HW-10/20/2022-First Source Entry

Source #1: 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 essentially 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. He goes further to explain how the pandemic was a wake up call to the U.S and how societal influences practically let the virus win. It provided insight into what is at stake in the biggest issues of the future and what will be required to overcome them.  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.”

Rhetorical Analysis:

The Atlantic published this newsletter. Ed Young makes his argument by utilizing a wide variety of language styles and domain expertise.   Considering that the text was released on August 4, 2020,  This occurred immediately following the pandemic’s peak, which lasted from the months of March through May. Since it was released then, we could definitely see how Ed Young was attempting to make a point about what the U.S. did incorrectly at the time in terms of suppressing the virus, even though there were still a lot of cases and fatalities from COVID-19 in august. Although he outlines how the pandemic spread, he also emphasizes the part that society played in it, so we may conclude that the American public and decision-makers are his primary audience. Being a newsletter is advantageous because, as readers, we tend to believe the news more than a research article and are more likely to read a newsletter as it is clear, simple, and to the point. Since the pandemic was so recent, people always have questions about it and want to find quick and reliable information. Given that it is a newsletter, readers can locate and access it more easily, and since it received the Pulitzer Prize in 2021, it has increased in popularity and recognition. As he doesn’t really employ his own emotions in his newsletter but rather relies on facts and how those data prove his position, his tone is undoubtedly strong and plain throughout the entire piece. He spoke with professionals who had credibility and used parts of those exchanges in his writing to support or elaborate on topics he was discussing, demonstrating the application of ethos throughout the newsletter. 

I agree that a major factor in the first inability to contain the virus was the American society. I think social media played a significant role in influencing how we thought about the whole pandemic. As a culture, we were unable to recognize the virus for what it was and how it affected the nation, allowing social media and transparency to paint a cynical picture of the epidemic as a whole. We let our cultural ideas and social media-based communications infrastructure misinform us about what was obviously happening instead of cooperating and applying logic to the virus’s spread.