High hopes for lessons learned

Like everyone else, I’m stuck at home in a worldwide quarantine, all due to a breakthrough of a disease named Covid-19. While everyone’s running to their local Wal-Mart to hoard toilet paper and buying ridiculous amounts of cleaning products, I sit at home and laugh at the memes being made of those exact people. Though I do take precautions, I have felt not one moment of panic on what I’m gonna do without 3 MEGA packs of toilet paper. Nothing’s changed. Just stay inside unless you need to go out for groceries or want to avoid strangling your nearest family member.

Personally, my typical day consists of sleeping in until noon, watching some Netflix, getting a bit of school work done, and finding things to do to pass the time. It’s a normal weekend routine, but times seven to last an entire week. Since we’re in lockdown mode, I never leave the house and lose a little sanity every morning. Every morning I wake up hoping for it all to be over, so I can actually enjoy a little normal time out of the house.

Life is already chaotic as it is, but coronavirus making an entrance hasn’t necessarily improved things. Everyone was thrilled for the extra time off to do nothing… for about three days. Now everyone’s ripping their hair out, itching for something to do other than watching movies and working. My extroverted side is suffering. Other than that, I just worry for the people around me that are more vulnerable.

My hopes for the virus involves a few eye openers for the world. It’s amazing to see the CO2 emissions in China completely disappear after everything shut down. The rivers in Venice are clear again, and you can see the fish in the water without the boats. The human race is so horrible that with our absence, the world can breathe again. I hope after the epidemic, communities are more appreciative of our medical field. In addition, I hope everyone, including myself, is more appreciative of the little things we never knew we’d be so miserable without. Also, I’m really hoping that we realize the impact of our existence on Earth’s health, and people will finally recognize that climate change is real, and we need to do something about it.

Fears I’ve come across through this quarantine include the xenophobia and racism that Chinese and/or Asian people are facing during this time. For example, Trump publicly called the virus “Chinese Virus,” and added he calls it that because “it came from China.” There are also reports of Asian people on the streets being beaten and blamed for the epidemic. Furthermore, I don’t know much about the economy, but businesses being shut down everywhere can’t be good. I have high hopes we’ll make it out just fine, hopefully with some lessons learned.