The Disaster Movie

I swear, this feels like a bad disaster movie. A new disease spreads across the world. Little is known about its short- or long-term effects. Medical treatments do not exist, it is unknown when a vaccine will be ready for use. Politicians downplay its impact, citizens don’t believe the disease is real, businesses care only about their profits, and scientists scream into the void about how serious the situation is – their voices falling on deaf ears.

3.36 million confirmed cases in the US, with a 4% death rate. [1]
135,615 people have died in the US in 164 days, as many as a 9/11 attack every 3.5 days. [1]
In the onset of the pandemic, the President of the US downplayed the impact of the virus. [2]
The President constantly defied health experts, promoting possible cures that haven’t been tested [3], suggesting bleach and UV lights could be a treatment vector [4], defunding health organizations in the middle of this crisis [5], attempting to defund federal testing efforts [6], casting shade and doubt on the nation’s top expert in infectious diseases – and the voice of reason in this pandemic [7], to calling recommendations related to reopening schools “expensive”, “tough”, and threatened to pull funding for schools that don’t reopen [8].
The government distributed payments to all individuals and provided extra money to unemployment benefits, but unemployment is still quite high. [9]
Loans were created for small businesses, but large corporations were quick to apply for the program. [10] [11]
As the pandemic rages, the President of the US has called for reduce testing, which would make the spread and impact of the pandemic harder to track. It is unclear if this is sarcasm or not, as the President seems to waffle back and forth on his sincerity of this claim. The President continues to make these claims. [12] [13] [14]
After a few months, people have understandably gotten restless. Many places began to move to a point of view putting the responsibility on citizens and removing stay-at-home orders [15]. That soon led to another spike in cases, thankfully causing many places to reinstate their protections. [16]
The MLB is attempting to have a shortened season, but so far has been met with a wave of cases among players and staff members. [17]
Universities have mostly said they will reopen in August, which seems like it will inevitably lead to a rise in cases as hundreds of students begin to occupy the same residence halls, dining facilities, libraries, downtown bars/restaurants, and other similar locations. [18]

I miss my friends, eating out in public, not being terrified of every in-person interaction I have, and buying my own groceries. The last 4 months feel completely wasted, and I hate that I’ve had friends leave here (or are about to leave here) that I’ve not been able to use these 4 months to be with them. But, this is a serious situation we are in. It’s not going to go away just because we are tired of it – people are going to keep dying until it is gone.

Sources:

[1] https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html

[2] https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/04/15/835011346/a-timeline-of-coronavirus-comments-from-president-trump-and-who

[3] https://www.bbc.com/news/51980731

[4] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-52407177

[5] https://edition.cnn.com/2020/07/07/politics/us-withdrawing-world-health-organization/index.html

[6] https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/26/trump-texas-coronavirus-testing-sites-341795

[7] https://www.npr.org/2020/07/13/890384330/trump-again-casts-doubt-on-fauci-as-covid-19-cases-surge

[8] https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/09/politics/cdc-guidelines-school-reopenings/index.html

[9] https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/empsit.pdf

[10] https://www.forbes.com/sites/sarahhansen/2020/04/29/potbelly-shake-shack-axios-here-are-all-the-companies-returning-ppp-money-after-public-backlash/#78d4af727ea0

[11] https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/06/coronavirus-stimulus-list-of-ppp-small-business-loan-recipients-released.html