay. The problem with this system is that the tax is administered by local officials who enjoy a remarkable degree of autonomy and that tax rates are typically based on the collective wealth of a given community. This results in wealthy communities enjoying lower effective tax rates while generating more tax revenues; at the same time, poorer ones are forced to tax property at higher effective rates while generating less in return. As such, property assessments have been manipulated throughout our nation’s history to ensure that valuable property is taxed the least relative to its worth and that the wealthiest places will always have more resources than poorer ones.

Black people have paid the heaviest cost. Since they began acquiring property after emancipation, African Americans have been overtaxed by local governments. By the early 1900s, an acre of Black-owned land was valued, for tax purposes, higher than an acre of white-owned land in most of Virginia’s counties, according to my calculations, despite being worth about half as much. And for all the taxes Black people paid, they got little to nothing in return. Where Black neighborhoods began, paved streets, sidewalks and water and sewer lines often ended. Black taxpayers helped to pay for the better-resourced schools white children attended. Even as white supremacists treated “colored” schools as another of the white man’s burdens, the truth was that throughout the Jim Crow era, Black taxpayers subsidized white education.

Freedom from these kleptocratic regimes drove millions of African Americans to move to Northern and Midwestern states in the Great Migration from 1915 to 1970, but they were unable to escape racist assessments, which encompassed both the undervaluation of their property for sales purposes and the overvaluation of their property for taxation purposes. During those years, the nation’s real estate industry made white-owned property in white neighborhoods worth more because it was white. Since local tax revenue was tied to local real estate markets, newly formed suburbs had a fiscal incentive to exclude Black people, and cities had even more reason to keep Black people confined to urban ghettos.

As the postwar metropolis became a patchwork of local governments, each with its own tax base, the fiscal rationale for segregation intensified. Cities were fiscally incentivized to cater to the interests of white homeowners and provide better services for white neighborhoods, especially as middle-class white people began streaming into the suburbs, taking their tax dollars with them.

One way to cater to wealthy and white homeowners’ interests is to intentionally conduct property assessments less often. The city of Boston did not conduct a citywide property reassessment between 1946 and 1977. Over that time, the values of properties in Black neighborhoods increased slowly when compared with the values in white neighborhoods or even fell, which led to property owners’ paying relatively more in taxes than their homes were worth. At the same time, owners of properties in white neighborhoods got an increasingly good tax deal as their neighborhoods increased in value.

As was the case in other American cities, Boston’s decision most likely derived from the fear that any updates would hasten the exodus of white homeowners and businesses to the suburbs. By the 1960s, assessments on residential properties in Boston’s poor neighborhoods were up to one and a half times as great as their actual values, while assessments in the city’s more affluent neighborhoods were, on average, 40 percent of market value.

Jersey City, N.J., did not conduct a citywide real estate reassessment between 1988 and 2018 as part of a larger strategy for promoting high-end real estate development. During that time, real estate prices along the city’s waterfront soared but their owners’ tax bills remained relatively steady. By 2015, a home in one of the city’s Black and Latino neighborhoods worth $175,000 received the same tax bill as a home in the city’s downtown worth $530,000.

These are hardly exceptions. Numerous studies conducted during those years found that assessments in predominantly Black neighborhoods of U.S. cities were grossly higher relative to value than those in white areas.

These problems persist. A recent report by the University of Chicago’s Harris School of Public Policy found that property assessments were regressive (meaning lower-valued properties were assessed higher relative to value than higher-valued ones) in 97.7 percent of U.S. counties. Black-owned homes and properties in Black neighborhoods continue to be devalued on the open market, making this regressive tax, in effect, a racist tax.

The overtaxation of Black homes and neighborhoods is also a symptom of a much larger problem in America’s federated fiscal structure. By design, this system produces winners and losers: localities with ample resources to provide the goods and services that we as a nation have entrusted to local governments and others that struggle to keep the lights on, the streets paved, the schools open and drinking water safe . Worse yet, it compels any fiscally disadvantaged locality seeking to improve its fortunes to do so by showering businesses and corporations with tax breaks and subsidies while cutting services and shifting tax burdens onto the poor and disadvantaged. A local tax on local real estate places Black people and cities with large Black populations at a permanent disadvantage. More than that, it gives middle-class white people strong incentives to preserve their relative advantages, fueling the zero-sum politics that keep Americans divided, accelerates the upward redistribution of wealth and impoverishes us all.

There are technical solutions. One, which requires local governments to adopt more accurate assessment models and regularly update assessment rolls, can help make property taxes fairer. But none of the proposed reforms being discussed can be applied nationally because local tax policies are the prerogative of the states and, often, local governments themselves. Given the variety and complexity of state and local property tax laws and procedures and how much local governments continue to rely on tax reductions and tax shifting to attract and retain certain people and businesses, we cannot expect them to fix these problems on their own.

The best way to make local property taxes fairer and more equitable is to make them less important. The federal government can do this by reinvesting in our cities, counties and school districts through a federal fiscal equity program, like those found in other advanced federated nations. Canada, Germany and Australia, among others, direct federal funds to lower units of government with lower capacities to raise revenue.

And what better way to pay for the program than to tap our wealthiest, who have benefited from our unjust taxation scheme for so long? President Biden is calling for a 25 percent tax on the incomes and annual increases in the values of the holdings of people claiming more than $100 million in assets, but we could accomplish far more by enacting a wealth tax on the 1 percent. Even a modest 4 percent wealth tax on people whose total assets exceed $50 million could generate upward of $400 billion in additional annual revenue, which should be more than enough to ensure that the needs of every city, county and public school system in America are met. By ensuring that localities have the resources they need, we can counteract the unequal outcomes and rank injustices that our current system generates.

Andrew W. Kahrl is a professor of history and African American studies at the University of Virginia and the author of “ The Black Tax : 150 Years of Theft, Exploitation, and Dispossession in America.”

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