Life before and after COVID-19

Were you always carrying hand sanitizer with you or being extra careful with everything you do and the amount of people you surround yourself with, or did this virus hit you harder than you had expected? COVID-19 spread around the world really fast and no one knew why. Everyone was forced to go into lockdown whether you had symptoms or not, which a lot of people found unfair and decided to say what’s on their mind. A lot of people thought “if everyone with symptoms just stayed inside we would all be fine, I know I would”, which is hard to say whether they would or not because you don’t even have symptoms for two to fourteen days, so you don’t know if you’re spreading it wherever you are. “Before the pandemic? Naw I hate hand sanitizer. I have some with me all the time now though”

For those who like to party or like big crowds, concerts, buffets, swimming pools, theme parks, roller/ice skating rinks, etc. the news of the quarantine might have been harder to deal with and they might not have known what to do. “There isn’t much you can do.” Either risk it and try to continue life like COVID doesn’t exist or follow the rules and have little to no interactions with others. On the other hand, there are the people who never really got along with others or had fear of public speaking. People who like it indoors and don’t find this limit of people in stores or not having to go in public to get basic necessities like quarantine. Then there’s the people who have jobs, some can work from home and then there’s the others that have to go to work because their job requires them to be in the building. Jobs like delivery, caretakers, restaurant employees, etc. Some jobs like teachers who do class all day, need to go to the school building because their wifi is bad at home and that’s not something they can fix easily.

Some people have always been careful with germs since they were little kids based on their parents actions, and then there are those who never really thought about them because they couldn’t see them. Some have the mindset like “if you can’t see it, why worry about it” and that’s a lot like COVID-19. You can’t see the germs, some don’t even get the symptoms like sneezing and coughing until it’s been days and the whole time you could be spreading it without even knowing it. “Ignorance is bliss. If you can’t ‘see’ the germs, it’s easy to not worry about them.” Growing up, a lot of people were told to wash their hands after going outside, going to the bathroom, helping make food, working in science class, and simple things like that, but now we have to wash our hands so much that we’re losing count on how much we do it. Oftentimes, things that are not seen are not given the proper attention. “We can’t see germs. But if you think about it, when we saw a person coughing, sneezing, or blowing their nose, we automatically moved away from them. So, I think that we were still conscious of germs, but we just didn’t suspect anyone until they were showing symptoms.” 

COVID came out of nowhere and at first no one knew what to do which is understandable because it was new to everyone. Although it was understandable to be confused in the beginning, but to still be confused after we know a lot about it is not understandable. Wearing masks right is a big thing when trying to protect yourself, but if people wear it wrong – without it on your nose, on your chin, or not at all. Not wearing your mask correctly increases the chances of you getting COVID because if someone coughs or sneezes you’re likely to get it. In order to get the world past COVID-19, everyone has to start working together and doing everything correctly. It’s time to put our differences aside and get past this as a community. Just a loving community from afar.