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Luke Dotson
Move the caption info to the main body of the essay. I would encourage an increase in sources and make sure they are incorporated in the chapter. There are places like when the NBA bubble is mentioned where a source would provide more information. Personal statement is powerful.
Introduction
When was the last time that you saw society as being normal since the start of the pandemic? Everyday activities have become inconvenient due to the guidelines and restrictions that the government has set. Since the start of the pandemic, the world has yet to see the normality of daily activities, such as sports, mass gatherings, and shopping, and will likely never see these in their normal form in the foreseeable future.
Connection to STS Theory
The normality of society being affected by COVID is linked to the STS theory of path dependence, which references the decisions of past events that would help shape current choices. Since the pandemic started, no decision has been made that has not had COVID as a conflicting factor. The decisions of every person in the future will be based upon COVID and what it has done to the lives of everyone. Along with the actions of people being affected in the future, COVID also will affect the way the economy plays out. The government will be looking at how bad COVID was for the economy during the lockdown and will base future actions in a way that will save lives and determine whether shutting down the country again will break America to the point of no return, or if it will finally stop the tyranny of COVID.
How COVID has affected sports
The first way that the pandemic is changing the normality of society is through sports. At the start of the pandemic, most sports shut down and canceled all of their events. The ones that continued were known as “biological bombs” due to the great spread of the virus that happened at the games (Gilat 2020). However, as the pandemic continued through the months, many sports started to open back up with various approaches and strategies to have competition but with the least amount of COVID cases to come from them. The two main sporting companies, the NBA and NFL, had two very different approaches. The NBA created a “bubble” in which they made all of the players stay in an enclosed location during the season in order to prevent the spread of COVID. The NFL, however, just tested the players every week. The NBA’s approach proved to be highly effective, with no COVID cases the whole year. Whereas the NFL has had many teams close down for two weeks because of outbreaks. The NBA’s approach seems on the cover tenfold better; however, the NBA did not
allow any fans to the games. This is a bad thing for sports because the central part of sports is the fans, the energy in the stadium, and the social interactions that come from bonding over sports. If more sports follow the lead of the NBA, it only leaves the questions of what will happen to the livelihood of sports. Will fewer fans watch