COVID-19 Pandemic Perspectives

Overview: COVID-19 Pandemic Perspectives Project

About this website

In 2020, a novel coronavirus pandemic became a global matter of concern. Though both materially and culturally ubiquitous, it has affected each of us in different ways. The COVID-19 Pandemic Perspectives Website is a curated collection of researched pages documenting how diverse stakeholders viewed the pandemic as it emerged. The site’s creators are the instructors and students from four sections of a first-year course at Lyman Briggs College, a science-focused residential college located within Michigan State University.

This project documents a variety of perspectives on COVID-19, which we think is important on its own, but we hope that it also provides an occasion to exercise our empathy. As a learning community committed to educating ethical and inclusive scientists, we believe that it is important for each of us to make an effort to understand what others are experiencing, especially in times of challenge. In the face of emerging threats and scientific uncertainty, we can learn a great deal by having the humility and respect to take the time to engage perspectives beyond our own.

This site is organized into “perspective pages.” Each page, focused on perspectives from actors and celebrities to nurses to wild animals, attempts to capture some of the concerns and values of that group. These can be accessed directly through the table of contents. We have also created clusters of perspective pages, organized around different sectors of society, as described in the next section.

In creating the website, we had the goal of using the contemporary pandemic situation as a case study through which we could examine, in real time, how science emerges in our world through everyday life and culture, and how it affects people differently in the process. Each student developed one perspective page by finding and analyzing online media sources produced by or about a specific stakeholder group. To add informational integrity to these accounts, we also asked each student to select one primary perspective source that they felt exemplified the stakeholder’s perspective and conduct additional research to fact-check five of its key claims.

Each page includes an essay summarizing the stakeholder’s perspective. This essay synthesizes the student’s research on emerging perspective sources like news articles and press releases with carefully selected background research in the humanities and social sciences that helped to give them a deeper understanding of the stakeholders themselves and show what they value, the facts that matter to them, and who they trust and conflict in in attaining their goals.

For details on the assignment itself, we have included an appendix with the description we gave our students.

Finally, we have written a concluding essay, which we encourage you to read after exploring some of the perspectives represented in the site. There, we try to draw out some of the important lessons we can learn from this project.

A kaleidoscope of perspectives

As a view of the pandemic that draws together many perspectives, this website is less of a lens than a kaleidoscope. The website is not intended to provide a single narrative, but rather to create an appreciation for the diverse ways in which the pandemic is seen, experienced, and understood.

The table of contents in right hand corner of the tool bar at the top of the page provides a linked list of all the nearly 80 perspectives, arranged in alphabetical order. To help you navigate this extensive collection, we have also created a set of tags to organize the pages. Below, you can learn more about the categories of perspectives included on the website and follow links to relevant pages. You can also click on the titles to see all pages with a given tag. Some pages have multiple tags, since stakeholders fall into multiple categories.

Scientific Perspectives

Scientists play a key role in producing certified knowledge about the coronavirus and its effects on people and the planet. They work together to create new tools for developing knowledge and share it with the broader community. Virologists study the virus itself while epidemiologists, including some at MSU, study how it travels through populations. Meanwhile, climatologists and climate scientists are trying to understand the indirect effects of shelter-in-place orders on the natural environment.

Many public health agencies have invested time and energy to developing and compiling scientific knowledge on the pandemic to keep the public safe. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is charged with vetting new testing tools and therapies. In agencies like the Centers for Disease Control and National Institute for Allergies and Infectious Disease, headed by Dr. Anthony Fauci, scientists work to understand the effects of the disease and produce knowledge that government officials can use to make informed policy.

Governmental Perspectives

In pandemic times, all government officials become, in some way, public health officials, charged with keeping people safe by making policies and providing aid. At the same time, they are also met with demands to maintain the economic stability of their jurisdiction. Elected officials are under considerable scrutiny for their handling of the pandemic. School boards and education policy makers have had to decide how to best protect students, while ensuring their education. In our own state of Michigan, Governor Gretchen Whitmer has become a national public figure for her efforts to govern based on scientific data, despite vocal opposition. Meanwhile, the U.S. President Donald Trump has assured the public that the virus is under control and not as dire as scientists say.

The pandemic is having an effect on many aspects of governance. From the National Guard members who use their military training to protect the nation to the November election that will shape the future of our democracy to foreign policy issues like U.S.-China relations, governing the nation now means governing a pandemic.

Healthcare Perspectives

Thousands of healthcare workers across many specialties have found themselves with the duty of caring for people made sick by the disease. Many of these workers must balance the challenge of providing care for others with protecting themselves in a time when personal protective equipment is in short supply. Nurses, indeed, have come to be seen as heroes of pandemic care. Nurses and CNAs work to provide sustaining care for those struggling to survive the viral infection. Emergency room doctors, physicians, and other surgical staff provide immediate care for those in acute medical nee.  Respiratory therapists work to help those whose lungs have been damaged by the viral infection learn to breathe again. Given the dire need in many cities, nurses and other medical professionals have found themselves retraining for new skills to aid the effort, some even coming out of retirement to do so. Though often marginalized by mainstream medicine, naturopathic doctors have also looked for nontoxic ways to contribute to coronavirus care.

While healthcare workers are charged with providing the care to keep people alive, the healthcare industry has the responsibility to deliver products and services for keeping people alive while remaining profitable. Nursing homes and their workers care for large numbers of high risk individuals, who cannot live alone or with their families. Hospital administrators try to organize supplies and resources effectively, despite the economic and material challenges of managing a medical facility in a pandemic. Custodial staff are essential workers who risk their own health to keep the medical facilities clean. Meanwhile, the global pharmaceutical industry struggles to develop new, safe treatments and accurate tests on an urgent timeline.

Business and Industry Perspectives

Beyond the healthcare industry, every economic actor in society has had their business affected by the pandemic. Businesses in the travel sector, like the hotel industry and airline industry, have seen dramatic drops in consumer demand. Small businesses, including both owners and employees, have had to rethink how to deliver services while staying both safe and profitable, while others have had to close entirely. Due to racist claims about the origin of the virus, Asian-American owned businesses have been especially hurt by violent action. Many people have lost jobs and income because of the impacts of the pandemic on consumer behavior.

Some businesses have found themselves essential for society, like the multinational agricultural industry. At the same time, however, people who provide these essential services, like food delivery and grocery workers often find themselves vulnerable: poorly paid and poorly protected.

The Perspectives of Vulnerable Populations

In addition to the workers who provide food, care, and other essential services, many groups in society are finding their vulnerabilities amplified by the pandemic. Prisoners find it impossible to physically distance while in cells and living quarters while homeless people, many of whom are LGBT, struggle to shelter in place without a stable living environment. People struggling with substance abuse find themselves under stress and cut off from support networks, while domestic violence victims may find themselves trapped with their abuser. Low income folks in general struggle to support their health and their families at a time of additional stress. Asian Americans are experiencing racist attacks.

Other groups find themselves at risk because of health vulnerabilities. The elderly may have lived survived outbreaks of the past, only to find themselves in one of the most medically risky populations in the current pandemic. People with disabilities and chronic illness, such as those who are immunocompromised or have managed conditions such as asthma all find themselves at greater risk of death if exposed to the virus, as do cancer patients and survivors. Pregnant women have to protect not only themselves but their unborn children from the virus, while preparing to give birth in pandemic times. Hypochondriacs live in constant fear of exposure. Meanwhile, those who are diagnosed with COVID-19 can experience not only grave illness, but also stigma.

Children and teenagers have found their worlds turned upside down as day cares and schools have closed their buildings, though the long-term effects of this experience on their lives is something we can't yet know. Special needs children and their families are especially challenged as they find themselves without access to usual support systems. Graduating high school seniors have missed ceremonies and parties that mark their matriculation, and many are rethinking their college plans. College students, especially out-of-state students who traveled far for their education find themselves unsure where to take their remote classes. And while young people seem less likely to develop symptoms, many have still contracted the virus.

Some groups have come to be seen as contrarian or anti-social because of their failure to heed public health guidelines and social norms. Anti-vaccine activists have raised concern about the potential safety of any proposed medical solution, while people who stockpile toilet paper and hand sanitizer have been branded as “Over consumers”.

Media Perspectives

Media personalities are still entertaining and informing a public that, sheltered in place, largely experiences the pandemic through a screen. Actors and celebrities like Tom Hanks have shared their experiences of the illness while journalists and info-tainers like podcaster Joe Rogan have shaped popular opinion through their on-going commentary and interviews.

International Perspectives

Though the United States has more documented COVID-19 cases than anywhere else in the world, the pandemic, by its very nature, is a global phenomenon. Each of the stakeholders listed above has counterparts around the world. Health workers in China and East Asia were some of the first to develop strategies for managing outbreaks. In India, the Modi government has put the entire nation on shelter-in-place, while migrant workers remain vulnerable. In the Philippines, the effects of the pandemic are felt especially by the poor. In Nigeria, one of the most populous countries of Africa, health care organizations work to confront the challenges of pandemic preparedness in the face of existing instability.

International agencies like the World Health Organization, which had the authority to declare the outbreak a pandemic, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation have sought to shape global response to a virus that knows no borders. Geopolitical policy experts have also tried to make sense of the global impact of the pandmeic on how states and population interact. Meanwhile, Pope Francis and the Vatican have offered spiritual leadership to the global catholic population in a time of material and existential crisis.

Animals and the Environment

The pandemic has not only affected human beings. Environmentalists have claimed that throughout the nonhuman world, the effects of slowing down economic activity during the pandemic are becoming apparent on the land, air, and water. New protections are being proposed for wild animals, whose collection and sale at wet markets is believed to have given the coronavirus the opportunity to mutate and spread to humans. In some countries, pets have been abandoned or killed in fear, while in others owners at home provide additional attention.

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Though the range of perspective presented here is substantial, we acknowledge that these present but a small fraction of the myriad views of this pandemic. Nevertheless, they have helped us to expand our own perspective, and we hope you do too.

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