A few days ago, I went to Walmart to pick up some groceries for my week’s stay on campus for rowing spring break training. Walking in, I immediately felt overwhelmed. The store was packed and there were people running around all over to get what they needed. The sight of many empty shelves and store employees hastily restocking as fast as they could completely took me off guard. There was barely any toilet paper and much of the canned goods were gone. This grocery store trip came the day after the first case of coronavirus was confirmed in Northern Virginia– right in Fairfax of all places. Needless to say, I was a little freaked out.
With the daily news notifications of the spread of the coronavirus (COVID-19) constantly lighting up my phone screen, it’s hard to not constantly think about who and where it’s going to affect next.
Personally, I’ve been feeling anxious about this whole thing going back a few weeks before it became more widespread in the U.S. Though it was far away at the time, I kept thinking about all of those people who were quarantined in their cities and isolated from the world. One article I read, from the BBC, detailed the day in the life of a woman living alone in Wuhan under the lockdown. Reading her story, written in the first-person perspective, showed me a reality that seemed somewhat close to a scenario from a dystopian novel. Another thing that made the virus hit closer to home was when college students studying abroad started to become affected by the outbreak. People that I know who had decided to spend their spring semester abroad in Europe were suddenly having to cut their trips short and make other arrangements. Many big companies have turned to online work from home. A town in New York has resorted to creating a containment area around where a large cluster of cases of COVID-19 has happened.
Now, the World Health Organization (WHO) has officially announced coronavirus as a pandemic. While I don’t personally know anyone who is infected, the presence of coronavirus is becoming more real each day. More and more colleges are canceling in-person classes and extending their spring breaks. Never did I ever think that an entire semester might happen online and that I could potentially be returning home so early.
So how can we stay calm during all of this? I think that the main thing to keep in mind is that you really shouldn’t panic. Panic and hysteria will cause more stress among people, and things like the shortages and clearing out of stores like the Walmart I was in will happen. While it’s important to be prepared for any situation, I have to think that everyone stocking up on everything may not be exactly what will help. Just like how only people who really need face masks should actually wear them.
It’s also important to note that while WHO has declared COVID-19 to be a pandemic rather than a global emergency, they are still continuing with their methods and messages so far and the status change has not caused any new extreme measures to occur.
“Describing the situation as a pandemic does not change WHO’s assessment of the threat posed by the virus,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesu said at a briefing in Geneva, “It doesn’t change what WHO is doing. And it doesn’t change what countries should do.”
The most effective things that you can do are also the simplest. If you have to cough or sneeze, do so into your elbow. Avoid touching your face. And most importantly – WASH. YOUR. HANDS. Washing your hands for 20 seconds using soap and warm water is really the best defense we have against viruses.
Stay healthy and safe out there!