The coronavirus crisis (“COVID-19” for CORONAVIRUS DISEASE discovered in 2019) has changed the face of our nation and of much of the world. When you started the semester, could you have imagined that all our HCC campuses would be closed, all our classes converted to online…the same for HISD, the University of Houston, and colleges, universities, public and private schools across the state and nation. Businesses are closed. Public facilities closes. Thousands of Americans have died. Thousands more have contracted COVID19. Our medical facilities and personnel are overwhelmed. Needed equipment to save lives remains unavailable in much of the nation. The dead are being buried in mass graves across the country. Scientists believe the disease will continue to spread. There is no vaccine that can prevent or cure the disease. Medical researchers believe a vaccine for COVID-19 will not be developed, refined and ready until sometime next year. Meanwhile, worldwide some 1.7 million people have contracted the virus. It the United States almost 502,000 people have contracted COVID-19. Nineteen thousand Americans have died here so far while nearly 103,000 people have died as of early April. The predictions are that the virus will continue to spread and many more deaths can be expected. Your paper should use all the sources you have been provided to examine this pandemic, how it started, what the disease is, its spread across the county, and most importantly what precisely the federal government here in the United States and how effective it has been in its attempt to stop the spread of the disease, reduce the number of deaths, and protect the lives and welfare of the citizens of this nation. (“Social distancing” and the shutdown of businesses and on-campus education, for example.) You will also want to discuss the disease, who is most at risk, how you get the disease, if young people are at risk, what some of the social issues raised by this disease are, what the federal government is doing to protect people in our country, and how our nation’s medical communities are responding. Also, examine the federalism questions  with regard to the national government and the governments of the states in dealing with this issue. You may include your personal observations and reactions regarding the pandemic and the governmental response to it. Read the following articles and use information from each of the 19 articles to tell that story: (Source #1) “What you need to know about coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19).” U.S. Center for Disease Control (CDC). https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/downloads/2019-ncov-factsheet.pdf (Source #2) David Ignatius, Columnist, “How did covid-19 begin? Its initial origin story is shaky. The Washington Post, 2 April 2020 https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/how-did-covid-19-beginits-initial-origin-story-is-shaky/2020/04/02/1475d488-7521-11ea-87da77a8136c1a6d_story.html (Source #3) Dr., Sara Kayat, “Doctor’s Note: Why will it take so long for a COVID-19 vaccine? Scientist say it will take 12 to 18 months before a coronavirus vaccine can be ready. A doctor explains why this is.” Aljazeera, 4 April 2020 https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/doctor-note-long-covid-19-vaccine200403163646558.html (Source #4) Ed Pilkinton and Martin Pengelly, “Trump was warned in January of Covid-19’s devasting impact, memos reveal.” The Guardian, 7 April 2020. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/07/donald-trump-coronavirus-memoswarning-peter-navarro (Source #5) Martin Pennelly, “Dr. Anthony Fauci counters Trump claims amid crisis: “I just want to get the facts out.’” The Guardian, 23 March 2020. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/23/anthony-fauci-trump-claims-whitehouse-doctor-coronavirus-crisis (Source #6) Theresa Waldrop and Stephanie Gallman, “A group of young adults held a coronavirus party in Kentucky to defy orders to socially distance. Now one of them has coronavirus.” CNN, 25 March 2020. https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/24/health/kentucky-coronavirus-partyinfection/?hpt=ob_blogfooterold (Source #7) Vann R. Newkirk II, “The Cornonavirus’s Unique Threat to the South; More young people I the South seem to be dying from COVID-19. Why?” https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/04/coronavirus-unique-threatsouth-young-people/609241/ (Source #8) Lisa Maragakis, “Coronavirus and COVID-19: Younger Adults Are at Risk, Too.” John Hopkins Medicine: Health. https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/conditions-anddiseases/coronavirus/coronavirus-and-covid-19-younger-adults-are-at-risk-too (Source #9) Dr. Sanjay Gupta, “The mystery of why the coronavirus kills some young people,” CNN, 6 April 2020. https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/05/health/young-people-dying-coronavirus-sanjaygupta/index.html (Source #10) Grace Panetta, BUSINESS INSIDER, “Fauci says America getting back to normal and where it was before the coronavirus crisis ‘might not ever happen’ without a vaccine,” 6 April 2020. https://www.businessinsider.com/fauci-us-going-back-to-pre-coronavirus-state-maynever-happen-2020-4 (Source #11) Vanessa Caceres, “Why Young People Should Care About COVID19: The virus affects all of us at any age, experts caution.” US News and World Report, 3 April 2020. https://health.usnews.com/conditions/articles/why-young-people-should-care-aboutcovid-19 (Source #12) Caitlin Oprysko, “Fauci warns against indifference among young people: He is concerned young Americans aren’t taking the pandemic seriously,” Politico, 15 March 2020. https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/15/fauci-coronavirus-young-people-130229 (Source #13) Cliff Despres, “Reports: Latino Workers Hit Hardest by COVID-19 Pandemic,” Salud America, 30 March 2020. https://salud-america.org/latino-workers-are-hit-hardest-by-covid-19-pandemic/ (Source #14) Cliff Despres, “How Coronavirus Is Crippling Rural Health Care, Especially for Latinos,” Salud America, 20 March 2020. https://salud-america.org/coronavirus-is-crippling-rural-health-care-for-latinos/ (Source #15) “Covid-19 exposes America’s racial health gap—African Americans appear more vulnerable to the virus, The Economist, 11 April 2020. https://www.economist.com/united-states/2020/04/11/covid-19-exposes-americasracial-health-gap (Source #17) Amy Brillain, Ted Mellnik, Dan Keating, and Joe Fox, “How a surge of coronavirus patients could stretch hospital resources in your area,” Washington Post, 10 April 2020. https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/investigations/coronavirus-hospitalsdata/ (Source #18) Nancy Cooke and Dan Diamond, “’A Darwininan approach to federalism’: States confront new reality under Trump—State governors getting more power from Trump while fearing they lack the federal tools to fight the coronavirus crisis.” Politico, 31 March 2020. https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/31/governors-trump-coronavirus-156875 (Source #19) Walter Olson, “Federalism and the Coronavirus Lockdown: Trump can’t order the country back to normalcy by April 30 or any day. That’s for states to decide.” Wall Street Journal, 30 March 2020. https://www.wsj.com/articles/federalism-and-the-coronavirus-lockdown-11585609012 Please inform me if any of the links are invalid. ************************* MECHANICAL REQUIREMENTS FOR YOUR WRITING ASSIGNMENT Mimimum word count of 1,200 words. You may write a longer paper, but you will be penalized for a shorter paper. • FIVE POINTS off grade for every 25 words under the 1,200-word count minimum. • You must do a word count of your paper and type the word count at the end of the paper in bold print. FIVE POINTS off grade for failing to do this. When you type a document on Microsoft Word, Word automatically counts the number of pages and words at the bottom left of the workspace in the status bar. If you don’t see the word count in the status bar, right- click the status bar and click “Word Count.” You can also go to “Tools” on a classic Word menu, pull down, and click on “Word Count.” On some versions of Word you can click on “Review” and then on “Word Count.” If your word count is below • Write your essay on a word processor preferably with Microsoft Word, or a word processor and then highlight your document, copy it, then paste it onto the dialogue box on the Canvas site for submission of your paper. Look over the pasted document to make sure nothing has been left out. (Double-space your paper when you’re writing it so that it is easier to proof-read when completed…and you need to proof-read your paper to see if it makes sense, there are no errors or unattributed quotes or paraphrases, etc. But when you copy and paste it onto the submission site on Canvas it will be converted to single-space.) • WRITE THIS PAPER IN YOUR OWN WORDS. Don’t worry if you’re ESL or if you don’t think you’re a good writer. I want to hear your ideas, your experiences, your impressions, all in your own words. I won’t grade for grammar except if you make careless, egregious grammatical mistakes. I’m primarily grading on content and meeting the minimum requirements set out in the instructions. • DO NOT PLAGIARIZE! Do your own work. You have to write what is in your head, your heart, your mind. YOUR words are better than anyone else’s in telling me about what you know and what your think and believe. Don’t risk flunking this assignment by plagiarizing because you can do really, really well on this assignment without plagiarizing. • Whenever you use words from a source I’ve provided, you MUST show that you have borrowed those words. If you don’t that is plagiarism and is an academic crime that will be punished on this paper and on anything you write in college. “Quote the source used as you see me doing here and show where you got it from.” (Source #1) That’s how you can do it for this paper. I will give you the sources to use. Anytime you quote the source or paraphrase the source and use it in your paper you must document that by indicating you borrowed it from that article or web page. I have labeled each of the sources as Source #1, Source #2, Source #3, and so on. Just put which source you’re quoting or  paraphrasing at the end of the sentence or sentences you’ve used it in and that will be sufficient to document its use and avoid plagiarism. IF you DON’T know what plagiarism is all about do a Google search and learn. You should know at this point in your college career, but just in case, don’t risk making an egregious error and flunk this assignment by inadvertently plagiarism. Even if you didn’t mean to do it, you’ll still be punished for doing it. (If you run a red light and are stopped by the police, try telling him or her “I didn’t know that I had to stop. It’s not my fault” and see if you don’t get that ticket. And so, at the end of any sentence where you have quoted a source directly or paraphrased the information from the source, you would indicated where you got it simply by typing in parenthesis at the end of the sentence the number of the article used, as I show you here. (#20) • DO YOUR OWN WORK! Do not work on this with another student. If you copy another student’s paper in part or whole, both you AND the student you copied from will be severely penalized. You will likely receive a grade of F…perhaps even a grade of ZERO. Be aware, I check carefully for plagiarism and sharing of work. And I am quite good at finding cheating and more than willing to flunk a student for plagiarizing and copying another’s work. BUT if you do your own work, if you correct cite and document where you got words or information from an outside source, if you follow these instructions, then you likely will earn a very good grade, a grade which will be 25% of your final course grade. Remember, you can flunk not only a test or a paper by cheating, but you can also be tossed out of the class with an F and ever tossed out of college for cheating. Don’t do it. • If you have questions about the assignment or need assistance, don’t hesitate to write me at and I’ll do all I can to help. • USE THE SOURCES I HAVE PROVIDED IN WRITING YOUR PAPER. You need not use any other sources other than these to write your paper.