COVID-19 Expository Essay - Activity Instructions

Students will...

You will re-cap your knowledge of parts of speech, connectives and sentence types
You will understand the correct essay structure for an expository essay.
You will write an expository essay about COVID-19.

Students can...

You can identify parts of speech, connectives and sentence types in a piece of writing
You can apply parts of speech, connectives and sentence types to improve your writing
You can use a planning template to organise your information
You can write an expository essay about COVID-19.

READ THE CONVERSATION ARTICLE BELOW

Coronavirus: how long does it take to get sick? How infectious is it? Will you always have a fever? COVID-19 basics explained

Sanjaya Senanayake, Australian National University

You’re probably inundated with news and messages about coronavirus at the moment. But how do you know if you’re consuming evidence-based information or just speculation and myth?

There’s still a lot we don’t know but here’s what the evidence tells us so far about the coronavirus, called SARS-CoV-2, and the disease it causes, COVID-19.

How does it spread?

COVID-19 is transmitted through droplets generated via coughing and sneezing.

This means it can spread during close contact between an infected and uninfected person, when it’s inhaled, or enters the body via the eyes, mouth or nose.

Infection can also occur when an uninfected person touches a contaminated surface.

What are the symptoms?

COVID-19 causes similar symptoms to the flu. Fever is the most common symptom, occurring in almost 88% of cases, while a dry cough is the next most common, affecting almost 68% of those with the virus.

Data from 55,000 cases in China also show other symptoms can include:

fatigue, in 38% of cases
producing sputum or phlegm, 33%
shortness of breath, 19%
sore throat, 14%
headache, 14%.

Unlike other coronaviruses that cause the common cold, COVID-19 is hardly ever associated with a stuffy nose. This is seen in just 5% of cases.

Diarrhoea is also uncommon, affecting only 4% with the virus.

The Conversation, CC BY-ND

Can I be infected if I don’t have a fever?

Yes, you can still have coronavirus if you don’t have a fever. This occurs in about 12% of cases.

How long does it take to get sick?

The incubation is the period from when you’re infected to when you become sick. For COVID-19, the range is 1-14 days, with an average incubation period of 5-6 days.

How sick do people usually get?

Most people who get sick (80%) have a mild illness which rarely involves needing to go to hospital. They recover after about two weeks.

But just over 20% of people sick with COVID-19 will need to be hospitalised for severe difficulties with breathing.

Of the 20% who need to be hospitalised, 6% become critically ill with either respiratory failure (where you can’t get enough oxygen from your lungs into your blood), septic shock, and/or multiple organ failure. These people are likely to require admission to an intensive care unit.

It appears to take about one week to become severely ill after getting symptoms.

How often do people die of it?

The case fatality rate refers to the number of deaths among those who have tested positive for coronavirus. Globally, the case fatality rate today stands at 4%.

But this rate varies country to country and even within countries. These variations may partially be explained by whether hospitals has been overwhelmed or not.

Read more: How does coronavirus kill?

The case fatality rate in Wuhan was 5.8% (although one model says it may be lower at 1.4%). In the rest of China, it was at 0.7%.

Similarly in Europe, Italy’s case fatality rate is (8.3%), greatly surpassing that of Germany (0.2%).

However the case fatality rate only includes people who are tested and confirmed as having the virus.

Some modelling estimates suggest that if you calculated the number of deaths from the total number of cases (those confirmed with tests and those that went undetected) the proportion of people who die from coronavirus might be more like 1%.

Read more: The coronavirus looks less deadly than first reported, but it's definitely not 'just a flu'

Who is most at risk of dying?

People aged over 60 years with underlying health problems are at highest risk of severe disease and death.

For people aged 60-69, 3.6% of those who are infected will die from COVID-19. This rises to 8% for for 70-79 year olds and 14.8% for those over 80.

Among people under 50 years, just 0.2-0.4% will die from the disease and this rises to 1.3% for 50-59 year olds.

Read more: Why are older people more at risk of coronavirus?

How infectious is it, and how does that compare with the flu?

COVID-19 and influenza are probably fairly similarly infections.

A single ill person with COVID-19 can infect more people than a single ill person with influenza. COVID-19 has a higher “reproduction number” of 2.0-2.5. This means one person will infect, on average, 2 to 2.5 people.

Seasonal influenza has a reproduction number of about 1.28, meaning one person will infect, on average, between one and two people.

But this is balanced by influenza’s ability to infect more quickly. It takes, on average, 3 days to become sick with the flu, but you can still transmit it before symptoms emerge.

It takes 5-6 days to become sick with COVID-19. We still don’t know if you can be infectious before getting coronavirus symptoms, but it doesn’t seem to be a major driver of transmission.

So influenza can spread faster than COVID-19.

The case fatality rate of COVID-19 is higher than that of seasonal influenza (4% versus 0.1%), although as noted above, the true fatality of COVID-19 is still not clear.

Read more: The 'dreaded duo': Australia will likely hit a peak in coronavirus cases around flu season

Can you be reinfected?

It’s too early to know if someone infected with COVID-19 can get it again.

On the basis of what we understand about other coronaviruses, it is likely that infection will give you long-term immunity. But it’s unclear whether that will mean one year, two years or lifelong immunity.

Still have more questions? We might have you covered in this video. (https://youtu.be/T13Js2bMF_U)

Sanjaya Senanayake, Associate Professor of Medicine, Infectious Diseases Physician, Australian National University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Part A: Find The Answers

Step 1. Parts of speech

You should be very familiar with parts of speech but it is important to refresh on some of these so that you can use them to improve your own writing later in this activity.

Part of speech	Examples
Noun - A noun names a person, place, thing or idea.	student, teacher, orange, dog, pen, book, Australia, etc.
Pronoun - Pronouns replace the name of a person, place, thing or idea in a sentence.	he, she, it, we, they, them, etc.
Adjective - An adjective describes a noun or pronoun	blue, short, tall, big, small, beautiful, dreary, sweet, etc.
Verb - A verb is a word or group of words that describes an action, experience.	walk, look, sing, listen, run, jump, write, etc.
Adverb - An adverb tells how often, how much, how, when and where. It can describe a verb and adjective or another adverb.	always, never, late, soon, frequently, sometimes, early, etc.
Conjunction - Conjunctions join words or groups of words in a sentence.	and, but, or, so, because, when, while, since, although, etc.

As you read through the article, list the different parts of speech you find into the correct part of the table below. Some have been done for you to help get you started.

Try to list as many as you can.

Noun

Pronoun

Adjective

Verb

Adverb

Conjunction

Coronavirus

You

Uninfected

Inhaled

Uncommon

But

Step 2. Sentence types

When you write, you should vary the length of our sentences so that your writing is more interesting to read.

You should include a range of simple and compound sentences.

Simple sentences – This type of sentence conveys one main idea.

It has a subject and a verb.

Eg. An apple is a fruit.

Compound sentences – This type of sentence is made up of two simple sentences that are joined together by either a conjunction or a connective.

Eg. An apple is a fruit but corn is a vegetable.

Using the information from the article, write three simple sentences and three compound sentences about COVID-19.

Step 3

When you are writing you should use a range of different words to connect your sentences, again to make your writing more interesting to read.

A connective is a word or phrase that links clauses or sentences. They can be conjunctions (for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so, because) or connecting adverbs (however, then, therefore).

The following list provides connectives and conjunctions that you can use in different situations:

Adding: also, furthermore, moreover

Opposing: however, nevertheless, on the other hand, unlike

Reinforcing: besides, anyway, after all

Explaining: for example, in other words, that is to say

Listing: first, firstly, first of all, finally

Indicating a result: therefore, consequently, as a result

Indicating time: just then, meanwhile, later

In each of the following sentences, highlight the connective/conjunction.

Unlike other coronaviruses that cause the common cold, COVID-19 is hardly ever associated with a stuffy nose.
But just over 20% of people sick with COVID-19 will need to be hospitalised for severe difficulties with breathing.
There’s still a lot we don’t know but here’s what the evidence tells us so far about the coronavirus
Infection can also occur when an uninfected person touches a contaminated surface.
The incubation period range for Coronavirus is 1 to 14 days, with an average incubation period of 5 to 6 days.

Step 4. Essay structure

Let’s re-visit the structure of an essay.

All essays consist of three main sections:

1. The introduction
1. The body
2. The conclusion

The introduction will consist of one paragraph, the conclusion will consist of one paragraph and the largest part of your essay will be the body which should consist of at least three paragraphs.

When you are writing your body paragraphs use the T.E.E.L structure:

1. Topic sentence - The focus or main point of the paragraph.
1. Evidence - Support the main point with selected evidence from the article.
3. Explanation - Explain the significance of the evidence and how it helps support the point.
4. Link - Link your point back to the topic of the essay or you could attempt to link it to the next point you will be making.

See the diagram below for a visual guide.

Part B: Putting It All Together

Step 1.

Use the planning template to extract information from the article that you will then use to write your essay.

The main points have already been completed for you to help get you started.

Introduction

What is your topic?

What is COVID-19?

What will be your three main points?

1. How does COVID-19 spread?

2. What are the symptoms of COVID-19?

3. How sick do people get?

Body Paragraph 1

Body Paragraph 2

Body Paragraph 3

Main point	How sick do people get
Evidence from the article
Explain this evidence – how does it help support your main point?
Write a sentence that either links back to the topic or to the next point.

Conclusion

Step 2.

Using your planning template and the activities on parts of speech, sentence structure and connectives, you can now go ahead and create your expository essay on the topic of, 'What is COVID-19'.

Complete your essay using a word processing program like Microsoft Word or Google Documents.

Step 3.

Edit your work. Complete each of the following tasks to ensure that your work is free from errors and interesting to read:

Read your essay out loud to yourself. This will help you notice parts where the writing may be unclear.
Correct your spelling errors.
Ensure you have used capital letters where required.
Rewrite simple sentences so they are more complex.
Check that you have used commas and full stops where required.
Have you used connective words to make your writing interesting?
Have you included all of the sections from your planning template?
Can you change or strengthen any key words using a thesaurus?
Have someone else read over your essay to check for any final errors you may have missed.

Start A Conversation

Connect and collaborate with classmates.

Speak to a friend or family member about what you have learned about COVID-19 - the symptoms, the incubation period, how sick people get – and check that the information they know is accurate.

Taking It Further

Add two extra paragraphs to your essay by choosing two more main points that you can write about.

You can use the article to find these main points or you can research further.

COVID-19 Expository Essay

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