2 . My 14-year-old son, Gus, is severely allergic to peanuts and other nuts, so for years we’ve been washing hands like surgeons, and we wipe down surfaces every time we eat out. We know the closest emergency room and exactly what to do during a reaction. Our preparedness to guard against a worst-case situation felt like a win when the pandemic hit. Our everyday caution, which can be exhausting and make us feel awkward at social events, is now a great advantage.

As it turns out, COVID-19 life has had multiple advantages for food-allergy families like mine. Stuck at home with just the food we cook ourselves, we’ve been safe from all the land mines, like big holiday parties with boxes of walnut cookies, or Halloween, with kids eating Snickers while sticking their hands into shared bowls. Not to mention restaurant meals that have unexpected ingredients.

So the pandemic gave me a gift I didn’t even know I needed: I felt seen. The whole world was in prevention mode, weighing what might have touched their groceries or takeout food. We all wash our hands now whether our kids have food allergies or not. We all might call ahead to double-check a restaurant’s precautions and whether the chef wears gloves. I didn’t feel strange anymore.

Of course, the limitations on regular life will ease up soon, and families like mine will need to be on guard again. When I think about the new normal, I’m fine with that post-COVID-19 life. I hope we can keep this appreciation that not everyone’s immune system functions in the same way and some people do need to be more cautious. This makes me think of the classic home-design advice: “You need to take everything out of a room to know what you want to put back.” We’ve taken everything out of the room, and I hope we put back empathy, understanding and tolerance.

4 . On March 14, 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic (新冠疫情) forced 57th Street Books, in Chicago, to close its doors. The store wouldn’t reopen for nearly a year and a half. During that time, director Jeff Deutsch was worried. Customers couldn’t come to the shop. His main advantage over online business had gone overnight.

Deutsch said he and his team were lucky. Customers stepped up. They offered gifts and support. “There was something very beautiful in the way our community came together,” he said. “We really supported one another’s businesses,”

Similar stories played out over the past two years in cities and towns around the country. Though independent bookstores were forced to close during the pandemic, many found ways to connect with and help their community.

Anne Holman is co-owner of the King’s English Bookshop. It’s in Salt Lake City, Utah. She said the store put books outside for reading and started doing a lot of events online. Other stores set up bookselling hotlines, and improved their tools for e-business.

Some bookstores did events that went more than bookselling. They offered COVID testing. They collected food for people in need. “Having an independent bookstore in your community is almost like a town square,” said Samira Ahmed, an author of books for young adults. “It’s an important place to build community.”

11-year-old Adele Sorkin, a fan of 57th Street Books, is on its Young Readers Advisory Board. Members receive early copies of books in exchange for writing reviews. “I think of the bookstore as a cookie jar (罐子),” Adele says. “It’s something special and fun that is always there for you.” Jeff Deutsch sees a bright future. “If we reimagine bookstores and do our best to support them,” he says, “then bookstores can thrive (兴盛).”

6 . The rolling plains of the Maasai Mara in Kenya are home to Maasai people as well as some most rare animals on the earth.

When it became clear that COVID-19 would destroy the tourism industry of the Maasai living in the breathtaking Nashulai Nature Conservancy, they asked Avaaz, a website connecting local people-powered movements, to try and organize a response call for help.

As a result, 100,000 people raised money to help pay the rangers’ (护林人的)salaries, ensuring that the travel of Nashulai elephants remained safe from poachers(偷猎者). The money was also enough to secure medical supplies and food for the Maasai community to survive the COVID-19 storm.

In 2016, Nelson Ole Reiyia and Margaret Koshal Reiyia placed a project on Avaaz to turn their home into a Nature Conservancy. “Avaazers” around the world offered help with hearts and wallets to launch the Nashulai Maasai Conservancy, to innovatively help the Maasai maintain their traditional way of living in a harmonious way with the land.

The conservancy brought outside money into the community through offering traveling and camping, as well as cultural homestays and other events. People there also got access to better education as well as more comfortable living conditions.

The Maasai are famous warriors(战士) , and the conservancy built a powerful force against poachers. Professional rangers and young warriors called “moran” who are trained in bush practices, now serve as “The Warriors for Wildlife Protection”, monitoring the animal populations and protecting against poaching.

COVID-19 has put much of the conservancy in danger. The tourist infrastructure (基础设施), which 90% of all the Nashulai Maasai depend on for income, has completely fallen apart. The community library has been repurposed as a storehouse for medical equipment.

“We’ve worked hard to create this unique conservancy, and we want it to be there for the people in their deepest moment of need,” writes Nelson Ole Reiyia on the Nashulai website.

7 . As the COVID-19 appeared, many people’s life changed.

At the beginning of March 2020, Boylan, a professor of Medicine Jon Bae, went from working onsite to being another role as a health economic analyst(分析家) of Duke University Health System. And a month into the pandemic(流行病), his daughter, Elora, was born. The past two years drew Boylan closer to his wife, Katie, “During the time of the pandemic, I am not one of those people who have time to learn how to bake bread or anything,” Boylan said. “I think, in terms of personal growth, I have learned much about how to live a happy life.”

By October of 2020, the pandemic had lasted for several months, and Melanie Thomas was feeling down. “How do I have a rich and full life during this special time and keep a positive attitude?” Thomas asked herself. She decided that she needed a goal that she could work out until the world opened up. For the next several months, Thomas began running, working out at a socially distant gym, and walked as much as she could every day. While the trip to Nepal was the goal, the exercise to prepare for it became a central piece of herself-care routine.

A few weeks ago, Mary Atkinson began spending the remaining daylight after work setting up a garden in the yard of her Greensboro home. She as well as her two-year-olds on, West, often played there with the sand and his toy truck. “This is something that never happened before the pandemic, and it gives much happiness to us,” said Atkinson.

During the pandemic, John Carbuccia, instead of eating lunch out or grabbing meals in the university canteen, found himself eating homemade breakfasts, lunches and dinners. Scrambled eggs with vegetables or simply prepared salmon fillets are some of his current favorites. And without having to rush to the company, he walks and runs around his neighborhood before and after work at home.

According to American news, a new study has found that the risk of     1     (die), hospitalization and serious health issues from COVID-19 increases with reinfection regardless     2     vaccination (接种疫苗).

The study examined U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs data     3     (collect) from March 1, 2020 through April 6, 2022. It     4     (include) information on 443,588 patients with one SARS-CoV-2 infection, 40,947 with two or more infections, and 5.3 million     5     were not infected. Most of the study subjects     6     (be) male.

“Reinfection with COVID-19 increases the risk of     7     acute (急性的) outcomes and long COVID,” said Dr. Ziyad Al-Aly of Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. He added that this was clear “in unvaccinated, vaccinated and boosted people.”

Reinfected patients had a     8     (high) risk of hospitalization and life safety compared with individuals infected only once. The patients also had increased risks for     9     number of other health problems, the study, reported in Nature Medicine, found. The problems affected the lungs, heart, blood, kidneys,     10     (bone) and muscles. Reinfection also increased the risk of mental health, brain and nerve disorders.

9 . During the COVID-19 pandemic (流行病), some people found their exercise was greatly reduced. However, it was an attraction for others to increase their physical activity. With the change of working from home, some physical activity was reduced. People took this newly freed up time as a chance to add exercise to their day, with online fitness programs and health apps (应用软件) reporting an increase.

However, the early drive to exercise appears to have been short-lived for many, with a study comparing activity levels between the first and second waves of COVID-19 in Victoria finding most people reported a reduction in their physical activity levels the second time around because of a shortage of encouragement. A study found that COVID-19 has reduced physical activity and increased sedentary (久坐不动的) behavior, and the effects could be lasting.

Continuing concerns about COVID-19 have led to carefulness about returning to public spaces such as gyms. But also, with many people changing their exercise habits and setting up home gyms during the pandemic, it’s become much more convenient to exercise at home. It’s clear for many of us that COVID-19 changed how and how much we exercise. But the changes don’t necessarily have to be for the worse.

People who changed to online workouts (锻炼), fitness apps and home gyms during the pandemic said their exercise was less satisfying, less enjoyable and they felt less active com-pared with doing exercise in gyms. Besides the physical effects, people reported missing the social communication, friendship, and being avoidable of the gym. In-person classes also offer the advantages of management and instruction, which can help make sure workouts are completed safely and effectively.

However, online workouts, fitness apps and near-home workouts are likely here to stay, and offer many advantages, such as no need to travel to the gym and convenience, making it easy to fit in a workout while working and shouldering family responsibilities.

10 . Yesterday, after a day of Zoom (视频会议软件) meetings in my living room, I stepped out for a walk leaving my teen son bored on the couch. Bleecker Street, usually packed with people, was sprinkled with only the occasional pedestrians. Bars and restaurants lining the street were dark. Stores with bright neon lights, doors open, beckoned for the rare passers-by to enter. After just a week of the Covid-19 pandemic, an afternoon walk in Greenwich Village neighborhood felt surreal.

But then I noticed a row of daffodils(水仙)reaching for the sun in the small triangle-shaped park by Minetta Lane. On the windows of a locked restaurant, in bright yellow paint, were the words “We love you, West Village. Take care of each other. ” My phone buzzed—a colleague sent a picture of her newborn baby just home from the hospital. I arrived home to find my son animated on the couch playing a video game virtually with his friends. Life, love, play, and human connection persist, even though our world has been tuned upside down.

In my welcome note to the new students in the Fall, I wrote that this year is about our college’s core values of inclusion, innovation, and impact and emphasized the power of interconnection. Today, these core values persist, with interconnection taking on even greater significance. Our collaborative spirit has always given us an advantage—academically, creatively, culturally, and now, remotely.

A wise person once told me that getting through a crisis is like being given a new hand of cards in the middle of a game. We are halfway through the semester, with new hands to play, but the game hasn’t changed. We will find new ways to continue to work, teach, create and learn. Let’s also continue the informal interactions that make us a community—the study groups, coffee dates, drop-ins just to say hello. In doing so, we will remain connected.

We will come together, from spaces around the world, to meet this new reality. This is who we are. Nothing—not space, nor time—can keep us from moving forward, together.