As I sit here in quarantine, among the number of positive COVID cases, my perspective on the virus has changed some-what. I’ve experienced two days of straight nausea and migraines that I would hope no one has to experience. Hearing my friends talk about how they do not care if they get it, is even more troubling, however. When I first tested positive, people were less concerned for my health than I would have hoped. Even my brother and grandma seemed unconcerned with how I was feeling and would shift the conversation to other things. While I am lucky to be the age I am during the pandemic because the effects are not life-threatening, it seems as though people have become desensitized to the others getting sick and dying. At the beginning of the pandemic, it was predicted that somewhere between 80,000 and 150,000 people would die, but now we’ve passed half a million in just the United States. That’s more than the number of people who live in the city of Charleston, where I am from. That’s over half of the state of Delaware’s population, dead. The Texas governor just reopened everything at 100 percent capacity and New York’s governor is allowing middle schools to start returning to in-person class, just as the new variant has popped up in New York and the number of cases is going up.
There’s a popular Tik Tok audio that goes, “The pandemic isn’t over, just because you’re over it.” I think this speaks to a lot of people’s mindsets right now. And I’m not saying I’m perfect because I would not be in quarantine if I was. However, Biden warned of a long winter with the pandemic and winter is not over yet. If we can hold off on large gatherings until the end of March, we can start going outside and congregating in social distanced groups in the warmer months.
I had hoped that I would be able to get through the pandemic without ever having the virus, obviously now that is impossible. But in some ways I am grateful for this experience because I feel like it has allowed me to atone for the mistakes I made. This has been an eye-opening experience that I hope will give me the insight to help prevent any of my friends from having to go through the same thing. All I can hope for now is a speedy recovery and for the end of winter to come swiftly with the vaccine rollout. After my first real New York winter, I think spring will bring a lot of good.