Bibliography: Yong, Ed. “How the Pandemic Defeated America.” The Atlantic, Atlantic Media Company, 30 July 2021,

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/09/coronavirus-american-failure/614191/. 

Summary: In the newsletter, “How the pandemic Defeated America”, talks about how the U.S failed to protect its people from a deadly virus and how it led to an economic downfall. Ed Young spoke to experts on how the pandemic affected America horribly and how America’s response to it was so poor that the pandemic took over. He talks about how the American society worsened the pandemic and explains how the U.S political, social and economical decisions did not help contain the spread whatsoever even if the U.S believed it did. In the Article He states “ A sluggish response by a government denuded of expertise allowed the coronavirus to gain a foothold. Chronic underfunding of public health neutered the nation’s ability to prevent the pathogen’s spread. A bloated, inefficient health-care system left hospitals ill-prepared for the ensuing wave of sickness. Racist policies that have endured since the days of colonization and slavery left Indigenous and Black Americans especially vulnerable to COVID‑19. The decades-long process of shredding the nation’s social safety net forced millions of essential workers in low-paying jobs to risk their life for their livelihood. The same social-media platforms that sowed partisanship and misinformation during the 2014 Ebola outbreak in Africa and the 2016 U.S. election became vectors for conspiracy theories during the 2020 pandemic.”

Who’s the author? 

  • Ed Yong is a staff writer at The Atlantic. He won the Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting for his coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic.  He has a very clear and straightforward attitude toward the matter. We can examine how Ed Young illustrates his point by looking at the language he uses in his writing and speaking with experts.

Who’s their audience? 

  • His target audience is American culture and high ranking figures. This is due to the fact that, even though he discusses how the pandemic spread, he also highlights the role that society had in it. He also demonstrates how all the decisions taken by higher officials may have negatively affected the United States.

What’s the occasion? 

  • Since the text was published on August 4 2020. This was right after the peak of the pandemic which endured during the months of march through may. Although there were still plenty of cases and deaths from covid-19 in august, since it was published then we could really see how Ed young was trying to prove a point that at that time what the U.S did wrong. This was a newsletter published by the Atlantic.

What’s the purpose? 

  • This newsletter aims to demonstrate how structural issues, such as a lack of investment in public health, transparency, and learning from U.S. experience, made it difficult to control the spread of COVID-19.

What’s the genre? Why use it? 

  • The genre is a newsletter. I think this is an effective way to get through the people because a lot of the people follow the news and so having this piece published by a news firm could really help it get recognized. It clearly did as it won the Pulitzer prize in 2021. Everybody expects to find reliable information and especially about the virus because it has such an effect on individuals and the author clearly delivers that as he talks to experts and analyzes that information to prove his point.

What is the tone? 

  • His tone throughout the article is definitely assertive and straightforward because he doesn’t really use his own emotions in his newsletter but rather facts and how those facts prove his point. He definitely used ethos throughout his whole newsletter because of the fact that he sat down with experts, with credibility, about his topic and used that information in his paper. 

Relevance,  Accuracy

  • This article definitely helps answer my question because it goes beyond what I hoped my answer to my question would be and gives an interesting view upon how the U.S had such a hard time containing the Covid-19 virus.  The author again has plenty of evidence that back’s up each new point he makes through the article, with credible experts that help him prove his point