[Prompt] AP Lang Argument Essay Practice

michaelaibrahim1 · March 25, 2020, 11:20pm

Practice argument essay prompt:

Major pandemics date back to 430 A.D. and occur all throughout history. Many have died from these pandemics such as the Bubonic Plague, Cholera, Smallpox, and most recently, the COVID-19 virus. As a result, we now have vaccines, advanced medical technology, and continuous medical research that can combat many of these diseases. However, these pandemics still impact mortality rates, economic growth, and social behavior.

Consider the evolution of human life and the impact that pandemics have on our society. Then, write a well-written essay in which you develop a position on the effects that major pandemics have on our society, both now and in the future. Use appropriate evidence from your reading, experience, or observations to support your argument.

How to submit your response:

Write out a thesis statement that answers the prompt.
Draft two topic sentences that support your thesis.
Below each topic sentence, identify two pieces of strong evidence that support your position. Your evidence should be succinct!

Take a look at the example submission format below:

Thesis Statement
Topic Sentence
a. Evidence #1
b. Evidence #2
Topic Sentence
a. Evidence #1
b. Evidence #2

Deadline for submission:
2020-03-16T04:00:00Z → 2020-03-21T04:00:00Z
Posts submitted after the deadline are not guaranteed a response.

Recommended resources:

Argumentation, Part iv - Body Paragraphs with @kevin-steinhauser

Upcoming events:

Final Argument Review with Catherine Tedder

fiveable-tan · March 18, 2020, 3:28pm

perlaalvarez431 · March 18, 2020, 8:48pm

Thesis: Major pandemics have a negative effect on the economic and social aspects of society by providing setback that hinder its abilities to improve.
Topic Sentence 1: The first priority of any government when faced with a pandemic is to ensure the wellbeing of the people it was created to serve, a focus that can often be very costly.
Evidence 1: During the first world war, American President, Woodrow Wilson was faced with the Spanish Flu. Due to the wartime induced economic deficiency already negatively affecting the country when the outbreak occurred, Wilson was not able to focus on the health of the people in the nation thus allowing for many to die and for the economy to fall into the depression as it did a few years later.
Evidence 2: With the coronavirus outbreak, many businesses have been ordered to close throughout America. The closure of these businesses is resulting in petitions released throughout social media and the nation’s communities, including those in Riverside, California, to postpone paying rent. The economy is being negatively affected as a result of these closures, so much so that American citizens fear eviction or other possible financial hardships that will become impossible to handle.
Topic Sentence: One social guarantee of any pandemic is the spread of fear and panic.
Evidence 1: As occurs in many futuristic dystopian series, the one hundred, a series characterized by competition necessary for survival on a post-apocalyptic earth, addresses the use of biological warfare. In this series, a virus is created that causes fear in everyone who inhabits the society in which is was created due to the potential deadly pandemic that could result from the release of this fatal virus. The descriptions of this fear in the novel parallel the fear that occurs in our societies as a result of pandemics.
Evidence 2: Another result of the coronavirus outbreak is the fear that can be seen by the stores overflowing with people who intend to stock up on their supplies at home with no care for those around them who also wish to have enough for basic necessities. The lack of supplies negatively impacts our society because, not only does it isolate people in their homes without enough to maintain themselves, people fight in cotsco or walmart over items they need out of fear that they will not be able to provide for themselves and their families. This results in disunity and panic that hinders a society’s nation to improve during and after an epidemic.

madelyn.giddens · March 18, 2020, 9:22pm

Thesis: Pandemics can be terrifying and they cause many people to go into a state of panic and hysteria, but they have been here since way before we were born and people have pulled through and came together to come through such tough times, which are full of hard ships.
Topic sentence 1: Today, all over the world we have witnessed many people who are hysterical and petrified due to the COVID-19 outbreak. Evidence 1: They have succumbed to their fears so much that if you look inside stores such as Walmart you will witness empty shelves that were once stocked full of Lysol, Lysol cleaning wipes, and hand sanitizer. These are unfortunately not the only shelves empty but so are the toilet paper shelves. They are so panicked that they are buying unnecessarily large amounts which leaves very little for those that actually need it such as the elderly who may not be able to leave there homes as often as others. Evidence 2: Businesses are also shutting their doors to the public until further notice and are requiring their employees to work from home. Restaurants are open but only for drive-thru purposes. Very few to none have their doors open for those to eat inside, but you may go in and order your food for take out, but even if you do this you have to ask for things such as your straws and utensils which used to have such easy access right next to drink machines on the counter. This is to avoid contamination, which I agree should be a top priority at the moment, to prevent the spread of COVID-19 to becoming larger than it already is.
Topic sentence 2: Technology is advancing at a very high upbeat rate. Evidence 1: I feel that in the future pandemics will very rarely occur due to the huge technological advances that are occurring today to stop them from coming. We have vaccines to prevent and medicine to fight and attack antibodies that do get past white blood cells and attack our immune systems making us weak. In the history of pandemics starting in 430 A.D, medicine wasn’t as advanced due to the lack of the amount of resources in our grasp today. They used the power of trial and error which is still used today just not as highly recommended. Evidence 2: We also have more knowledge and insight on what goes on inside our bodies when accidents like these strike. In history people knew very little and what was known was normally known by others as well. Today we only have certain people, our doctors and nurses, who are trained in finding out what is wrong and administering medicine to stop it but in the past anyone could put a sign up on their doors saying they were a doctor, which then meant that they could administer medicine to anyone who walked through their doors. We today have a greater chance at survival due to medical advances and knowledge built up over the years of the body and how its systems work together to keep us alive and well at all times.

lyne-odhiambo · March 18, 2020, 11:53pm

I set a 40-minute timer and ended up writing two full body paragraphs instead of succinct evidence points so my response doesn’t follow the submission format but I would still like some feedback, thank you.

Major pandemics have the effect of exposing unspoken issues and urging society to address them.
While business as usual functions during times of stable global health, the general public’s focus on the news tends to fixate on issues immediately affecting them first and loses sight of less immediate issues. If a community, such as people with disabilities, has long been asking employers to support their needs by setting up work-from-home job accommodations, their requests are not addressed until a pandemic such as covid-19 calls for social distancing. Suddenly, millions of people are abandoning the workplace for a less contamination-prone environment at home. The accommodations, it turns out can be made. The issue would have remained side-swept and neglected, unfortunately, if a pandemic hadn’t shaken up existing work structures. Similarly, students from low-income families have faced exclusion from educational tools when it comes to web-based learning. Access to the internet has been increasingly imperative for school assignments from looking up sources for research papers down to online math homework; it permeates classrooms. Students without home WiFi have had to make do with library visits, staying after school to use the computers, or simply falling behind. As covid-19 caused schools to shut down and rely on online teaching, the internet imbalance was pressingly evident as school boards and superintendents raised concerns about being able to reach all students.
Revealing underlying issues in society in the time of a crisis as panic-inducing as a global pandemic, however debilitating, invites solutions to those issues in the future. In response to students lacking internet at home, internet service provider Spectrum recently stepped up to provide it to them at no charge for the time being. Granted, this is not a permanent solution, the gesture is a sign that in times of need, corporations can set aside their standard business models for the greater good. A similar effect can be seen in economic catastrophes like the Great Depression. It directly catalyzed the formation and implementation of unemployment and old-age pension plans. At the exact moment society needed a safety net, there was a push to put one in place. While the far future effects of the current coronavirus outbreak are yet to be seen, it has stirred up the necessity of a healthcare system that supports all Americans, suggesting that matters of healthcare reform bills will no longer be hotly contested partisan debates. Instead, as the Great Depression eventually embedded welfare into government expectations, pandemics will consolidate fair and equitable health practices.
There is no greater motivator than common fear to unify and drive society to innovate solutions for a more livable planet — and pandemics provide just that.

susan-weinhardt · March 19, 2020, 2:12am

Thesis: Pandemics are unexpected and harmful in their spread and will impact the ways we conduct schooling, and the function of our political system.
Topic Sentence #1: School has always been a natural in person ordeal excluding recent online education site developments such as K12, yet we still as a population in the digital age do not know how to operate education online on a large scale.
Evidence #1: During previous outbreaks before the era of computers and the internet, school couldn’t really happen at all. These new developments indicate that the future of quarantine for students will be E-Schooling. But how would you know if a student was just playing Minecraft in another tab? – Students already in classes play games on their laptops when they are supposed to be studying vocab (my school has blocked Minecraft on school laptops)
Evidence #2: Equity is also an important element to consider. Many students in Fairfax County Virginia don’t have access to the internet and therefore can’t be held to a similar expectation to those students with high-speed internet at home. Especially with a pandemic, students with that issue odds have to find food every day without the help of the school lunch program, even if they offer it in certain locations.
Topic Sentence #2: Even considering schools and other federal programs, the overall condition and focus of the government as a system will go through some changes after a pandemic.
Evidence #1: For example, due to the need for bipartisan support on bills such as those addressing the need for those who are getting laid off from work at this time to receive free money from the government to help supplement them and the postponement of the tax due dates, the government needs to compromise to help these people and issues despite individual political beliefs.
Evidence #2: Another item to consider is the need for public program supports to continue after the virus and build-up to prevent future crises. Pandemics like COVID 19 and Smallpox have proven to be overwhelming for the United States and other countries which indicates a need for healthcare reform, despite the interpretation of that concept as a liberal belief.

Sierra · March 19, 2020, 4:44pm

Thesis Statement: The effects of major pandemics has decreased with each outbreak. Nevertheless, pandemics still plague the world, economics, and social life.
Topic Sentence 1: Pandemics in modern day are managed much better today than in the century of the Bubonic Plague.
Evidence 1: The Covid-19 outbreak, while bad, could have been worse if the world took longer to respond. Since we have taken action we are able to do research on the virus and try to create a vaccine so that future generations will not have to worry about the virus as much. It is not just the quick response that saved us from more chaos but also the medical technology that we have today that didn’t exist 500 years ago. For example, if ventilators had not been invented previously many more people would have died because their lungs would have been to scarred to function. Doctors have also improved pandemic control because they have gotten better training and understand how viruses work so that they can effectively treat patients quicker and easier. All of these factors together have changed how we respond medically to pandemics.
Evidence 2: The Bubonic Plague was a much different story. Even though the previously deadly plague stuck mostly to Europe it killed millions of people. It killed people so easily because of poor sanitation. Human waste was throw onto streets, farm animal roamed, the rat infestation was unbelievable, and dead bodies were kept on streets until the carts picked them up. Now that we have better sanitation plaques are no longer able to fester in streets as easy. I believe that most plagues during that time could have been lessened had the doctors and city officials understood proper sanitation and treatment options.
Topic Sentence 2: While pandemics may not have the same impact as they did 500 years ago, the economy and social life still suffer.
Evidence 1: Currently with pandemics the economy will drop a substantial amount, in fact the stock market is currently at the place it was in 2017. This scares people and when people are scared rash things happen like no more food on store shelves. The government is now starting to shut lots of things down like bars, restaurant dining and limiting how many people can be in one area. Any small business will likely not fare well in this environment which means they will most likely shut down which will cause more panic, and then you start the circle again. Pandemics also raise some amount of Xenophobia, most likely because people see the people of the ethnicity that the pandemic started in as carriers of the disease. This puts
more tension between countries and could in the future if it got bad enough, start minor wars. How people react to the change in economics and social life can greatly change the severity of the pandemic and it ability to spread.
Evidence 2: In the future I believe that the world will not be impacted as hard by pandemics. I think that we will have even better technology and research capabilities to the point that a new vaccine only take a month or two to create and have approved by the FDA. Not only do I believe that but I also think that we will learn from our mistakes like we did from the Bubonic Plague, Smallpox, Cholera, outbreaks and now the Covid-19 virus. Hopefully we will also learn to have social distancing earlier, to minimize spread and also to trust leaders. If we can trust each other and believe that the market will be more stable and that we do have a chance against the virus, we will prevail.

ganga.nc · March 19, 2020, 10:08pm

Thesis: The effects of pandemics are detrimental to society as they can cause the global economic system to plummet, intervene with education, and reduce the interactions between people.
Topic Sentence: The far-reaching effects of pandemics can lead o the downfall of the global economic system.
a. In current times, COVID-19 has caused the American economy to plunge uncontrollably. Black Monday 2020 refers to the historic market drop that is disrupting the global economy. The Dow Jones Industrial Average has declined almost 12%, one of the biggest single-day percentage drops in history. Other market indexes that showed similar patterns were S&P 50 and Nasdaq which are heavily invested in.
b. This dramatic change also has an effect on jobs around the world causing unemployment rates to rise. Several schools, restaurants, malls, and movie theaters have shut down internationally causing workers in these facilities to stay home and may not have an alternate method to gain the financial resources they need to survive at this time.
COVID-19 has negative implications on education forcing students to stay away from schools.
a. Several schools have closed around the world causing students to stay away from a learning environment for an unpredictable period of time to keep themselves safe. Although it is important for them to stay healthy, this is taking crucial time away from their learning time as they may not be focused at home.
b. Not all students have the necessary resources they need to continue their education at home. Some proposed solutions like virtual learning are currently being utilized to combat the issue of not being at school, but some financially weak families may not have the technological equipment to give their children which presents an issue. Even though some schools are offering assistance, it is not enough to help the population at large.

fares-marzouk · March 21, 2020, 4:20am

Thesis: Despite recent advancements in medicine and technology, pandemics continue to plague our worlds progress by impeding with the educational system and hindering 3rd world countries form developing.

Topic sentence: One way that pandemics continue to plague our society is by impeding the educational system.
Evidence 1: In response to the recent COVID-19 outbreak, many schools have taken advantage of technology by instituting e-learning programs. Despite the ability to continue learning at home, it is hard for educators and parents to ascertain that students are completely engaged with their at-home education. With the privacy that comes with the internet, how can parents and educators -who aren’t as tech-savvy as their kids- be sure that their kids are doing homework and not off task? Although it’s better than nothing, e-leaning is not a sufficient replacement for in-school instruction, which ensures that students are on task and focused on their work.
Evidence 2: When a school shut down in the years before e-learning, it became the parents/guardians responsibility to educate the child. While almost every parent/guardian certainly did their best to instruct their child, the lack of teaching experience that some parents may have leaves the possibility for many holes in the education of unclear instruction. When I was younger, my dad used to tutor me in math to supplement my learning in school. However, my dad was not a qualified educator and did not have any prior experience in academic instruction. Therefore, I often finished tutoring sessions with my dad more confused than when I started. This scenario is familiar to many students who turn to their parents for help with school during school closures. When schools shut down due to pandemics, many students will not receive the adequate academic instruction they need in order to grasp the material.

Topic sentence: Another way that pandemics continue to plague our world is by hindering 3rd world countries from developing.
Evidence 1: When a pandemic hits, 3rd world countries are hit particularly hard. Pandemics can often serve a devastating blow to a developing countries already unstable economy. For example, during the 2016 Ebola outbreak, the African countries that suffered through the virus experienced a sharp decline in their economies in addition to the to their overwhelmed medical system. It took many years after the virus for their economy to completely recover from virus, and this scenario impeded many countries in Africa from general growth and development.
Evidence 2: The worst part of a pandemic is also what hinders 3rd world countries from developing the most: the human death toll. When a pandemic hits a country, it kills off the future leaders and innovators who would have led the country into the future. Not only that, but the strain the mortality rate puts on a countries medical system which further harms families and communities. During the late 1400s, The Native American population in the Western Hemisphere was devastated by foreign diseases which killed up to 60 percent of the native population. The diseases took away any potential leaders and innovators from these native tribes, and the tribes subsequently saw a decline in their prominence and power in the western continents. Pretty soon, the natives, who lost their most talented community members to disease, were overrun by European invaders who were not affected by the prevalent viruses and bacteria.

cassidy.brimer · March 21, 2020, 9:04pm

1. Thesis: Major pandemics are very harmful to societies, but they are also opportunities to strengthen international bonds and reveal the best in people.
2. Topic Sentence: In Italy, where the COVID-19 virus is infecting hundreds of people a day, citizens are still finding ways to band together and be good to one another.
a. Evidence #1: Videos have surfaced online of the people of Italy singing on their balconies, finding ways to lift each others spirits even during such a scary time.
a. Evidence #2: Although these are frightening and stressful times for many of those in the health industry, the doctors, nurses, and other hospital staff of Italy still continue to show up to work and help treat their fellow citizens, even if it means risking infection.
3. Topic Sentence 2: Across the world, scientists and experts have been working together to discuss ways to best contain and treat the COVID-19 pandemic.
a. Evidence #1: China has sent some of its best COVID-19 experts to Italy in order to share their knowledge and experience about the virus with Italy, choosing to help Italy even though they are very different countries with very different cultures.
a. Evidence #2: Countries across the globe are working to create a vaccine for the COVID-19 virus, and that collaboration has led to an amazingly fast human clinical trial in an almost unheard-of amount of time.

clairealford00 · March 21, 2020, 9:05pm

Throughout history, plagues have led to the development of social ostracism and economic recession.
The spread of COVID-19 in 2020 and the the Black Plague in the 1300s led to certain groups being ostracized from society.
a. People of Chinese descent were subjected to racist torment on a global scale during the COVID-19 pandemic, because the disease originated from China. Many around the world falsely believed that anyone of Chinese, or even general Asian ancestry, had the disease. As a result, these groups were shunned from society.
b. When the Black Plague spread, humans were aware of the possibility of human-to-human transmission, even through they didn’t understand how it happened. Families that were known to have the Black Plague were forced to stay in their homes and excluded from society. They were essentially left to die, as others did not want to become sick.
Both the Spanish Flu of 1918 and COVID-19 caused economic depression where they spread.
a. In 1918, soldiers that fought in World War I were exposed to Spanish Flu and spread the virus worldwide as they returned home. This decreased the size of the workforce in the U.S., which depleted the disposable of income of many families. This, coupled with post-war inflation, prevented consumer’s from purchasing overproduced goods, which was a major contributor to the Great Depression.
b. As medicine advanced in the 21st century, medical professionals realized that social distancing must occur before a virus is widespread to be effective. When COVID-19 began to spread, officials in states like California, New York, and Illinois closed non-essential businesses. When Americans could not work or purchase consumer goods, the U.S. economy took a significant downturn, triggering circuit breakers in the stock market multiple times.

michaelaibrahim1 · March 21, 2020, 10:50pm

Hi, lyne-odhiambo!

So excited to read your post!

If you could bold your thesis, topic sentences, and evidence, that would be incredibly helpful as I read through each post and provide feedback. Thank you!

lyne-odhiambo · March 21, 2020, 11:50pm

I couldn’t figure out how to edit my original response, so here is the version with bold evidence points.

Thesis: Major pandemics have the effect of exposing unspoken issues and urging society to address them.
Topic Sentence 1: While business as usual functions during times of stable global health, the general public’s focus on the news tends to fixate on issues immediately affecting them first and loses sight of less immediate issues. Evidence 1: If a community, such as people with disabilities, has long been asking employers to support their needs by setting up work-from-home job accommodations, their requests are not addressed until a pandemic such as covid-19 calls for social distancing. Suddenly, millions of people are abandoning the workplace for a less contamination-prone environment at home. The accommodations, it turns out can be made. The issue would have remained side-swept and neglected, unfortunately, if a pandemic hadn’t shaken up existing work structures. Evidence 2: Similarly, students from low-income families have faced exclusion from educational tools when it comes to web-based learning. Access to the internet has been increasingly imperative for school assignments from looking up sources for research papers down to online math homework; it permeates classrooms. Students without home WiFi have had to make do with library visits, staying after school to use the computers, or simply falling behind. As covid-19 caused schools to shut down and rely on online teaching, the internet imbalance was pressingly evident as school boards and superintendents raised concerns about being able to reach all students.
Topic Sentence 2: Revealing underlying issues in society in the time of a crisis as panic-inducing as a global pandemic, however debilitating, invites solutions to those issues in the future. Evidence 1: In response to students lacking internet at home, internet service provider Spectrum recently stepped up to provide it to them at no charge for the time being. Granted, this is not a permanent solution, the gesture is a sign that in times of need, corporations can set aside their standard business models for the greater good. Evidence 2: A similar effect can be seen in economic catastrophes like the Great Depression. It directly catalyzed the formation and implementation of unemployment and old-age pension plans. At the exact moment society needed a safety net, there was a push to put one in place. While the far future effects of the current coronavirus outbreak are yet to be seen, it has stirred up the necessity of a healthcare system that supports all Americans, suggesting that matters of healthcare reform bills will no longer be hotly contested partisan debates. Instead, as the Great Depression eventually embedded welfare into government expectations, pandemics will consolidate fair and equitable health practices.
There is no greater motivator than common fear to unify and drive society to innovate solutions for a more livable planet — and pandemics provide just that.

grace-maresca · March 22, 2020, 1:31am

1.) Thesis When pandemics occur, they bring massive change to human life, uprooting current social conditions of the people, but also helping advance the knowledge around medicine and technology during that time and for future generations.

2.)Topic Sentence 1 When a significant pandemic is caused by disease, it causes massive amounts of deaths, decreasing populations and bringing new social standards to the area it hits.

a. Evidence 1 When the Europeans had arrived in the Americas in 1492, it had carried over smallpox, which was a contagious disease that killed 30% of who caught it in Europe. The Native Americans were not immune to this sickness and began to die in a drastic amount of numbers, wiping out almost about 90% of the population. The way of life in the Americas for Natives had been deceased, now Europeans America would never be the same, making it the diverse country it is today. However, the original people who had once lived on the land had been killed off and been taken advantage of throughout history. This shows how a desire able to colonize and develop on these lands. This had helped make America stronger under European influence. The history of Amease uprooted an entire nation.

b. Evidence 2 The first report of AIDS/HIV had been discovered in 1981, and this disease is still around today, affecting millions of people per year. This disease was confirmed through the advancements of science that it was a transmitted sexual disease. This epidemic has no cure, but there has been medicine made to slow the infection rate. Now in almost every high school, students are being taught the dangers of unprotected sex and other sexually transmitted disease to help future generations. Condoms and other new conceptive devices are made to reduce the risk of spreading. The LGBTQ community became a voice because of the disproportionate way it hit its members. Many people during the 1900s and before were homophobic, and after this disease, there would be a new acceptance. Discrimination against people of the LGBTQ community has been reducing, and these people have now been accepted into society. This had broken previous social standards that believed in the traditional way of just a man and a woman being together.

3.) Topic Sentence 2 Through the hard times brought from pandemics, knowledge is taught about science, medicine, and technology. This new knowledge can help future generations with different diseases.

a. Evidence 1 The Spanish Flu had hit the world at the end of the devastating WW2, in 1918, killing about 1/3 of the world’s population. When this outbreak began, there were no official protocols in the U.S. to deal with an issue like this—from the 19th century and before epidemics had been seen as acts displayed by God or the gods with some religious motive. Finally, the “Germ Theory” had replaced false ideas, and the resurgence of science had seemed because of this disease, finally seeing the human impact. The disease had brought improvements in hygiene and sanitation. A new faith in science had been adopted, and they finally had seen how little medical knowledge they knew and realized they needed to learn more. Congress would approve a $1 million budget for the U.S. Public Health Service to begin recruitments for medical aid. It has been over 100 years since this flu and new vaccines, drugs, antibiotics,s and other medicines have been created to treat and prevent this disease. The CDC had also began doing more “scientific research” to prevent a new epidemic.

b. Evidence 2 Today, the world is facing a dangerous impact from the COVID-19 virus, hitting over 300,000 people. This has been a new pandemic met, so the cure and treatment of it has been limited. However, America and other nations have implemented Quaritine standards that would have never been implemented in the past. People are preventing the spread of the disease through the use of the technology being developed and developing. We have sanitation being put into place for at home and in public situations. The FDA is currently working on new medicine and other medicines that will help treat and possibly cure this disease. As of right now, they see some medicine in Africa that has prevented the disease and is looking into the science there. The outbreak of this virus has brought detrimental effects to the world but has also stimulated the new creation of advancements to prevent an outbreak like this from re-occurring further.

cindy_vo · March 22, 2020, 6:43am

Thesis Statement: Major pandemics have occurred throughout history, disrupting human lives and impacting mortality rates, but the continuous cycle of pandemics ultimately give rise to benefits like that of technological and medicinal advances and research.
Topic Sentence: Advancing medicines and technology through research of pandemics allow humans to combat emerging diseases better.
a. Evidence #1: The influenza virus is a common example of how technology is able to advance in great leaps and bounds as the seasonal flu continues to develop resistance to vaccines. Over the last 300 years, nine global flu pandemic outbreaks have occurred, resulting in its recognition and our familiarity with it. Compared to the Spanish Flu outbreak of 1918 with about 50 million dead, the mortality rate of the most recent outbreak was less than 20 thousand of the 2009 Swine Flu.
b. Evidence #2: Mad cow disease, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), was caused by feeding cattle food contaminated with remains from animals affected with BSE. This led to the human version of the neurodegenerative disease, variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD). As people became sick from eating contaminated beef, the brains and spinal cords of older cattle in animal feed were banned by law. Although no cure or treatment exists for this rare disease, its cases served as a trigger for more careful and thorough health inspections as well as caution in meat consumption.
Topic Sentence: Although pandemics impact mortality rates and cause numerous deaths, they potentially instigate global efforts in curbing diseases as well as the overwhelming sense of humanity before nature.
a. Evidence #1: Underfunded health infrastructure, the lack of an adequate safety net, and inattention to public health capacity and infrastructure has made the US situation of coronavirus much worse. Even the best presidential response would be hamstrung by a larger set of institutional shortcomings that make America more vulnerable to a pandemic than other developed nations.
b. Evidence #2: For many poorly prepared countries, surge capacity likely will be delivered by foreign aid providers. This is a tenable strategy during localized outbreaks, but global surge capacity has limits that likely will be reached during a full-scale global pandemic as higher-capacity states focus on their own populations.

michaelaibrahim1 · March 22, 2020, 1:32pm

Hi, there and welcome to Fiveable!