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Sustaining health throughout the COVID-19 pandemic

Justin Roemer

ENGL 130

March 1st, 2022

Literature Review
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Abstract

This paper explores how the general public and everyday average person will be able to

sustain their health to the fullest during the COVID-19 pandemic. It also explores

recommendations by the CDC and acts made by U.S. congress. Some questions that can be

drawn from this paper are: how can the general population stay healthy? Is COVID a big concern

for young and healthy people? How do my actions affect others' safety? All of these questions

and more will be looked at.

During the year of 2019, the worlds fastest spreading and harmful virus for about 100

years had started circulating and making its way around China. Although the United States put in

efforts to stop the virus from spreading here, it ultimately failed. COVID-19 is the first global

pandemic we have seen in over 100 years, since the spanish flu 1918. Although there is a high

survival rate for young healthy people with no underlying conditions, the elderly and others

suffer dearly. The question changed from “How can we keep this out of our country” to “how do

we keep the population healthy and slow the spread of COVID-19.” Some people think that this

doesn’t affect them or that they will be perfectly fine. While that might be true, it does directly

affect others and everybody’s individual health choices will impact the timeline and ending of

this pandemic.
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Healthy Practices

Before addressing specific ways to combat the COVID-19 virus, it should be said that

general good hygiene and healthy practices will go a long way. For example, basic things like

washing hands, eating healthy, getting good sleep, and exercising often. Chauncy Crandall

mentions in her book FIGHT BACK: Beat the Coronavirus a study done by behavioral sleep

medicine. The study shows how lack of sleep can affect one’s immune system.

Healthy college students who suffered from various sleep problems, including insomnia,

mounted a weaker response to the flu vaccine. This translated into a higher risk of them

catching the flu and getting sicker, the researchers said(Crandall 2020 Ch.16).

Crandall also makes several other points about regular habits that should be incorporated to not

only maintain a healthy lifestyle but also repel the COVID-19 virus. She says that in order to

keep a strong immune system, you need to be eating antioxidant rich foods that supercharge your

immune system. Crandall says you can get these naturally from: red bell peppers, sunflower

seeds, broccoli, mushrooms, yogurt, and spinach. There are also plenty more antioxidant rich

foods but these are just some to get started.

It is just as important to stay physically healthy and practice good hygiene as it is to stay

mentally healthy. The COVID-19 pandemic affected many people's mental health. Many people

got depressed due to not being able to see people anymore. The best way to try to stay mentally

healthy correlates with what was mentioned in the last paragraph. You need to be getting enough

sleep, exercising, and eating healthy. These all make a major impact on how you can be feeling

mentally. Due to the pandemic, it specifically stripped our ability to be able to socialize and

gather with friends and family. This lack of socialization caused many people to spiral into a

depression. Martha Londa makes this clear when she says: “Experts also told people to stay in
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touch with others. This was still possible while social distancing. People could call or video chat

with friends and family. People need to talk to others to stay healthy”(Londa 2020). During a

pandemic where you are almost forced to stay inside it can be mentally challenging. The best

way to combat that is to talk with others over video chat and keep a close relationship with

family.

Social Responsibility

The best way to ensure you are safe to go out into public and not spread the virus is to get

tested. There are many types of COVID-19 tests made available to the general public. We now

have the new Antigen tests that you can take in an at home kit and get your results in as soon as

15 minutes. We also have lab tests such as PCR, which will be the most accurate. Getting tested

is only one part of keeping the community safe. On top of regular testing when necessary, you

should also be contact tracing. Contact tracing means letting everyone know who has been in

close contact with you (close contact as defined by the CDC or government in your country) ,

usually someone that has been in the same room with you for more than 15 minutes. After you

inform them of your positive test, they go out and get tested on their own. If they get tested

positive, they must notify everyone who they have been in close contact with. The people who

get notified and test positive must quarantine until they feel better. This process dramatically

minimizes the amount of people that get infected. Ernesto M. Barista mentions how important

contact tracing is in his book Testing and Contact Tracing For COVID-19:

Identifying contacts and ensuring they do not interact with others is critical to protect

communities from further spread. If communities are unable to effectively isolate patients

and ensure contacts can separate themselves from others, rapid community spread of
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COVID-19 is likely to increase to the point that strict mitigation strategies will again be

needed to contain the virus (Barista 2020 p.307)

This shows how imminent it is that we implement good contact tracing resources. If everyone

does their part in contact tracing and notifies each individual that is a close contact then

COVID-19 rates will plummet.

Social Responsibility goes as far as postponing graduations, weddings, or funerals so we

can keep the community safe. Social responsibility means doing something against your own

personal interest for the greater good of society. Family gatherings were a prime example of this

when most states had the stay at home orders in April of 2020. Most high school graduation

ceremonies were canceled or postponed in 2020. Many ceremonies were held virtually. This

resulted in many upset students and parents that they didn’t get to see their kid throw their hat

into the air and graduate high school. Marie Bender mentions the struggle in planning family

events in her book Living Apart, Together: American Life During COVID-19 when she says:

“People also couldn’t gather as normal for weddings, graduations, and funerals. Many of these

events were commemorated remotely. Others were postponed or modified to follow social

distancing guidelines”(Bender 2020 p.19). It was tough for many people to conduct these family

events in the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic. But it is paramount that everybody maintains

their social distancing because of how it can affect others. Bender also says an interesting

statistic that “Eight out of ten Americans killed by COVID-19 were aged 65 years or

older”(Bender 2020 p.18). This shows that even though you might survive and not be directly

affected by the pandemic, it can spread and affect others in a negative way. The key to stopping

the pandemic lies within social responsibility and getting people to do their part. I know that it

will be tough to get everyone to do their part and you’ll never be able to get everyone to social
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distance, but the more awareness we have the more people that will contribute to the greater

good and do their part.

Contrary to some people’s beliefs, COVID-19 does not just affect the elderly. COVID-19

can get anyone severely sick or get them killed. It is important to keep in mind the social

responsibility and how your actions might affect someone else’s life. By not getting tested when

you’re sick, you could spread the virus to multiple people. Of those multiple people, a few get

sick and spread the virus to more people. It is just a chain of spreading that doesn’t get better

unless everyone practices and keeps in mind social responsibility. According to Douglas Herstad

in his book Understanding COVID-19 he says:

The United States had the most COVID-19 cases in the world by April 2020. At that

time, 78 percent of American deaths were of people over the age of 65. But every age

group had at least one reported death(Herstad 2020 p.25).

This shows that every single age group had at least one reported death due to COVID-19. Also,

in April 2020 this was the beginning of the pandemic so numbers have only gone up from there.

Everyone is affected by COVID-19 in any age group so keep that in mind while deciding what to

do when you get sick.

CDC Recommendations and U.S. Congress Bills

There are many different views on what governments should have done in the peak of the

COVID-19 pandemic when it first started spreading to other countries. Many thought that we

should close everything that is nonessential business down until case numbers started to decline

to more reasonable numbers. Many also thought that we couldn’t afford to shut down non

essential businesses and too many people would lose their jobs and not be financially stable.

That’s why my goal is to just touch on what the responses were to lower cases, not what the right
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or wrong thing was to do necessarily. The United States started to realize COVID-19 as a

national threat on January 31st, 2020. This is just 10 days after the first confirmed case arose in

the United States. The United States started taking action immediately. Rachel Thomas gives

good insight on this in her book Leaders Take Charge: Guiding the Nation Through COVID-19

when she says: “On January 31st, the task force declared COVID-19 a national public health

emergency. That same day, the U.S. government banned all travel from Wuhan to the United

States”(Thomas 2020 p.12). This shows that just 10 days after the first confirmed case that the

United States already had a national COVID-19 task force to handle the virus. As well as

banning all travel to Wuhan just 10 days after the first case. This was a tough call and at the time

the Trump Administration and congress got a lot of backlash for banning all travel to Wuhan.

Some people were saying it wasn’t justified for a virus with a high survival rate. It later turned

out to be a good call in the world of preventing the spread. That call may have saved hundreds of

thousands of lives and definitely slowed the spread of COVID-19 to the United States. Then

came February for the United States and everything looked fine. In reality, everything wasn’t

fine. The United States had a mishap with their testing kits where the Center for Disease Control

made the test kits wrong and the test kits reported false negatives. In the month of february it

looked like we only had 25 cases, but in reality we had much more. There were many critics of

the United State’s response as described by Thomas: “Critics of the U.S. pandemic response

would later call February a lost month. They said the government should have expanded

COVID-19 testing in February to help contain the spread of COVID-19”(Thomas 2020 p.14).

This shows that although the United States made some good calls in the action to prevent

COVID, they also made some bad ones and got backlash for it.
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During March and April is when the bulk of U.S. Congress bills and orders by the Trump

administration were made. This was for good reason, as the number of confirmed COVID-19

cases in the United States went from 25 at the end of February to 192,000 by the end of March.

On top of that, at the end of April there were over 1 million confirmed COVID-19 cases in the

United States. Governors were to take control of their state and issue a stay at home order if

needed. Most states did this, California was the first state to issue a stay at home order and many

other states followed. Marie Bender gives insight on the stay at home orders in her book Invisible

Invasion, The COVID-19 Pandemic Begins when she says: “They issued orders for residents to

stay at home, or shelter in place. California, Illinois, and New York were the first states to have

such policies. By the first week of April, most other states had followed in suit”(Bender 2020

p.15). This shows how serious the pandemic got in just a span of two months. Most states had a

stay at home order for everyone to stay home and shut down all nonessential businesses.

COVID-19 has been a long battle, but it really shows the determination and kindness of

the people in the many laws and say at home order that were made by the U.S. government to the

acts of social responsibility to help slow the spread of COVID-19. Unfortunately, we are not

done with this pandemic and it might be around for years to come. But I am hopeful in saying

that I do think the worst is behind us. We now know more than ever and can effectively slow the

virus. In lieu of that, make sure you are still practicing general hygiene and taking care of

yourself, getting the right amount of sleep, and eating right. Also, practice what's right in the

name of social responsibility and the greater good. You never know how your actions might

affect someone else.

References

Martha London. (2020). Flattening the Curve. Core Library.

Chauncey W. Crandall, & Charlotte Libov. (2020). FIGHT BACK : Beat the Coronavirus.
Humanix Books.
https://ezproxy.library.und.edu/login?url=https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=
true&db=nlebk&AN=2436279&site=ehost-live&scope=site&ebv=EK&ppid=Page-__-49

Roger F. Martin. (2020). Coronavirus and U.S. Public Health Preparedness. SNOVA.
https://ezproxy.library.und.edu/login?url=https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=
true&db=nlebk&AN=2420333&site=ehost-live&scope=site&ebv=EB&ppid=pp_7

Ernesto M. Batista. (2020). Testing and Contact Tracing for COVID -19. SNOVA.
https://ezproxy.library.und.edu/login?url=https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=
true&db=nlebk&AN=2648281&site=ehost-live&scope=site&ebv=EB&ppid=pp_322

Marie Bender. (2020). Living Apart, Together: American Life During COVID-19. Checkerboard
Library.
https://ezproxy.library.und.edu/login?url=https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=
true&db=nlebk&AN=2697752&site=ehost-live&scope=site&ebv=EB&ppid=pp_18

Douglas Hustad. (2020). Understanding COVID-19. Core Library.

Rachael L. Thomas. (2020). Leaders Take Charge: Guiding the Nation Through COVID-19.
Checkerboard Library.
https://ezproxy.library.und.edu/login?url=https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=
true&db=nlebk&AN=2697751&site=ehost-live&scope=site&ebv=EB&ppid=pp_12

Marie Bender. (2020). Invisible Invasion: The COVID-19 Pandemic Begins. Checkerboard
Library.
https://ezproxy.library.und.edu/login?url=https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=
true&db=nlebk&AN=2697745&site=ehost-live&scope=site&ebv=EB&ppid=pp_14
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