Remix

Peyton Phillips hosts a podcast with two guests discussing the impact of COVID-19. Jensen Erdang shares how COVID affected his high school experience, with sports and school being canceled. Gabe Mosley talks about being diagnosed with COVID during basic training and being isolated in a COVID Bay. The host also mentions how COVID disrupted travel plans and caused job losses, particularly in lower-wage industries like fast food. The podcast aims to shed light on the widespread impact of COVID on people's lives. Hello, my name is Peyton Phillips, and I'll be your host, and today I'll be joined with my two guests. The three of us will be talking about COVID-19, which is an infectious disease that primarily affects the lungs and the pulmonary system. My research paper was about the effect of COVID to jobs and the economy. Okay, so how did COVID impact your guys' lives? So my name is Jensen Erdang, I'm a freshman here at UA. COVID happened around, you know, 2020, and I was still in high school. It really affected my high school experience. You know, I wasn't a senior at the time, fortunately. But there was one, the first time we knew that COVID was pretty serious is I was sitting in my fourth period English class. You know, I was, in high school I did track. It was our first meet of the season, we're getting ready, I got some new cleats, you know, everything. We're getting ready to jump on the bus, maybe fifth period, like right before lunch. We got a text message from the school and said that all outside sports were going to be canceled for the week. And we were like, all right. You know, I was kind of bummed out, you know, getting ready for the track meet, getting ready, getting prepared, doing all the training, and then, you know, the first meet of the season was canceled. You know, I didn't think too much of it, you know, just a week, no sports. You know, maybe this thing would blow over like the flu or something. But at the end of that week, we got e-mails saying, you know, we're going to take a week off of school. Everyone's going to take a week off of school. So that's when I really started to think it was serious, and that's the beginning of the impact of my life. Hi, I'm Gabe Mosley, and COVID affected me in high school as well. Me and Jensen went to the same high school. But even after high school, I went to a basic training, and when I was there, I guess got diagnosed with COVID, and they sent me to what they called COVID Bay, and I was there for a long time. I mean, 12 days doesn't seem like a long time, but it is really when you have nothing else better to do. So that's how it affected me in my life. COVID had an impact on my and my family's life because we were planning to travel to Aruba, but because of travel restrictions, we were unable to go. Did you or anyone you know have their jobs taken by COVID? So in my personal experience, I was unemployed at the time. I didn't have a job, but I know some friends who worked fast food. As hours were cut and less people went out to eat and just went out in general for any entertainment, companies couldn't afford to keep lower wage, not really insignificant, but just jobs that could be replaced easily. They couldn't keep them employed, so a lot of them did lose their jobs. I think it brings attention to how COVID impacted many people's lives. For example, the two guests I had on today. I chose a podcast because I think it's a really interesting topic to talk about with people.