How Did We Go From a 15-day Quarantine to 45 days?
March 31, 2020
COVID-19, also known as Coronavirus, has been affecting everyday life.
Personally, I was happy when physical classroom activity was canceled, offering a break from waking up at 6:30 a.m. and returning home at 2:45 p.m., but it’s actually turned out to be terrible. It seems as though every week that the number allowed to gather together decreases, and now people aren’t allowed to meet in groups larger than three.
It doesn’t make it any easier to contain this virus when some people don’t listen to the rules suggested by the government and doctors, and recklessly go out in public. Some don’t understand that this is very serious and people are becoming sick and dying. Moreover, young people may not think they can be affected by this disease because it is the most deadly for people aged 65+ with preexisting respiratory issues. Not only is that claim not true, but young people can act as carriers for the virus and catalyze family transmission (the main reason why Italy has over 10,000 deaths from the virus). Regardless of age, if you aren’t helping to solve the issue, you are the issue.
The original timetable for people to go back to normalcy, as suggested by President Donald Trump, was Easter. Now due to the fast and significant increase in the spread of the virus, this has been pushed back until April 30.
This is having a massive impact on high school students because it’s tougher to learn online. Not only that, but the high school spring athletic season will most likely be canceled.
As the days feel longer and longer, people are left with the choice of obeying the rules and staying home or going out with friends. Those who go out may not realize it, but they are the reason the social distancing laws are becoming more strict.
Ironically, the Trump administration took a more liberal approach to the situation at first. President Trump felt that if people were to stay inside for 15 days that the virus could be under control. I strongly disagree with him because the virus symptoms won’t show up in some cases for 14 days. This means on the last day of the quarantine, someone could get the virus and begin showing symptoms. However, they may think it is a common cold, or just have a mild case of the virus and once the 15-day quarantine is lifted, they will go out in public. This could potentially spread it to others.
I understand why President Trump and his administration want life to start going back to normal because the economy is suffering and three million Americans lost their jobs but it’s not a good idea to rush this when it can cause more people to get it. We are better off safe than sorry.
President Trump said, “The better you do, the faster this whole nightmare will end” (FoxNews). This statement is true given that everyone follows the governments’ and doctors’ suggestions of how to slow the spread of the virus. On the contrary, it’s not guaranteed that people will follow social distancing. So maybe we should realize that millions of people are not going to follow the suggestions, and take other measures.
When getting interviewed on Fox News, President Trump also said, “We are going to have to close the country… we have never closed the country before.” Clearly, this quote shows the severity of the situation. This isn’t something he should put a time frame on due to how serious this is.
To say that the country is going to close means that all life must be put on pause, which till now has never happened making this topic more severe.
In a Coronavirus update press conference on March 26, President Trump stated, “If everyone makes this change or these critical changes, and sacrifices now, we will rally together as one nation and will defeat the virus.” This is a little too good to be true. I think saying this is good because it shows hope, and the people want to hear a possible solution. In reality, though, it is unlikely everyone in the nation will follow the suggestions.
Towards the end of the 15 days, Trump pushed back his suggested date of April 12th to April 30th.
Per National Public Radios’ (NPR.org) report, “How 15 days became 45: Trump extends guidelines to slow Coronavirus” presidential economic advisor Stephen Moore said, “Look, we have to make a very tough calculation here about how much, how long we can keep this economy from functioning because if we don’t, the carnage to our economy – people’s lives – might be greater than the health risk of putting people back on the job.”
He believes if something doesn’t happen, soon the economy is going to fold and people will be jobless, possibly homeless, with too many seeking government aid, putting the economy in an even worse position than it already is.
President Trump made a prudent health decision by pushing back the day he hopes people start going back to work. I agree with this more cautious approach, as opposed to going back to normal prematurely because now it gives the medical community more time to contain the virus.
I wouldn’t be surprised if this date was pushed back a couple more months.
The peak of deaths from this virus isn’t supposed to be for another two weeks, meaning its safe to say life won’t resume for a couple of months. As of March 29, more than 2,100 Americans died and a startling number of 142,000 have this virus.
As of now, there is a high unemployment rate and nobody knows when work will be back to normal. I do think that it is the right decision in pushing back the day of the expected return to normalcy.
Although I believe a nation that doesn’t have a strong economy cannot function, the best thing to do is put normal activities on pause. Of course, this may cause many other problems in people’s lives but it’s not worth rushing a process with no solution.
I just don’t find it logical that society can just pick up where they started after so much has happened. Keeping everyone at home and social distancing should be the number one priority so people stay safe.
Personally I hate this time because I can’t see my friends and my education is suffering without human-to-human contact with my teachers.
I’m not the only one going through this problem, we all are, and many others have been impacted way worse than myself. The best thing to do is just stick through it. Eventually, life will continue and the economy will hopefully be back to where it was but in the meantime, everyone should practice the proper techniques. Those techniques, as you are probably hearing for the hundredth time in the last week, are social distancing and washing your hands.