by Julie Turns, 04/08/2020, Traverse City, MI

Middle School 6-8 Category

Almost 10,000 deaths in our country that everyone thought was just a silly sickness from China. My friends are still not taking it seriously by going out and doing whatever they want. My friends’ families are panic buying, people are raiding the stores buying everything pretending it won’t expire before they can use it. Some families can’t even afford to feed themselves and the people they love. Most families with babies can’t keep care of their children because all the wipes are gone. My mom talks about how there is no more medical supplies for people in some states. She has asthma and is the only one who can go get groceries because the military is keeping my dad from leaving his training. My grandmother talks about how she’s essential and I know if she gets it she won’t be okay. My grandmother also talks about how my great grandma has the virus and had to get transferred to a new hospital because she could be dying, she was a nurse at 78 working and she just put in her retirement papers so i could visit her. Other people may not be affected. They aren’t taking it as seriously as my family but it sucks when people are dying because some people can not wait to see their friends for a month. On the other side of this pandemic animals are thriving, going to places they haven’t been in years. The world itself is getting much better. I’ll tell my kids that this virus hopefully changed the way people looked at problems, that everyone got better, that our earth is better, and that we didn’t kill off any more species of animals. This virus is bitter-sweet, I just look at it that way, not like it’s not a big deal. 78,269 people have died, like I it’s said bitter-sweet.