Tag: pandemic

Categories
Pandemic Pandemic Movie

Songbird

While movie production sets were shut down everywhere during the pandemic, there was one exception for the movie Songbird. It was the first movie to be filmed in Los Angeles during lockdown.

Songbird is a dystopian romantic thriller set in the year 2024 and is based off the Covid-19 pandemic. The world is in its fourth year of lockdown and the virus has mutated into the Covid-23 variant. Those infected have a high rate of mortality but there are some who have natural immunity and are allowed to move about freely without restrictions. The story takes place in Los Angeles and is about Nico, a courier, who is immune to the virus and tries to save his girlfriend Sarah from being forcibly admitted to a quarantine camp known as a Q-Zone by the LA Department of Sanitation. (Wikipedia).

The idea for the movie was conceived in March 2020 just as the pandemic arrived in the United States. Its timing could not have been more controversial and critics accused the producers of being tone death. Production began in July that year and filming wrapped up on August 3, 2020. The film was released on December 11, 2020.

I enjoyed watching the movie and felt the futuristic aspect of it was quite good and realistic but the plot was weak in parts and it felt like there were gaps missing. Overall, it scored 9% on Rotten Tomatoes and the general consensus of the movie was “muddled, tedious, and uninspired, Songbird‘s gimmick never coalesces into a meaningful story about pandemic lockdown.” According to IMDB the film grossed $620,836 worldwide and the movie soundtrack was Leap of Faith written and performed by Lila Sugarman.

An article for The Los Angeles Times published on December 10, 2020 explains why producer Adam Goodman felt it was the right time to make this movie: “We’re living in a scary time, and the reason the movie is sparking conversation is because it resonates with what we’re experiencing today. The reason why the movie is called ‘Songbird’ is it’s about hope. It’s about resilience. It’s about the strength of the human spirit” (Rottenberg).

Click the YouTube link below to watch the official Songbird trailer. Enjoy the movie, and remember to “stay safe, sane, and sanitized.”

Social Media Trends as of April 30, 2022

Facebook #songbirdmovie: 1,200 people are posting about this
Instagram #songbirdmovie: 6,471 posts
TikTok #songbirdmovie: 11.4 million views
YouTube #songbirdmovie: less than 100 videos and channels

Google Trends: songbird movie achieved peak popularity during the week of October 25, 2020.

songbird movie search term

Sources

Rottenberg, Joseph. “Coronavirus thriller ‘Songbird’ was filmed during the COVID pandemic. How, and why, they did it.” The Los Angeles Times. December 10, 2020. URL: https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/movies/story/2020-12-10/songbird-explained-coronavirus-movie.

“Songbird.” International Movie Database (IMDB). URL: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt12592252/.

“Songbird.” Rotton Tomatoes. URL: https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/songbird_2020.

“Songbird.” Wikipedia. URL: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Songbird_(2020_film)#Release.

“Songbird film poster.” Wikipedia. 30 October 2020. URL: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/9/90/Songbird_film_poster.png.

“Songbird | Official Trailer.” STX Films. October 29, 2020. URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IgxXSfto6Vo.



Categories
Pandemic Virus

Pre-pandemic and post-pandemic

The terms “pre-pandemic” and “post-pandemic” refer to the time before Covid-19 and the time after the pandemic has been declared formally ended, which has not yet happened.

As yet, there is no definition in any online dictionary for the term “pre-pandemic,” however it does appear in Dictionary.com in a use case for the term “premise”:

“The company had pre-pandemic plans to build five to 10 more, but Covid-19 proved to be a mass blow for a retail store chain built on the premise of offering a space for children to play in-person around purchasable toys.“

In an article for EveryDayHealth.com, writer Elizabeth Millard discusses the challenges of returning to pre-pandemic routines: “Although 43-year-old Minneapolis area resident and artist Christy Johnson is fully vaccinated against COVID-19 and her state has lifted its mask mandates and many restrictions, she’s not eager to jump right back into her pre-pandemic routines. ‘During the pandemic, I felt happier than I ever have,” she says. “I’m a big introvert and homebody, so it’s not surprising that I’m not excited about getting back to my go-go-go life of pre-pandemic times.’”

We all look forward to the time when the pandemic will be declared over, done and finished with and we can begin the process of adjusting to a post-pandemic life where zoom meetings, cashless transactions and remote working are the norm. An article published in the November 24, 2020 issue of the online Harvard Gazette asks readers: “What will the new post-pandemic normal look like?..Harvard experts say some of our adaptations have accelerated already existing trends, like the development of a cashless society, the increase in remote work, and the decline of brick-and-mortar retail. And, they expect, some of these will become a more permanent part of the post-pandemic’s “new normal”” (Powell).

In some online news articles the terms “pre-pandemic” and “post-pandemic” appear together. A Forbes article published on September 29, 2020 and entitled “Pre-Pandemic Vs. Post-Pandemic Property Management Teams” reports on the challenges that property managers faced when dealing with clients during Covid-19 and how adopting different technologies allowed them to move to a fully remote learning model, as the author says “maintenance requests still get resolved, prospect queries still get answered, unit showings still occur and communication with residents is still frequent” (Kunes).


Social Media Trends as of May 17, 2022

Facebook #prepandemic: 16,000 people are posting about this
Instagram #prepandemic: 48,220 posts
TikTok #prepandemic: 79.6 million views
YouTube #prepandemic: 270 videos and 208 channels

Facebook #postpandemic: 26,000 people are posting about this
Instagram #postpandemic: 69,888 posts
TikTok #postpandemic: 26.8 million views
YouTube #postpandemic: 8,600 videos and 605 channels

Google Trends: pre-pandemic didn’t appear until the week of March 15, 2020 when coronavirus reached the United States. It reached its peak during the week of February 27, 2022 when enough time had passed that people felt the “pandemic era” was distinct in and of itself and they could refer back to the time before Covid-19 or “pre-pandemic.”

pre-pandemic search term

Google Trends: post-pandemic appeared during the week of March 29, 2020. When the outbreak first appeared in the United States it was said that two weeks of quarantine would “flatten the curve” and everyone could get back to normal life. However, two weeks turned into two years, and although Covid-19 restrictions have been lifted almost everywhere in the U.S., we are still living in a pandemic which has not quite become endemic as of this time of writing. The term reached its peak during the week of May 3, 2020 and since then has been through a series of peaks and troughs.

post-pandemic search term

Sources:

Kunes, Nathaniel. “Pre-Pandemic Vs. Post-Pandemic Property Management Teams: Who Has The Advantage?” Forbes.com. September 29, 2020. URL: https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesrealestatecouncil/2020/09/29/pre-pandemic-vs-post-pandemic-property-management-teams-who-has-the-advantage/.

Millard, Elizabeth. “Why Getting Back to Pre-Pandemic Routines May Sound Exhausting, Psychologists Say.” EveryDayHealth.com. August 5, 2021. URL: https://www.everydayhealth.com/emotional-health/why-getting-back-to-pre-pandemic-routines-may-sound-exhausting-psychologists-say/.

Powell, Alvin. “What will the new post-pandemic normal look like?” Harvard Gazette. November 24, 2020. URL: https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2020/11/our-post-pandemic-world-and-whats-likely-to-hang-round/.

“Premise” (Pre-pandemic). Dictionary.com. URL: https://www.dictionary.com/browse/premise.

Categories
Pandemic Virus

Epidemic, Pandemic and Endemic

I decided to make one blog post for the terms Epidemic, Pandemic and Endemic rather than have separate posts for each of them. It makes sense to discuss all the terms together in one post as there are important differences between all three terms and all of them involve the spread of infectious disease.

Dictionary.com defines these terms as follows: “An epidemic involves the wide-ranging spread of a disease throughout an entire area or particular community where it’s not permanently prevalent. A pandemic involves an even wider spread, often reaching across the entire world. The word endemic is used to describe a disease that persistently and regularly spreads within a particular area or region (that is, it never fully goes away)—for example, the flu is considered endemic in many places. The COVID-19 virus is not yet considered endemic, but medical experts expect that it eventually will become endemic.”

To expound upon these terms a bit further, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) define an epidemic as a sudden increase in infections above what would be considered normal for a population in a particular geographic area. Consider a situation where there is an outbreak of measles in a school. The disease is quickly spread by coughing and sneezing and before long measles has spread throughout the town the school is located in. Because measles is a highly contagious disease, it doesn’t take long for the virus to cross geographical boundaries into nearby towns and then counties. The disease has now become an epidemic (Level of disease).

China was the first country to experience the Covid-19 virus. This rapidly infectious disease spread to other provinces in China and then spread to other countries. It arrived in the United States at the beginning of January 2020. Since then it has spread throughout the world and the level of the disease is that of a pandemic. Covid-19 has infected and killed millions of people across the globe.

When Covid-19 has a constant presence in a particular geographical area but is not causing disruptions to daily life, as has previously been the case with lockdowns and quarantine, then the level of the disease is said to be endemic. This is due to the fact that most people would have been infected with the virus and developed natural immunity and also because many people were vaccinated against Covid-19. In an article for the CNBC Health and Science column, Holly Ellyat writes that the “Professor David Heymann of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said that ‘the U.K is the closest to any country in being out of the pandemic if it isn’t already out of the pandemic and having the disease as endemic.'”

Social Media Trends as of May 17, 2022

Facebook #epidemic: 39,000 people are posting about this
Instagram #epidemic: 279,085 posts
TikTok #epidemic: 355.8 million views
YouTube #epidemic: 15,000 videos and 5,900 channels

Facebook #pandemic: 1,100,000 people are posting about this
Instagram #pandemic: 5,361,938 posts
TikTok #pandemic: 4.5 billion views
YouTube #pandemic: 140,000 videos and 62,000 channels

Facebook #endemic: 16,000 people are posting about this
Instagram #endemic: 131,934 posts
TikTok #endemic: 32.6 million views
YouTube #endemic: 1,000 videos and 694 channels

Google Trends

The search term epidemic peaked during the week of March 15, 2020 before tailing off in June that year.

epidemic search term

The pandemic search term also peaked in popularity during the week of March 15, 2020, which is very similar to the “epidemic” search term.

pandemic search term

The popularity of the search term endemic also peaked around the same time as the terms epidemic and pandemic but didn’t completely tail off. As Covid-19 infected more and more of the population, medical experts suggested that the disease would become endemic in the population.

endemic search term

Sources:

Ellyat, Holly. “UK could be among the first countries to emerge from Covid pandemic, top scientist says.” CNBC.com. Jan 12, 2022. URL: https://www.cnbc.com/2022/01/12/uk-could-be-first-country-to-emerge-from-pandemic-expert-says.html.

‘Epidemic’ vs. ‘Pandemic’ vs. ‘Endemic’: What Do These Terms Mean?” Dictionary.com. January 20, 2022. URL: https://www.dictionary.com/e/epidemic-vs-pandemic/.

“Level of disease. Section 11: Epidemic Disease Occurrence.” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. May 18, 2012. URL: https://www.cdc.gov/csels/dsepd/ss1978/lesson1/section11.html.

Categories
Pandemic Art

“You’re Not Imagining It”

The title of this post is the opening line to Donna Ashworth’s poem that she published on February 26, 2021. She hails from Scotland and is a famous author and poet.

This poem echoed how many of us felt during the height of the pandemic when many countries were under lockdown and people were restricted to working from home and only being allowed out to buy groceries and attend medical appointments. The poem went viral and appeared in memes, though sadly the meme did not credit the author.

You’re not imagining it, nobody seems to want to talk right now.
Messages are brief and replies late.
Talk of catch ups on zoom are perpetually put on hold.
Group chats are no longer pinging all night long.

It’s not you.
It’s everyone.
We are spent.
We have nothing left to say.
We are tired of saying ‘I miss you’ and ‘I cant wait for this to end’.
So we mostly say nothing, put our heads down and get through each day.

You’re not imagining it.
This is a state of being like no other we have ever known because we are all going through it together but so very far apart.

Hang in there my friend.
When the mood strikes, send out all those messages and don’t feel you have to apologise for being quiet.

This is hard.


Social Media Trends as of April 29, 2022

Facebook #yourenotimaginingit: people are posting about this
Instagram #yourenotimaginingit: 39 posts


Sources:

“You’re Not Imagining It.” Donna Ashworth. February 26, 2021. URL: https://donnaashworth.com/2021/02/26/youre-not-imagining-it/.