It’s the pandemic that has made headlines since late 2019. Currently, in the United States, there have only been 19 confirmed cases of the coronavirus in various states. Globally, there have been outbreaks in several countries including Italy, United Kingdom, Russia, Taiwan, Australia, and several others. But what is the coronavirus? The coronavirus is now considered a novel virus, or a virus that has never been seen before. According to the Center for Disease Control, the CDC, the similarity between patients from China and the United States suggest that the virus could have emerged from an animal, specifically animals from a reservoir. The current symptoms of the virus include fever, coughing, and shortness of breath. The virus also has an incubation period of 2 to 14 days in a person, meaning that it could take anywhere from 2 to 14 days to begin showing signs of the virus. According to the CDC, some of the biggest ways to prevent the coronavirus is to avoid close contact with people who are sick, wash your hands frequently for at least twenty seconds, cough and sneeze into a tissue or your elbow, and avoid touching your eyes, mouth, and nose. Unfortunately, a previously unknown side effect of the virus is also racism. According to NBC News, many Asian college students have reported feeling discriminated by not only university students, but also faculty and staff. Some Asian students are even being told by the university at which they attend that if they do not quarantine themselves within their rooms, they could face disciplinary actions. Not only is this extremely unprofessional, but it creates an atmosphere where students who are not Asian think that it is okay to treat someone badly for absolutely no reason other than to say that they can. Think of it like this. These students are
thousands of miles away from their families in China, and they are concerned for the wellbeing of their family as the outbreak continues to spread. They now also must worry about possible xenophobic statements and actions from their classmates and professors. Yes, this virus is scary, but what is scarier is how quick we turn fear in hatred for someone else. It is not and has never been okay for a person to put somebody else down due to their ethnicity, so why are we allowing our fear of a virus do exactly that? If you are afraid of the coronavirus, don’t take that fear out on your classmates or colleagues. Instead, do your research on the virus and find ways to prevent yourself and others from being infected.