Example Writing
Effects of COVID-19
What do you think when you hear about the "COVID-19"? I think most people start thinking about being isolated, wearing masks, and not visiting their families and friends. The COVID-19 has been affecting our everyday life in several ways, for example with the relationship with our families, having troubles to learn in our online classes, and the effects of being at home almost all the time such as being depressed, having anxiety, or being stressed. I think there are more effects that we can think about the pandemic provokes. The COVID-19 has been affecting people's mental health, increasing the economic problems in families, the food prices, tourism, and the quality of children's education.
One of the most impacting effects of COVID is people's mental health. For example, the Dr. Deborah Levine could notice that during the pandemic, the problems of people’s mental health has been enlarged in adolescence (“Striking impacts”, 2021). It shows us how the pandemic is affecting people's mental health especially in the youth. I think it is important to recognize this issue because if we do not take action to solve it, it will get bigger and bigger. In addition, it is important to recognize how people are being affected by COVID. Some of the impacts are “anxiety, frustration and boredom, loneliness” (QJM: An International Journal of Medicine, 2020, paragraph 11). They are some of the feelings people can have because of the pandemic, but it is important to know how the COVID provokes them. For example, they can increase anxiety because they are at home all day, stress because they do not have a job, or depression. Additionally, I think it is important to pay attention to these clues that people can present because these kinds of people will need professional care. As a result, the COVID has a big influence on the mental health of the people because it affects people around them.
Another effect of the pandemic is that the economic problems increase because of two reasons. The first one is that most of the families do not have enough money to survive because their parents have lost their jobs. Because of COVID, several companies do not need many men workers because they do not have enough room to respect the social distance between their workers. According to BBC news, “many people have lost their jobs or seen their incomes cut” (Brown, Jones, and Palumbo, 2021, paragraph 10). It means that most of the families have problems in their economic situation because their fathers do not have jobs to sustain their families with basic things such as clothing and food. The second reason why the economic problems in families are increasing is because there are problems in the economy based on the differences in gender equality in the laboral market because of the COVID-19 (“The impacts”, 2021, paragraph 1). It shows us how families’ economies are being affected because of the demand of different kinds of genders in the labor market, and it is important to stand out that women are paid less than the men, and it has impacting results in their economies. As a result, these are the two most highlighting reasons why the families’ economies are being affected by COVID-19.
A third impact is the food price. Because of the COVID-19 there are many companies that reduce their production or exportation to other countries. For example, “export areas experienced demand reduction from the pandemic” (Mead, 2020, paragraph 9). It can clearly show that because of the pandemic, the economy and the food prices are affected because there is no demand. Additionally, because people do not have jobs, they do not have enough resources or money to buy food, or they do not have enough money to buy nutritious food (“Our food system” Chriscaden, 2020). It is clear that because of COVID people feeding is not good enough because the food prices are not reachable for most of the families, and they will have different impacts in their learning process, they do not have energy if they have to work, or they do not have a good mental health if they do not eat well. Food price is one of the biggest impacts of the pandemic.
Fourth, tourism has been affected. There are many countries that can offer jobs to the population with tourism, but “the impact of the pandemic on the travel tourism industry was significantly underestimated” (Porada-Rochon, Riberiro Soriano, and Skare, 2021, paragraph 3). It explains that even though the government can take different actions to solve some of the economic problems, there are more problems that affect everyday people’s lives because they do not have jobs, and they are used to working in turism. Because of the pandemic, they do not have the people from other countries to buy, to visit, or to spend their money on their products or services. Additionally, countries receive specific instructions about travel and the risks the people are taking if the government or people who are responsible to measure the assessments are not aware of the controls that they need to take (UN 2020, paragraph 10). It explains that there are different controls and rules that do not allow you to visit other countries. Consequently, tourism is being affected by the pandemic, but it also affects the population economy.
Finally, the children's education quality is not the best. As we know, because of COVID-19 the government took different actions to give education to children, however, post-college labor results have been affected as we know it will be because of the pandemic because it has negative impacts on the students especially in their active participation (“Student experiences”, 2020, paragraph 6). It means even though the government tried to give the opportunities to learn to children, it is not enough to have a good quality in the learning process and having good quality in their learning process is essential. As a result, “adolescents have failed classes critical to their futures at higher rates than in previous years, affecting graduations and college prospects.” (New York Times, 2021) As the New York Times said, the adolescents are going down with their scores in school and it will directly impact their future because they will not learn the things they need to work or to be successful in their professions. It is something to not only be worried about, it is also important to take actions to change the impact it could have. As a consequence, the pandemic has been affecting the children’s education and it is a big problem that is not solved yet.
Therefore, children's education, tourism, food price, economic problems in families, and people's mental health are being affected by COVID-19 and they have big impacts on our society. Even though the government is taking different actions to decrease the impacts of the pandemic, they are still impacting everyone. Having more alternatives to avoid or solve these problems will help us as a community to be more active and not only leave these problems to the government. I think it is important to take actions, such as being aware of our children, or make donations for poor people, and be patient with our children and help them in their learning process.
Exercises
Exercise 1: Supporting Ideas
Before you complete this activity, read the entire essay.
- Scan the essay to find sources.
- How is the source information used to support the topic sentence (or thesis, more generally)?
- Are there any ideas in the essay that would be strengthened by bringing in an additional source? Why or why not?
Sources
https://abcnews.go.com/Health/striking-impact-covid-19-pandemic-adolescent-mental-health/story?id=81752276 Deliso, 2021, paragraph 1.
https://academic.oup.com/qjmed/article/113/8/531/5860841?login=true QJM: An International Journal of Medicine, 2020, paragraph 11.
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-51706225 Brown, Jones, and Palumbo, 2021, paragraph 10.
https://www.nber.org/papers/w26947 NBER, 2021, paragraph 1.
https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2020/article/the-impact-of-the-covid-19-pandemic-on-food-price-indexes-and-data-collection.htm Mead, 2020, paragraph 9
https://www.who.int/news/item/13-10-2020-impact-of-covid-19-on-people's-livelihoods-their-health-and-our-food-systems Chriscaden, 2020, paragraph 2.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0040162520312956 Porada-Rochon, Riberiro Soriano, and Skare, 2021, paragraph 3.
https://news.un.org/en/story/2020/08/1069392 UN, 2020, paragraph 10.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0047272720301353 Aucejo, French, Ugalde Araya, Zafar, 2020, paragraph 6.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/24/us/politics/covid-school-reopening-teen-mental-health.html New York Times, 2021.