By Anissa Deol
I haven’t left the house in six days, and it already feels like it has been a month.
I’m surrounded by Lysol wipes and constant news coverage of COVID-19.
I’m surrounded by a mass amount of emails and a new worry of whether or not this semester will end well.
This virus was unexpected. No one anticipated that schools would close, some people would lose their jobs and stop their daily routines. But the most unexpected thing, the scariest thing, is the uncertainty. No one knows when this is going end or even how it is spread.
It has stopped me from going to volunteer at the hospitals on Saturdays and attend karate classes.
It has stopped me from going to the movie theater with my family and postponed new movies that were supposed to come out this month.
These kinds of activities and events that I normally did help me separate myself from school deadlines and stress that usually engulfed my life for five days every week. However, now that I have no reason to leave my house, all I can do is think about this virus.
The amount of sleep I’m getting has been reducing every night, and I normally sleep better at home than I do at my dorm. However, with this uncertainty, it has not only thrown my body for a loop but my mind as well.
As I have heard from multiple news anchors in the past nights, it’s just the beginning.
At first, I didn’t think the outbreak was anything serious. I kept myself updated with the situation in China, and at that time, Wuhan had begun to lockdown their city. Since January, at least 50 million people were mandated that they stay in their houses. After hearing about people rushing to leave and buy plane and train tickets out of the city, it made me a little worried. But I never thought it would reach the U.S.
However, when the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 as a global pandemic, the series of events that continued made me feel like I was living in a movie. How did everything escalate so quickly? Why was Italy suffering the most? Would it get this bad in North Carolina?
Bill Gates, in 2015, gave a TED talk about how the world wasn’t ready for the next outbreak. He basically predicted that another outbreak after Ebola would cause more deaths and the world wouldn’t be able to sustain them. This video got 9,081,924 views, so why don’t we have enough ventilators or hospital beds in the U.S. if this was predicted?
I have so many questions, and it’s really taken a toll on my mental health. With having to adapt to this new online education and new schedule, I feel like everything is coming at me simultaneously.
But mostly I am worried about the wellbeing of my parents. My mom refuses to stay indoors some days because she feels like she needs to get more food just in case and constantly needs to be doing something. My dad has to go to work because he works as a health professional. When put into perspective, my tuition or the seven-page paper I have due in two weeks is nothing compared to the severity of the side effects of the virus.
I can go outside and find serenity among the silence, but it doesn’t ease my mind like it usually would. COVID-19 has engulfed my community, my life, and even my dreams.
There is no telling when there will be an end to this, and how many more lives will be lost.
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