I smoked my last cigarette today, and have recently chopped all my hair off -Isa (Sabel)

What topic should I talk about. Where should I even start explaining my opinions on the effects Covid-19 has had on our society as a whole? The World? If all it takes is an unknown strain of the flu for us to ransack stores and start riots, then if some sort of apocalyptic situation were to arise then quite frankly we are doomed. My thoughts on the whole pandemic are on the morbid side, if I am to be honest, but not proud. I feel that what is scaring people more than anything is the fact that it’s new; we don’t know it. Hell, each year anywhere from 290,00 up to 650,000 people around the world die due to complications with Influenza (Pietrasik), and “32.0 million [23.6 million–43.8 million] people have died from AIDS-related illnesses since the start of the epidemic (end 2018)”(UNAIDS). But those are fine, because we know them, have grown accustomed to them, even though they are powerful illnesses nonetheless. 

This is not to say that Covid-19 should not be taken seriously, it most certainly should. From a person who is at high risk of getting it, and knows others who are being directly affected by it, please wear your masks, stay away from each other, and wash your hands, but the level of panic is outrageous. Yet at the same time it would be insensitive of me to recognize the facts that minorities are being hit the hardest, not the wealthy that want to sing to us like some parent singing a shitty lullaby to their baby as they send it down the river, only to go back and sit in their cushy homes. 

Minorities tend to work a lot of “essential jobs”, and are most likely to not have health insurance. Therefore, even though “Black Americans represent only about 13% of the population in the states reporting racial/ethnic information, they account for about 34% of total Covid-19 deaths in those states” (John Hopkins University). Latin and Asian Americans also show similar data. Not only are minorities being hit the hardest, but hate crimes against those of Asian descent are through the roof, and I.C.E has taken the opportunity to get people who are just trying to stay home and stay safe, and detain them, putting them at a higher risk for contracting Covid-19. Furthermore, on march 20th, 2020, “the administration announced it would begin to remove anyone crossing US borders illegally, including people seeking asylum, immediately without due process”(Calma). Citizenship and Immigrant services have also been closed, which is a problem for those whose green cards and visas have expired during this time, including one of my mothers clients, who should have been a citizen last week, but instead he’s worried that due to his green card expiring, and the lack of flexibility and understanding the government has for immigrants like him, he will be taken from the life he has made for himself in the USA. So really, all I’ve learned from a social and economical point of view is that 1.) Late-stage capitalism is incredibly fragile and will crumble and ruin thousands of working-class lives at the slightest inconvenience and 2.) people are being dicks about the whole thing (Including myself, in a way).

Oh but what can Society learn from this? How will this affect our way of living? Nothing really major, I think. Remember the whole AIDS thing? Well a lot of people still have unprotected sex, still don’t get tested. Parents still don’t vaccinate their kids, and the world keeps on spinning. The United States of America has been through Wars, Depressions, this, that, the other thing, and only a fraction of the habits from those times have become a part of our daily lives. Maybe the masks will stay, I like those. Even before the pandemic I wore masks as it helps with my asthma and other things, so that’d be nice not to be stared at when I wear one in public. It’s selfish, but still.

 Most of all, I want this Pandemic to take a chunk out of the human ego, and hopefully make us more precautious in the future. We are essentially just meat and electricity, same as practically every other organism on this planet, yet we as a species love to sit on the highest of horses with our medicine, our philosophy, our societies, but all it took to send us hiding in our houses, world crumbling around us, was a little pathogen derived from the common cold. We are so fragile, a blink in comparison to the grand age of our planet, the world doesn’t need us, we need it, we are nothing. Don’t ever forget that. Again, the fact that my opinions on the situation are rather heartless, cold, and grim does not evade me, but they are my opinions all the same. 

 So anyways, how should the coronavirus pandemic change the way we live going forwards? Wash your hands more. 

Works Cited

Pietrasik, T. “Influenza (Seasonal).” World Health Organization, World Health Organization, 6 Nov. 2018,  http://www.who.int/news-room/fact sheets/detail/influenza-(seasonal).

“Racial Data Transparency.” Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center, John Hopkins University & Medicine, 17 Apr. 2020, coronavirus.jhu.edu/data/us-state-data-availability.

“Global HIV & AIDS Statistics – 2019 Fact Sheet.” UNAIDS.org, UNAIDS, 2019, http://www.unaids.org/en/resources/fact-sheet.

Calma, Justine. “Migrants Aren’t to Blame for COVID-19.” The Verge, The Verge, 27 Mar. 2020, http://www.theverge.com/2020/3/27/21196100/immigration-borders-covid-19-coronavirus.