Sorry for the unexpected hiatus…
I am not sure why I do this to myself but just like when the Ebola virus was a thing, I watched Outbreak. More recently, I sat through Contagion. I then went to follow that up with a round of Resident Evil… as if I need to be any more paranoid. But rest assured that any anxiety or bizarre dreams I have will be filtered into a story… Maybe this quarantine was just the concentration I needed.
If I could just stay focused.
Just kidding…
Not for nothing, I’ve kept my opinions about this outbreak to a bare minimum up to this point. Despite a few social media memes and a podcast episode, mum has been the word. But in case you’ve been under a rock, the entire world has been forced indoors and into self-isolation. Except the hoods within the US. 🤦🏽♀️ I will ran about that later. But this quarantine has been a global effort to halt the spread of the latest viral threat, Covid-19.
So Far…
On March 11th, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared COVID-19 a pandemic. Federal, state and local governments went on to issue quarantines across the nation. Schools, museums and other recreational or otherwise non-essential programs were shut down for at what was originally presumed to be 2 weeks. Despite some schools switching to online learning and others school districts suspending the rest of the school year, officials are still unsure when things will return back to normal.
Even the NBA and NHL seasons were postponed following the NCAA’s cancellation of March Madness. Around that same time, President Trump announced that international flights from Europe would be suspended. This perpetuated even more of a scare with travelers scrambling to get back to the states.
Pandemonium
After announcing the initial quarantine, folks rushed off to stores. It was apparent that a lot of things would be shut down for the weekend to come. Suddenly everyone was getting serious about simple sanitary precautions such as washing hands. Before anyone could say apocalypse, it would seem that people had bought all the masks, disinfectant, hand sanitizer, gloves, water and toilet tissue off shelves. Food started becoming scarce as the demand to stock and hoard food outweighed the supply. Any and everything people could think would keep them afloat against the viral outbreak of COVID-19 (aka coronavirus) was virtually impossible to find. People had lost their damn minds hoarding shit in bulk.
What made this issue even more annoying was the fact that stores continued to stay open throughout the shutdown anyway. Shelves were steadily restocked and I sat there wondering what life would have been like had coronavirus taken out everyone. I imagine life as the female version of Will Smith in I AM Legend.
This shit was crazy to say the least. Yet I can’t help but hear one of the voices in my head saying (yes I said voices…lol) that the media has contributed to this mass hysteria. Like expected, media has perpetuated more fear toxin than the Scarecrow himself.
I also can’t help but believe that something strange is afoot… something like a conspiracy. Now while I love the idea of getting my news as soon as I can, I think that most people have allowed it to scare them into panic. And as this situation continues, people went from making impulsive and fear-induced moves to outright ignoring the social distancing rules.
Save for celebs and really old or people across seas, no one we knew were sick. Then the numbers began revealing themselves in the US. Two weeks in and the US seemed to take shit serious again.
What we know:
COVID-19 is the infectious disease caused by the most recently discovered new or (novel) coronavirus. Despite my thoughts on where and how this viral outbreak spawned, reports say this new type of coronavirus and disease were unknown before the outbreak began in Wuhan, China, in December 2019… hence its name. “Experts” speculate that it began with bats and spread from animals to humans.
However, conflicting conspiracy-theory reports say that the officials knew well along about this virus and a potential outbreak. Also I heard several reports of bioweapons being sold and spread via the blackmarket well before the winter of 2019.
I don’t know if that part is true but I have played enough Resident Evil video games to know that it isn’t entirely impossible or far-fetched.
According to the CDC: Coronaviruses are actually a large family of viruses which may cause illness in animals or humans. In humans, several coronaviruses are known to cause respiratory infections ranging from the common cold to more severe diseases such as Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS).
Symptoms of COVID-19 were identified as fatigue, dry cough, runny nose, sore throat, diarrhea, aches and fever. Illness can be more severe for some people and can lead to pneumonia. More rarely, the disease can be fatal. Older people, and those with other medical conditions (such as asthma, diabetes, or heart disease), may be more vulnerable to becoming severely ill.
Some patients may have aches and pains, nasal congestion, runny nose, sore throat or diarrhea. These symptoms are usually mild and begin gradually.
Around 1 out of every 6 people who gets COVID-19 becomes seriously ill and develops difficulty breathing. Older people, and those with underlying medical problems like high blood pressure, heart problems or diabetes, are more likely to develop serious illness. People with fever, cough and difficulty breathing should seek medical attention.
Others become infected but don’t develop any symptoms at all. Most people (about 80% of the infected) recover from the disease without needing special treatment or medical care.
What to do:
- Wash your hands properly
- Don’t touch your face
- Don’t put your hands in your mouth
- Stay home if you’re sick
As the Quarantine Continues
That being said, the media, social media, medical professionals and non-medical know-it-alls cannot stop talking about this shit. People have gone so far as to harass anyone who simply coughs & sneezes. I don’t know what’s worse, people’s assumptions of this disease or their sheer paranoia.
It would also seem that as soon as people began to calm themselves, there is some new coronavirus-related scare or some new symptom that they are discovering. Once that didn’t work, we had to hear every time someone famous contracted the virus or died.
Conspiracy theorists have also flooded the internet. Meanwhile I’m still sitting here playing zombie games and watching zombie flicks. It all makes me wonder who the fuck sat in a lab and played bartender with a bunch of viruses.
Are there really Wesker types? Does a Umbrella type of corporation exist?
Prior to this scare, tensions between the US and China were kinda patchy to say the least. Trump was on a rampage with sanctioning trades and whatnot. There’s been all this 5g techy talk that pretty much goes over my head. Then came the Chinese New Year. Suddenly, folks from any part of Asia were being targeted. Anyone and everyone who had been to East Asia were being checked and quarantined. People were stuck on cruise ships, jobs were shut down and suddenly millions of US citizens were seeking unemployment compensation.
I mean this shit is beyond crazy. And the fact that it’s all people are discussing doesn’t surprise me. While most people are cashing in on this pandemonium, others are trying their best to not get sick. The crazy part is that so many of the things we use on a daily basis comes from China.
As allergy season looms in, one must wonder what will happen next. God knows I could go without the media scaring us every 5 fucking minutes or some conspiracy theorist yapping just as much.
Makes me wonder just how long this will go on. I mean we’ve had scares before and we’ve had pandemics before.
And guess what?
We’ve survived them all.
Remember bird flu or Ebola not long ago? This isn’t much different. It’s all over the news. Makes me nostalgic for petty crime reports and less political scandals. But hey… it’s the life we now know. But this too will pass and we will get through it.
Until Next Time Kiddies,
Shalom
Follow the Drunken Insomniac Writer on:
Instagram: @Insomniac_Writer
Twitter: @Nsomniac_Writer
Podcast: The Single Chronicles Podcast
Facebook: R.S. Lewis aka Insomniac Writer
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/insomniacwriter
Tumblr: Home of the Drunken Insomniac Writer
Drunken Insomniac Writer 