By: Bianca Viana
At this point, we all know what the Coronavirus is and how it has already impacted all of our lives in many different ways. Classes have been moved online for the rest of the semester, and students have been told to leave their dorms. The NCAA canceled the rest of the scheduled season for the year. The NHL, MLB, and NBA have all postponed their seasons as well. Restaurants and other public places have been closed in a variety of states. We’re being told to stay inside and quarantine. The amount of cases continues to rise each day. The World Health Organization (WHO) has long since declared this as a pandemic. This seems like something out of a movie. Weeks ago, no one would have foreseen any of this happening. So how did we get here?
On December 31st, China first alerted WHO of several flu-like cases in Wuhan, a city with a population of 11milion people. On January 1st, the U.S. Centers for Diseases Control and Prevention (CDC) had identified a seafood market in Wuhan as being the origin of the outbreak. On January 3rd airports in China began screening passengers on incoming flights from Wuhan, mainly checking for temperatures. On January 5th WHO said it wasn’t necessary for other countries to start imposing trade and or travel restrictions on China with the limited amount of information available. On January 7th, Chinese authorities identified the virus causing these flu-like symptoms as being the 2019-nCoV better known as coronavirus. On January 11th the first death in Wuhan linked to coronavirus was reported. January 13th, first confirmed case in Thailand. January 15th, the first confirmed case reached Japan. On January 17th, the second person died from coronavirus in China, and the U.S. began screening passengers from Wuhan at San Francisco, JFK, and LAX airports. On January 20th, the third person in Wuhan had died from the virus, South Korea confirmed its first case, airports in many countries began screening, more than 200 cases were reported throughout various cities in China. On January 21st the U.S. confirmed its first case of Coronavirus. Fast forward to February 1st, where the death toll hit 259 in China, and the total cases worldwide had reached 11,374. As you can see, within a month the amount of people who died and/or the number of people infected was huge. Let’s fast forward now to March. The worldwide death toll has now increased to 3,000 worldwide and the total number of cases being more than 88,000 cases worldwide.
The stock market has been tanking, and every single industry is taking a huge hit but, the travel industry in particular. Many flights have been grounded and countries such as Italy, France and Spain have gone on lockdown in efforts to help contain the spread of the virus. Many cruise ships have had numerous passengers come down with the virus while on board. In efforts to contain the spread of the virus, many cruise companies have made the decision to suspend all of their cruises for some time. Many airlines have also stopped flying to many countries and its possible that soon we will see domestic flights in the U.S. being grounded soon.
It’s all so overwhelming and feels so surreal, this is something that none of us would have ever seen coming at the start of this year. Unfortunately, we are only in the beginning phases here in America, and sadly it’s only going to get worse. On Monday March 16th, Adelphi told all of their students that they would need to move-out of their residence halls completely and exceptions would be made on a case-by-case basis. Later on, that day the Adelphi community was told that all of their classes would now be held remotely in a strictly online format for the remainder of the semester. This is some news that really affected me strongly being a resident on campus and only being a freshman. I was really upset to find out that I would have to move out of my dorm and that I wouldn’t be returning to campus again until August. I had just joined Delta Phi Epsilon and I was quite upset to find out that now I wouldn’t be getting initiated at the end of March as planned. I think I can speak for everyone when I say that we are all really upset about what is happening right now.
My heart goes out to all of the seniors and student-athletes during this time. Many of our seniors will not get the chance to finish their last semester on Adelphi’s campus but rather on their computers. In addition to this many student-athletes will not be able to finish out their seasons playing the sports they love for, in particular the senior athletes. The NCAA has indicated that they would do their best to give senior athletes a chance at another season however, it’s just not the same as having their senior season and playing on the court of their field that they call their home.
In the wake of all of this upsetting news, it’s important that we all remain positive and do our best to keep safe. Just because we have to practice social distancing does not mean we can’t still facetime our friends and family! We can only hope that this will soon pass, and we can return to our everyday lives but as for now we are better off being safe than sorry. We all need to do our part and stay inside and listen to what our health officials are saying so that we can contain the spread of this virus.
Comments