1/27/2020
At lunch today, we were talking about the coronavirus. Apparently the death toll is 80 now. Basically, my friend said the virus spread through consumption, so I said “nomnomnom.” Then I asked what spread by consumption meant and my friend said by eating. He said he thought it was only by consumption but it was actually also by proximity. Then we talked about how zombies are reverse consumption. I said zombies would be consumption too since if you eat a zombie then you can also become a zombie.
2/2/2020
I was delirious and vividly dreamed I had the coronavirus. Then I got better. Sort of. I still have a really bad cough. But I’m not feverish anymore, at least.
2/26/2020
When I coughed, my friend asked me to prove that I had phlegm because that would mean I didn’t have coronavirus.
3/13/2020
We talked about school closures and coronavirus. Some teachers said school wouldn’t close at all. Some said it would close for 2 days. Some said it would be two weeks minimum.
I accidentally put my arm in my best friend’s mouth when hugging her. After 6th period, a classmate hugged us and we said to elbow bump.
4/2/2020
OMG SCHOOL IS CLOSED FOR THE REST OF THE YEAR
4/5/2020
Today, my mom talked to my sister and me about coronavirus. She said that today in New York City there were 4,000 more infected and 2 deaths. Also, in California there are 14,000 (I think?) infected. Or something like that. She said that a lot of nurses on the front lines can’t take it because they see so many people die in front of them. And there aren’t enough masks so they only get 1 a day, so one nurse said she can’t drink for 12 hours because after they put on the mask they can’t take it off for their whole shift. And people in New York have started stealing because they don’t have enough food. In hospitals she said there are probably only around 50 rooms, and in some places there are 500 people infected (like San Francisco or something). Also, some nurses can’t stop crying at the end of their shifts because of the things they’ve witnessed.
4/11/2020
A month ago, hearing that restaurants and other places were offering free food to anyone below 18 would have been absurd. Or the idea that one person would go around buying gift cards to help keep small businesses alive. All of a sudden, people are behaving so much differently because of coronavirus. Honestly, it’s painful to read over news reports from months or even weeks ago. People treated social distancing as a joke, almost. The number of cases in the US was in the hundreds. The experts already predicted that this would be a bad thing and urged us to try harder just weeks ago. Now the cases are in the hundred thousands in the US and there are a million worldwide. Things changed so quickly.
It’s nice to be able to walk outside and see all the people playing on the streets. The air feels fresher, too. It rains a lot more and I like staring out my window when it’s pouring. I honestly don’t know how to feel.
It reminds me of that one dream I had when 10th grade suddenly ended and it was already 11th grade. It’s hard to imagine that Friday, March 13 was the last day of school for us. The people who stockpiled food were right.
This is not a joke anymore. This is real. I read an article yesterday about how children might be worst-affected by this; after Hurricane Katrina, they did studies and saw that children who were impacted by it did a lot worse in life due to post-traumatic stress. With this global pandemic, a whole generation might be. Babies who are being born now are called “Generation C.” Because this might be the only life they’ll ever know. A lot of experts are starting to predict that this will last much longer than a few months. I mean, the US is suddenly the worst hit. We beat China. Not the way the politicians intended to, but we beat them in the number of cases. And they have 4 times the amount of people we have. And they got it first. Experts are hopeful now that we can fix this eventually, but they all say that something in the government has to change. Nothing has changed since the time they wrote the articles. Fake news is everywhere. Nobody knows who or what to trust. And as much as there is good, there is bad also. People have been robbing schools. People have been bullying Asians. I haven’t been affected yet, but I’m scared.
I’m scared because it feels like nothing. To me, other than Zoom calls and staying at home a lot, coronavirus hasn’t really done anything much to me. I hear about it in the news and see the sweeping changes that result from new policies, but it hasn’t hit me. It hasn’t done anything to me. I hear about the deaths and they’re just numbers. I honestly just spend time at home. I didn’t even see the empty grocery stores. It’s like an extended summer break. My mom goes out to buy things, but that’s all. And we buy more things from online, but that’s all. I’m just at home, and nothing’s changed.
And everything’s changed. I can’t do anything. I don’t even know what I’d do. Anything I do could put me more at risk.
The scary thing is, every shopping trip my mom takes puts us more at risk. Every shopping trip renews the two-week incubation period. Another chance for us to get it. And even if we stay at home, what’s the likelihood that one person out of all the people in the supply chain hasn’t had coronavirus? The people who make the food. The ones who pack them. The ones who load them onto the trucks and drive them away, the ones who deliver them to our door. And it’s even worse if you go out in public. And think of all the things that have been bought online. What are the chances?
I guess I’ve spent a lot of my time feeling lonely. And doing art. Maybe more on the art side. I feel lonely when I do homework, and I don’t know why. I feel lonely when nobody actually attends a video call at the time we agreed on. I’m also worried that I’ll lose all of my communication skills after this pandemic is over. And I’m scared I won’t do anything useful with my time.
Well, I did this partly because my teacher encouraged us to write about this worldwide event, and partly because I wanted to. I’m still not sure how to feel.
5/29/2020
My teacher asked us which method of learning we preferred and we said on campus. The teachers apparently thought that we’d all be back in classrooms by the time September came around. But now they had to deal with things like the 6ft distance.
8/26/20
[Virtual school started]
1/2/2021
242k, 262k, 291k deaths
Submitted by Nichelle W., Alameda County – Fremont.