Volunteer Life Health
Impact of the pandemic on the body and mind
by Zofia Nyka
Does anyone remember how beautiful those times were when you didn’t have to wear masks,
there were no restrictions in shops, restaurants, all shops, and entertainment centers were open, and that you could travel everywhere without testing or checking if you are vaccinated? At the moment, I feel as if the above-mentioned examples were fiction, some imaginary reality. The coronavirus has changed the entire world and the lives of millions of people. Due to the pandemic, people became afraid of going out, going into the city, meeting friends, and a significant part of the population either lost their jobs or changed their working mode to remote work. I, as a student and volunteer, belong to this group because I have been studying online for almost two years, so I think that I have some experience in remote work that I would like to share. The pandemic has had an effect on volunteers as well. Helping refugees is much more difficult when social distancing is required because teamwork and communication is heavily affected.
Transition to remote work
I remember the day when the faculty authori-
ties told us that my university would be temporarily closed due to COVID-19 and all students “have a goiter.” Back then, there was no case of coronavirus infection in Poland, and I felt as if the students were really having a vacation. During the first days of March, the students had no classes at all, and no one really knew what to do next. After a week off, we received information that teachers would try to conduct their courses via the Internet. At the moment, I couldn’t imagine what it would look like; I did not believe that we would have classes conducted via the Internet because I knew that many professors could not turn on the projector, let alone organize online meetings for 150 people. I just thought that in two weeks, everything would be back to normal, and I would be able to go back to my university without having
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to enter online classes. Of course, this was not the case, and the small classes began - it was something completely different for me and my friends, something strange and unnatural. At first, I liked it very much, because I had to travel to the faculty an hour before the introduction of remote classes, and after the introduction, I could wake up 5 minutes before class and lie in bed in my pajamas and attend the lecture at the same time. After a week, the first case of the coronavirus was registered in Poland, and from that moment, all my friends (including myself) were terrified. Everyone stopped leaving the house, and my family and I did a lot of shopping just to leave the home as little as possible. We sat locked up and terrified to hear in the news every day how many new infections were added every day. Due to sitting at home and not having to travel to school, I had more time at the beginning of the pandemic, as most people, I was very motivated to do new things - I start-
