Question

studies showing opportunity lost by people during the pandemic

Answer 1

E

Earlier this week, unemployment insurance claims in the US soared past three million, a record-breaking number which far surpasses previous highs. To put it in context, this figure shatters the Great Recession crest of 665,000 of March 2009 and the previous record high of 695,000 in 1982, when the US Federal Reserve tried to tame inflation through its monetary policy. Even so, this number – a rise of 3,001,000 from the previous week’s level of 282,000 – understates the extent of the problem; it doesn’t include gig workers, the self-employed and other freelancers, who aren’t eligible for unemployment insurance in many states.

Around the world economies are all experiencing similar symptoms as millions of people are laid off because of Covid-19. “This is going to be a global pandemic of unemployment,” says David Blustein, a professor of counselling psychology at Boston College and the author of The Importance of Work in an Age of Uncertainty: The Eroding Work Experience in America. “I call it a crisis within a crisis.”

Further compounding these dramatic figures is the speed at which many suddenly found themselves without work – either laid off with some form of termination payment, asked to take indefinite unpaid leave or outright fired. This is, of course, a financial challenge for many who have suddenly lost their income, but it also presents a psychological challenge. When you lose your job, how do you handle those feelings?

‘It’s hard’

James Bell, 39, is one of the many Americans who applied for unemployment benefits when the bar where he worked, Second Street Brewery in downtown Santa Fe, had to close. Until then, Bell was making a steady living mostly from cash tips and weekly wages, supporting his family of five. He and his wife have three children ages two, three and seven years old. Even though Bell could tell that business was dropping off dramatically, he says it still came as a shock to him when he was laid off.

“I have no hard feelings but it’s hard when you live pay check to pay check,” he says. In addition to the unemployment benefits he can receive, Bell has also researched a number of charitable foundations that offer financial help for bartenders and waiting staff, but he fears they may be inundated by the sheer numbers of applicants.

Answer 2

Explanation:

Humanity has witnessed outbreaks since millennia, from limited epidemics to universal pandemics that wiped millions of lives and changed the course of civilizations. The advent of vaccines has eradicated some of the serious human pathogens and attenuated many others. However, pandemics are still a fact of our modern world, as we continue to have pandemics as ravaging as HIV and as alarming as severe acute respiratory syndrome, Ebola, and Middle East respiratory syndrome. The outbreak of COVID-19 with exponential curves racing to the 3 million confirmed cases should not have been a surprise.