Coming from a family where both of my parents work in hospitals, I am pretty well educated about the coronavirus. From my perspective, the coronavirus was a perfect storm of misconceptions, ignorance, and stubbornness around the world and in the United States. I firmly believe that if a few different actions were taken earlier, countries would not be in the situation they are in right now. I am NOT saying that the coronavirus would have been contained but what I am saying is that there were many different things that could have happened to have alleviated some patients.
Firstly, I HATE the misconception around the United States that young people are immune and they won't get sick. This misconception is completely FALSE. A lot about the virus is not completely understood and the mechanism of the virus in young people remains a mystery. It was reported that the number of virus particles in young people increases but has no impact and no one knows why. Any foreign entity multiplying in your body is extremely dangerous even though you might not be getting any symptoms now. The virus might be waiting for the perfect time to attack like in HIV or the virus might be doing something else. Furthermore, exposing our parents or grandparents to the virus is extremely dangerous. It frustrates me when I see all of these people my age going to the beach saying they're living their "best lives". By putting your own life and the people around you in danger, the only thing you're doing is hurting the community. Additionally, people who are in their 20's who are health are also getting EXTREMELY sick. Although I do agree that the chances are low, there's STILL a CHANCE. I like the metaphor where if I tell you that one skittle is poisonous in a group of 100, would you still eat the skittles? The ignorance and stubbornness needs to stop if this virus is going to be stopped.
Secondly, I have watched several speeches by the federal government and the CDC. The shear number of lies told by the federal government is completely outrageous. President Trump says one thing and then news comes out that he was completely lying. For example, he recently said that Google was ready to launch their new sites to help identify patients who need testing and then Google comes out saying they're not ready??? How could such a huge miscommunication happen? In a time like this, the federal government needs to have clear communication with the American public and tell them EXACTLY what's going on. (Instead, the president recently was way more interested in telling a reported to be ashamed of himself when he asked the question of what message the president had to tell the millions of Americans are scared! Like what even???) Furthermore, the USA had a chance to buy more testing, fund research, and buy more equipment 3 months in advance to the virus becoming prevalent in the country. If these steps were taken, the whole situation would be completely different now. The lack of leadership is becoming extremely clear now. How does the "biggest economy in the world" NOT have enough testing kits? Why are they struggling with ventilators? The coronavirus completely exposed the United States.
Having said all of this, I am praying that the federal government makes new policies that help the poor people who are infected and becoming sick. I understand the immediate goal is to help these people become better but hopefully research for a vaccine and how to defeat this virus is also being done. The malaria drug is being seen as a possible solution but what if it doesn't have a significant impact? We'll be completely hopeless unless research is being done on another drug. My prayers go out to everyone who is sick and hopefully the people whom were ignorant before have gained some insight to the frustrations of many other people. My parents are risking their lives everyday so please respect that and follow CDC procedures.
Make sure to wash your hands, practice good social distancing, and stay healthy!!! An hour of exercise goes a long way in your health and mood especially in such a depressing situation. This definitely isn't going to be my last post about corona...
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