COVID-19 Coronavirus
Abstract

First appearing in China in late 2019, the novel Coronavirus COVID-19 has become the most significant global pandemic event in a century.  As of October 28, 2020 the total number of cases worldwide was 44 million with 1.17 million deaths.  The United States has had an extremely politicized response to the virus, and despite having less than five percent of the world’s population, the U.S. has had more than 20 percent of the world’s COVID-19 cases with 8.85 million cases and 227 thousand deaths.  Currently, it seems unlikely that COVID-19 will be under control and people able to resume their normal lives until late 2021.  In this essay, we discuss what Coronavirus is, what COVID-19 is, where it originated, the health impact of the disease, risk factors, efforts to contain the spread of the disease, the economic impact of the disease, and how COVID-19 may be impacting the 2020 United States Presidential election.

COVID-19 Coronavirus Essay Titles

Global Pandemic or Global Panic?  The Facts About the Coronavirus

Mask Not What You Can Do for Your Country

Preventing Coronavirus Is Easy, Treating It Can Be Hard

Mask Mandates: Constitutional Violation or Appropriate Government Intervention? 

How Government Leaders Have Responded to the Coronavirus Pandemic

COVID-19 Coronavirus Essay Topics

Are mask mandates to prevent the spread of the coronavirus constitutional?  Many people suggest that mask mandates are a violation of their constitutional rights. Has the Supreme Court previously considered the question in other pandemics or addressed similar questions in other contexts?  What have the results been?  Would those results support a claim that mask mandates are constitutional? 

Is Coronavirus really as deadly as they say it is?  With variations in fatality rates depending on the country and pre-existing conditions, is the Coronavirus as dangerous as people initially thought it was? 

How President Trump’s successful treatment for COVID-19 highlights the interrelationship between wealth, access to healthcare, and treatment outcomes for people infected with the Coronavirus. 

Current best practices to prevent the spread of COVID-19 as people head into cold and flu season. Discuss the steps people should take to prevent transmission of the virus, whether any early steps have proven unhelpful, and whether people need to get their Flu shots since people are already taking precautions to prevent COVID-19 transmission. 

Is COVID-19 likely to be only the first global pandemic of the coming century?  Many prominent people have been predicting a pandemic event for several years; is COVID-19 an indicator of things to come, or a once-in-a-century type event? 

COVID-19 Coronavirus Essay Outline

I. Introduction

A. Define COVID-19

B. Where COVID-19 originated

C. Health Impact of COVID-19

D. Risk Factors

E. Efforts to Contain the Spread 

F. Economic Impact of COVID-19

G. COVID-19 and the 2020 Presidential Election

H. Thesis: Although it is easy to see the immediate real-life impact of COVID-19 on global health, welfare, and economy, it is more difficult to predict the lasting effects of the pandemic, which could continue to impact people for the next several decades.  

II. Define COVID-19

A. Coronavirus

B. Novel

C. 19

III. Origination

A.   Wuhan wet-market

B.   European strain 

C.   Other theories

IV. Health Impact of COVID-19

A. Symptoms 

B. Prognosis

C. Mortality

V.  Risk Factors

A. Health

B. Demographics

C. Wealth

VI. Economic Impact of COVID-19

A. US

B. Global 

C. Projections

VII. COVID-19 and the 2020 U.S. Presidential Election

A. Americans upset with Trump’s response to coronavirus. 

B. Some Americans upset with more restrictive measures.

C. Trump does not support restrictive measures.

D. Biden supports restrictive measures. 

VIII. New Coronavirus Wave in U.S. 

IX. Conclusion 

Essay Title: The Coronavirus Is Real and It Kills Economies as Well as People

Hook Sentence: Almost a year ago, COVID-19, a novel coronavirus, first emerged as a major health epidemic in China; now, it has spread around the globe, not only killing people but also bringing economies to a halt.    

Introduction

While most people are aware that there is a global COVID-19 pandemic currently impacting people, there has been a sufficient amount of intentional and unintentional misinformation about this strain of the coronavirus that many people do not understand the extent of the problem.  The COVID-19 pandemic is the most significant epidemic or pandemic event to hit the world since the Spanish Flu in the 1918 and 1919.  By the end of that pandemic, between three and five percent of the world’s population had died as a result of a particularly virulent strain of influenza (Roos, 2020).  It also led to a massive economic struggle for people around the globe, including thrusting the United States into a two-year depression.  This pandemic event shares many similarities, but also some significant differences with the Spanish Flu including.  Ways that it is similar include the health impacts of the disease, some of the risk factors, and containment efforts.  Ways that it is different include overall mortality rates, the economic impact of the disease, and how COVID-19 influences politics.  

Thesis Statement

Although a smaller percentage of people around the globe are likely to die from COVID-19 than died from the Spanish flu, it is likely that COVID-19 will have a more dramatic and long-lasting economy on global politics, economy, and long-term health than the Spanish Flu pandemic. 

Body 

The coronavirus known as COVID-19 is one of many coronaviruses.  It is often called a novel virus because it was first identified in humans in 2019.  The term coronavirus refers to zoonotic viruses that cause illnesses in animals and can be transmitted from animals to humans.  There are several types of coronaviruses, but most of them cause mild illnesses in people.  However, there have been some other significant coronaviruses that have caused local epidemics and had pandemic potential, such as the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS-CoV) and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS-CoV).  Although the term refers to a range of illnesses, they generally seem to target the respiratory system and produce symptoms that range from mild to pneumonia and death.  

COVID-19 has a more dramatic impact on many people’s health than prior coronavirus infections.  It also has a wider range of impact.  In some people, it can be asymptomatic.  In others it can cause respiratory and gastrointestinal problems.  For those most severely impacted by the disease, it can impair breathing and cause organ failure, resulting in death.  COVID-19 is believed to have originated in Wuhan-China and that the initial point of animal-to-human transmission occurred in a market selling both live and dead animals for human consumption.  The genetics of the virus suggests that it originally began in a bat, but it may have passed through other types of animals before landing in humans.  The disease appears to have the ability to evolve rapidly, with different strands impacting different areas of the globe.  The World Health Organization (WHO) declared COVID-19 to be a global pandemic on March 11, 2020 (Cucinotta & Vanelli, 2020).  

The health impact of COVID-19 depends on a number of factors.  For many people, the symptoms of COVID-19 may, indeed, by similar to a regular seasonal flu.  In fact, many people have the disease and are asymptomatic.  This had led to dangerous statements that COVID-19 is no more dangerous than the flu, which is not true for a number of reasons.  First, for those who experience significant symptoms, COVID-19 does appear to be deadlier and more health-threatening than the recent strains of the flu.  Second, modern medicine does a great job of handling the flu, through vaccines that help stop the disease’s spread and limit symptoms in people who do get sick to retrovirals...…have experienced economic problems.  COVID-19 is currently causing recession conditions in many countries, and, if it follows the same pattern as the Spanish Flu, it will lead to at least short periods of economic depression in most countries, worldwide. 

Another way that the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted the world is through politics.  The response by political leaders has led to very different reactions in different parts of the world.  In the United States, President Trump intentionally downplayed the risks of the disease and his administration gave misleading information to the public, such as initially suggesting that masks made one more susceptible to the disease.  These efforts, which appear to have been motivated by a desire to avoid financial panic, may have contributed to rapid transmission rates in the country.  They also seem to have helped bolster people who believe mask mandates are unconstitutional.  Trump’s coronavirus response is expected to play a major role in the 2020 election, which may be impacted by the fact that Trump and several key Republicans contracted COVID-19 in September.  

The number of super-spreader events over the summer and a lax approach by some state and federal officials seems to have had an impact on the spread of COVID-19.  While it was under control in many areas, it is now surging throughout most of the United States.  In fact, virus numbers are rising in all but nine states (Meyer, 2020).  What seems to make this newest wave of coronavirus different from the first two major waves to impact the U.S. is that there does not appear to be an epicenter of infection; instead, it is widespread making containment efforts more difficult.  At this point in time, approximately 1 in every 1,000 Americans has tested positive for the virus, without about 2 in every 100,000 Americans having died from hit (Meyer, 2020).  The country is experiencing extremely high single-day totals, and spread seems likely as voters head out to the polls for the elections, which places them at risk of contracting and spreading the disease, especially in areas that are not following safety protocols.  In one week, the nation added over half a million cases and because many states are not taking any type of lockdown steps, these numbers can be expected to rise.  Despite these rising numbers, the White House was reporting ending the pandemic as one of President Trump’s accomplishments on October 28, 2020 (Kelly, 2020).

Conclusion

While it may be true that the Coronavirus will probably kill a smaller percentage of the world’s population than the Spanish Flu killed, it would be a mistake to call it a less severe pandemic.  The modern world is much more global than the world was a century in the past. Therefore, any problem significantly impacting health and the economy in a single region has a much broader impact.  This global economy and easy and rapid transport helped the pandemic spread far more quickly than it could have in a less global environment.  It also means that the economic impact of the pandemic on areas that have been hit the hardest has spread to areas across the globe.  As a result, it seems likely that the extent of COVID-19’s full impact on the globe may not be known for several years.