Coronavirus News Explained

First Place: High School Division      Below is a piece written by Darren L (age 14), the winner of High School Division for the  COVID-19 Writing Contest  . Darren's submission is a research entry about masks, where he first details reasons why people refuse to wear masks and then provides evidence proving that masks are effective. (For more information about the efficacy of masks and different types of masks see  here ) Darren's piece can also be viewed through this  link . Enjoy! Why Masks are Effective in Preventing the Spread of COVID-19 By: Darren Lee Masks have been used for thousands of years and have been proven to be a great tool to prevent the spread of many diseases. For example, in 2009, there was a reported number of 30,200 cases of swine flu. After people started wearing masks, the number of cases decreased. Even though masks have been proven to be a helpful tool to stop the spread of viruses, people still refuse to wear them.  Why People Don’t Want to Wear Masks

Honorable Mention: High School Division     The following piece is written by Richard X, a participant of the High School Division for the COVID-19 Writing Contest . Richard's entry, a personal piece titled "Afterschool", was selected as honorable mention for the contest. In "Afterschool" Richard details how COVID-19 has affected his school life, specifically as a freshman in his first year of high school. His submission can also be viewed here . Enjoy! Afterschool Ah, another day of online school is over. I stare at my photo album for no particular reason. It’s full of smiles, happiness, and bondings less than six feet apart. It’s been a couple of months since any of that has happened, so grasping a blast from the past surely helps me remember the times when the people wearing masks weren’t here.  There's a Jazz club starting now, and so I quickly, and reluctantly, log into Zoom yet again, adding another hour to my total hours on Zoom. Charlie Parker’s musi

First Place: Middle School Division Thank You, COVID     The piece below is written by William P (age 11), the first place winner of COVID-19 Writing Contest for the middle school division. William submitted a personal piece, titled "Thank You, COVID", where William details his journey during the pandemic from first hearing news of the coronavirus to being stuck in lockdown and experiencing the racial aspects of the diseases as someone of Chinese ethnicity. His entry can also be viewed through this link:  https://docs.google.com/document/d/1beUpcwtaWQrbqEgmtX-wbPZ3Jbp72Dx0ZMvlXgTIKZU/edit . Enjoy! Thank You, Covid   By: William P. I slowly closed the door and tiptoed back to my bed so I wouldn’t wake the rest of my family. I could hear my parents snoring and my brother restless in his bed. I climbed into the bottom bunk bed, sad that I now would have to sleep in this room crammed with all my family members for many more months until the virus went away.      September 19, 20

Honorable Mentions: Middle School Division           The pieces below are written by Richy Z (age 11) and Andy S (age 12), two participants of the COVID-19 Writing Contest . Richy's and Andy's submissions were selected as honorable mentions for the middle school division of the writing contest. Richy's entry , "The workers most likely to catch COVID are...", is a research paper highlighting workers at high risk to COVID-19 in California. Andy's entry , "Changing with the World", is a personal piece describing how the virus has changed the way we live our lives and how Andy has adapted to this change. Enjoy! The workers most likely to catch COVID are… Richy Z, Age 11 COVID-19 is part of our lives. It is shutting down schools, workplaces, making people lose jobs, and worse, harming them. That’s the purpose of this paper: to interpret attainable, raw data. This way we can find out where and who the most likely people to catch COVID-19 are, so those peop

Associations between COVID-19 and Psychiatric Disorder     While there has been significant research on the physical risk factors for COVID-19, much less is known about the psychiatric, or mental health risk factors for the virus. Poor mental health, including anxiety and depression, are predicted adverse outcomes of COVID-19 but these effects have not been accurately measured or well studied. However, a group of researchers from Oxford University recently published a study in The Lancet where they analyzed the relationship between COVID-19 diagnosis and psychiatric disorder, and how a history of mental illness affects COVID-19. Likelihood of Developing Psychiatric Disorder after COVID-19 Infection     Using a global network that captures data from 54 health-care organizations in the United States, researchers collected anonymized data from 62,354 patients diagnosed with COVID-19 and other diseases between January 20 and August 1, 2020. Researchers compared the likelihood of patients

 Moderna Vaccine: Encouraging Results from Phase 3 COVE Trial      Much of the world has grown tired of lockdowns, restrictions and sickness and death resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic. It's safe to say that many people would like the pandemic to come to an end so they can return to 'normal' life. As a result, much attention has been placed on the development of vaccines as pharmaceutical companies release clinical trial results and obtain FDA approval to administer their vaccine.       Two vaccines in particular, have shown promising results in effectively combating the coronavirus- a vaccine developed by the NYC-based drug company Pfizer, and a vaccine developed by the Massachusets-based biotechnology company Moderna. Just this week, Pfizer rolled out its vaccine to millions of people in the United Kingdom after being approved for emergency-use authorization. For more information about the Pfizer vaccine and vaccines in general, see Pfizer Vaccine  and What You Need to

 Africa's Surprisingly Low COVID-19 Death Toll      Although Africa makes up 17% of the world's population, by July 2020, the continent only accounted for 3% of global COVID-19 cases and 5% of reported deaths. Researchers have attributed the disparity of cases and deaths in Africa to limited testing/diagnosis, stricter containment measures, a high population of young people, and higher asymptomatic or mild cases of COVID-19. However, the spread of the coronavirus in Africa has been poorly described and limited data has been produced to backup the disparity hypothesis. To better understand the low number of COVID-19 cases and deaths in Africa, a group of researchers collected and tested blood samples from thousands of Kenyan residents. Their results, which revealed interesting conclusions pointing to higher infection rates than reported, were published in the journal Science in November 2020. Background     Kenya's first case of COVID-19 was detected on March 12, 2020. By J