Week 1: Personal perspective

The spread of COVID-19 has flipped the whole world upside down and my life is no exception. I started keeping track of the disease early on using news channels and listening to my parents because they always stay up to date. The first thing I felt was annoyance because as someone invested in the stock market the crisis was really not good for business. As the crisis continued developing with China going into its first lockdown I was shocked but I was sure that we were safe here, which I know now that was wishful thinking. As Covid-19 started taking over the entire internet I began to grow more concerned. Social media sites added links to the CDC website and I realized that we were in more danger than we had been led to believe.

As the media kept growing more and more outraged and the stories got more prominent I tried to stay away from it. Even when the schools were shut down I preferred not to worry about it. Shortly after schools were shut down my family was thrown into chaos from this disease. My aunt got sick and thankfully recovered as well as my mom. That is when I tried to stop following the news because it was getting very stressful. It is one thing to wake up and look at a death toll every day and another thing to know people who have it. The fear and irrationality going around, while justified is really damaging and social media is making it even harder to cope. As days pass I try not to look at my social media and the only time I have used my technology is for school or to talk to my boyfriend. Social media may help some people cope with being stuck inside but for me, it just made it worse. It is good to keep track of what is happening in the world and how you can help yourself but if you fall into the social media hole it is hard to get out. For me the situation has been made 100% worse because of the news and media but thankfully now my fear is starting to subside. Who knows maybe next week I will feel confident enough to check my social media, although I doubt it.

Week 2: Tracking Coronavirus

The world is in the middle of a crisis. To try and get an idea of how the virus is spreading some companies are tracking people through their phones. One of those companies posted a tweet showing exactly how much people were spreading across the globe. Even if the government is telling people to stay home for the greater good, there will always be selfish people. The tweet showed just how selfish some people are. They all started at the same beach and then suddenly they are around the US. Some people are taking this as an attack on our privacy and rights. However one CEO brings up a great point saying “People will willingly consent for something like that if it means saving their lives”. This is important because right now our right to privacy is not important if we are participating in the killing of others, albeit involuntarily. I think it is important for people to realize the actual issue here instead of a political one or a self interest.

In times of hardship sometimes rights are infringed upon but if it helps save people then who are we to complain? Normally this would be a big issue but this is not normal times anymore. Is thousands of people dying really worth keeping your right to privacy? If it is then I think we need to reevaluate our morals as a country. The safety of others should always be first priority and if you have to give up some of your rights to save them you should. The tracking would not be based on who you are just by where you are. Once the pandemic is over, if the government continued using it then yes that is an issue but everyone signs up for that risk when they get social media or even a phone. Tracking is something that we sign up for just by carrying our devices and signing the terms of our phone companies. As someone who was supposedly on “spring break” a week or so ago I understand that it is supposed to be a fun time. I understand they are only college students but we are the future of society and what kind of future are we portraying if we go partying and endanger people instead of just staying home?

Week 3: Communicating Data

Covid-19 is a rapidly growing virus. I looked at the statistics once at 12 am and again at 9 pm on the same day and between that time the number of cases went up by 48,352!

Oddly enough, while these numbers are shocking I am also relieved. The fact that the number is going up means more people have access to tests and can get help for it. It was also reassuring that the recovered number is much higher than the deaths. While reading about coronavirus I came across an interesting chart showing the number of cases broken down by the state. As you can see New York is definitely well ahead of everyone else.

It is weird to think that New York of all places happened to be the epicenter and interesting to see that the second highest state is New Jersey and they are still over 100,000 cases behind. This is almost comforting to me knowing that we are already in the height of the virus so it can not progress much more. It also gives me hope because we have so many confirmed cases already and started earlier so we will have more recoveries quicker than the other states.

There are a lot of statistics and charts going around right now and sometimes even when the chart is accurate the way it is interpreted is misleading. For example when looking at these statistics people can say a few things.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Focusing on the last 2 columns specifically, Trump looks at these statistics and says the USA has the most tests we are doing the best out of the whole world to make himself look good. However you can see that even though we have the most tests we are behind when it comes to tests per million people. That is because if you take the US which is a huge country and stick it next to somewhere like Spain you can see yes we have more tests but Spain has them more evenly distributed for their population. Statistics like these are constantly being misconstrued by right wing sites and people. By leaving out a tiny piece of information it can change the story tremendously.

Here is the same statistics shown just using tests per million in a bar graph format.
By taking the same statistic but using the other part that was left out we can see just how horrible the US is doing contrary to what Trump says. It is astounding to me to think that he looked at the original statistics and decided if he did not talk about them then people would not look into it. The sad truth is a lot of people will go just by what he says and are sitting there thinking we the best country at handling the crisis.

Now as I was looking I did not find another chart from the US but I did find one from the UK

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I do not know where this chart came from as the guy conveniently did not cite his sources although I am fairly sure he made it. This chart is supposed to show the projected curve vs the actual curve of the virus comparing many countries. This man used the chart to “prove” that all of the cases are basically being made up to try and keep people inside so the government can make money off of real estate. I know it sounds absurd trust me 20 minutes of him talking about it was definitely confusing. However, what interests me more is that people actually watch this. Youtube has posted the link to the official CDC website under the video but the whole video is filled with a ton of outlandish conspiracy theories. What was interesting was that he used this as an example that lockdown does nothing because “it all flattens out anyways” which I find really funny because how would you even know what the chart would look like without lockdown? I am just glad this guy is not feeding this to Americans because the British seem more sensible with the video only having a hundred likes for its thousand views. His goal is to get people to rebel against the lockdown and see the “corruption of the government” but i’m glad some people still have common sense. Overall just make sure the things you are looking at are factual and show the whole picture and dont spread misinformation because it can be very damaging.

 

Week 4: Communicating warnings: Evaluation of Bill Gates’ speech 2015

Bill Gates TEDTalk Evaluation Form

The link above is an evaluation I did on Bill Gates’ TEDTalk from 2015. This TEDtalk was interesting overall but I found a few issues with it. It related really well to the topic he was talking about, and is unintentionally very relevant today. His message was relayed really well and I just wished he backed up his arguments a little bit more with more detail. In general it was a very good talk but personally I dont really find TEDtalks super interesting. Since I do not particularly enjoy TEDtalks it made it hard for me to stay focused with Bill’s monotone voice and lack of enthusiasm in his expressions. While he is great at selling products when he was trying to sell his argument I felt like he missed the mark a little bit. The speech itself was interesting but because to me his delivery was a little boring it did not inspire me or engage me like some other talks have. This made the speech very forgettable for me and left me feeling unfulfilled. With a better delivery that easily could have been one of the most impactful speeches out there especially when looking at today’s crisis.

Although the speech itself was not memorable some of the points in it were. The main idea of the TEDtalk was based around the Ebola outbreak they had in 2015 and how we were lucky it was not asymptomatic and easily trackable. He even made a comment about how people cant jump on planes when they have it which was very ironic listening to it now during the coronavirus outbreak. One of the main points of his talk was how we have little to no system for stopping an epidemic and no one to do the research. This is very prominent when looking at how the virus is being handled today with many people rushing around with no guidance. Another point he had was how the health care systems need to be stronger. The type of change he was talking about never happened in most places and because of that a majority of countries are struggling and running out of supplies. He also pointed out that prevention is much cheaper than what would happen if we continued living and were hit by disease. All over the world today we see how much the economy is struggling. Even here in America many people are losing their jobs and businesses are closing down with the complete collapse of the system that could have been avoided. His message is extremely significant and sadly no one listened to it. All we can hope is that when this is all done the world will finally wake up and realize the importance of these issues. Places like the town Zahara de la Sierra in Spain who have completely avoided the virus can serve as a great model for change if we will listen. We were not ready for this epidemic but now we have the opportunity to start getting ready for the next one.

Week 5: Coronavirus and Racism

Back when coronavirus started becoming widely known there were many stories about people who would not eat chinese food. One of the easiest places to observe this trend is in NYC Chinatowns. Their businesses had a 50 to 70 percent drop in business by February 10th before coronavirus was really in the US. Recently, there are mandatory take-out only rules with some businesses opting to shut down temporarily. The biggest issue is that restaurants like Taco Bell and others did not decline as quickly as the Chinese restaurants and that is due to racism. These Chinese run businesses were forced to feel the effects of coronavirus before any other businesses did and many of them are family run. Some of these businesses are the families only livelihood and were forced to shut their doors forever. One business Hop Kee in New York City showed a huge impact on the customers. The picture on the left is a few months before coronavirus hit compared to the right which is a picture of the owner by himself on the last day the restaurant was opened. This is extremely sad to look at as someone who has passed that restaurant many times and seen all of the people inside enjoying their food. Obviously all the businesses have been cleared out but in Chinatown they had been empty since early February.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The racism extends outside of just the restaurants with people discriminating against asian-americans as a whole. Bus drivers asking if an Asian-american had been to China, or people getting spit on at grocery stores are real issues. These issues are becoming so prevalent some Asian Americans have created hate crime reporting websites to document the situations. One website’s analysis in the second week showed that two-thirds of reports were verbal harassment and a whopping ten percent were physical assaults. Even doctors are not safe, with some reporting that they were spit on, told to “go back to china” and or told to get a different doctor. Asian Americans of all ages are dealing with this type of racism everyday. These websites have also shown that children make up six percent of reports of racism. Some adults have a lot of anger towards other races even though most will deny it. The biggest threat to asian americans in the future is the children of these adults. The kids who are learning hatred at such a young age can sometimes be violent towards asian american children. There have even been a few reports of kids as young as twelve being punched in the head or kicked. The worst part about this is that the aggressor does not think they are doing anything wrong, in fact in some cases they may think they are making their parents proud. It is extremely important for us, as Americans, to open our eyes and realize a person’s race or looks do not show who they are and that discrimination in any way is wrong. We are all people and we all have emotions, no matter how dehumanized someone may be in the media.