Letter from the Editor

Hello everyone! I would like to officially welcome you to issue XVIII.1 of the Observer, the Summer in Review edition, and the very first issue of the 2021-2022 academic year. This issue will be released in two parts, and I am very excited for you to read what our writers have to say. 

These past couple years have been history in the making, and at the risk of repeating what seems to be one of the most commonly used descriptors: unprecedented times, indeed. However, this is not the first period in history in which our world has undergone a pandemic. Thus, that is the topic of this issue: Pandemics, Past and Present. In this first section, you will find a case for France’s vaccine passports from Claire Parsons, as well as two articulate comparisons between the current pandemic and the HIV/AIDS pandemic from Vanessa Elia and Alexandra Paul. 

I hope you enjoy reading the articles from our talented group of writers, and hopefully learn something from them as well. I’d like to thank the team for their hard work this summer, and am excited for future issues to come! If you have any comments or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact us at theobserver@qiaa.org. If you’d like to contribute an article in the future, or apply to join our team, follow us on Instagram (@theobserver.qiaa) or Facebook (The Observer - Queen’s University) for updates.

Hope you enjoy the issue, and thank you for reading!

Noor Yassein

Print Editor-in-Chief, The Observer