What is a Pandemic?

Step 1. Make sure to read Defining Key Terms: “Pandemic” especially the Morens, Folkers and Fauci article: “What is a Pandemic?
Step 2. Analyze, Question and Brainstorm by Following the Directions in the Chart. Use the information in Defining Key Terms: “Pandemic” to analyze our key terms, making sure that you look at all the sources as each contains additional information/insight not found in the others.
step 3. Following the directions found in the Collaborative Chart
step 4. Be sure to find all the characteristics for the 3 key terms in Quadrant I. In Quadrant II, be sure to assess all 8 characteristics of a pandemic. Then in Quadrant III, apply all 8 characteristics to define the COVID-19 Pandemic. Finally, for Quadrant IV, find an image which best represents your understanding of pandemics.
Step 5. Use the Link sources and PDF’s given below to help you define key terms and fill out the chart.
DO NOT USE OUTSIDE SOURCES!
Defining Key Terms: “Pandemic”
My academic speciality is late Medieval English and French literature in the period immediately following the Black Death, 1350-1400 CE. So I have had a working understanding of pandemics, their definitions and functions for most of my adult life. But I discovered this past year that I didn’t know as much as I thought I did! — and most people have almost no knowledge about them. Yet human history shows a consistent pattern of pandemics; unfortunately, they are always a matter of “when” and not “if”. Thus, to practice defining and analyzing this semester, there is no better topic than pandemics.
To analyze and understand the key term “pandemic,” you will also have to analyze and understand the key terms for what it is not: it is not “endemic” or an “outbreak” or an “epidemic.” This is very common in academic arguments: we can’t just know one definition, idea or side! We have to know them all in order to truly understand new ideas in depth. This means that we are really examining 4 key terms with this assignment:Key Terms:
1. Endemic
2. Outbreak
3. Epidemic
4. Pandemic
Initial Definition of Pandemic:
This 2009 article by Morens, Folkers and Fauci (yes, THAT Fauci) defines the term “pandemic” by analyzing 8 characteristics of most pandemics. This a definition/analysis argument; the authors break down the possible “parts” of pandemics and then assess the patterns of various examples to see if the definition “fits.” If in the future you decide to pursue public health or epidemology, then you will need to know the more detailed issues you would find in researching this topic. For our purposes, we are accepting that the parts do fit the pattern, so you should focus here on the section defining those 8 characteristics
Link to help expand your defintions:
1. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/about-epidemiology/identifying-source-outbreak.html#:~:text=An%20outbreak%20is%20called%20an,classified%20as%20a%20pandemic
2. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/14/what-is-a-pandemic-coronavirus-covid-19
3. https://www.technologynetworks.com/immunology/articles/epidemic-vs-pandemic-323471
4. https://www.verywellhealth.com/difference-between-epidemic-and-pandemic-2615168

Last Completed Projects