by Nadia Luke, 04/08/2020, Traverse City, MI
Middle School 6-8 Category
As of April 8th, 2020, there have been a total of 404,580 confirmed cases with 13,000 deaths just in America. The worldwide total has hit almost 1.5 million cases at 1,450,025 and 86,313 deaths. Several states have gone on lockdown while most others have a “stay-at-home” order or an order recommending social distancing. Many non-essential businesses and places with many people have closed including schools, restaurants, hair and nail salons, social events, sports, and much more. But places like stores and hospitals have continued to stay open. Many hospitals have had to cancel any non-essential appointments and surgeries. This is how the government has responded, now it’s time to see how the people are reacting.
In the society that we live in today, news tends to spread fast. But not everything on the news and social media is accurate. Rumors can easily get mixed in with all of the chaos. Some of the more elaborate rumors cause alarm and when people start to panic in a crisis such as this, they tend to act illogically.
For example, the panic for toilet paper. This started when there was a rumored quarantine, people went out shopping buying things they did not need. Some people even tried to sell what was in demand for a much higher price than what is found in the store. But for some reason, toilet paper was what people wanted the most. For some time it was very difficult to find toilet paper anywhere. Along with toilet paper, people were also hoarding soap and hand sanitizer.
Soon after that, face masks were in high demand. Now, this is where people began to think only of themselves in this situation. Not regarding what others may need, even if they need it more. People started to go out and buy bulk amounts of face masks, for what reason exactly? To cover your face when out and about. But how many face masks does one person need? Especially if they are staying home to avoid the virus. A person would assume someone this worried about the virus would want to stay home, and for that, they don’t need an immense amount of masks. But what is baffling is that this caused hospitals to run out of face masks or have a very hard time finding any to buy. So the doctors and nurses that have to deal with the infected people don’t have what they need to stay safe. Thankfully people realized this was wrong and started to donate some of their masks to hospitals that needed them.
What is most surprising in all of this is how the people reacted to this pandemic. If something like this were to happen again, people should act differently then they are today. People should think about the needs of others and not only themselves because it leads to more unnecessary problems in a problem that is already big enough.