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by Quinn Waddle, 04/09/2020, Traverse City, MI

Middle School 6-8 Category


In January, I started hearing about the coronavirus in China and how it was new and very contagious. I didn’t think that it would make its way to the U.S, but it did. It started getting worse and worse in the U.S so they closed school for a couple of weeks. When school got closed it was weird. It felt like spring break came early and everyone was just kind of doing their own thing. Teachers assigned work for the first three weeks but I don’t think many people were doing it. A week after school was closed, the Governor said that all restaurants and bars would have to close temporarily. With this happening, it would mean that businesses would have to start letting go of employees because they couldn’t pay them. After that, the Governor announced the “Stay Home, Stay Safe” order and had non-essential businesses close. It also meant that you should stay at least 6 feet apart from another person.

After a few weeks, I think most of my friends were kind of missing school. When Governor Whitmer said there was not going to be any school for the rest of the academic year, people started posting on their Instagram stories about whether we might have to redo our grade or not. The Governor announced that we wouldn’t and everyone was relieved.

When school got closed we started online school. I don’t like it and I am missing school because we can’t see our friends in online school. If we were in school it would mean this wasn’t happening. When school first got out I was excited but then I learned quarantine isn’t fun at all. You can’t go over to other people’s houses, you can’t be near anyone that’s not in your family, and no going anywhere public like downtown or the skatepark. When I thought about everything that was going on, I thought about how it affected spring break and that it could impact things that I have planned in the summer, like a ski camp in Oregon that I’m supposed to go to in June. If that gets called off I will be very disappointed. I have friends that have heart problems and asthma which makes them more vulnerable to the virus.

My friend and I were talking about the pandemic over FaceTime, and we said that we wish this wasn’t happening and how it felt like a nightmare. All the healthcare workers working around the clock to save people’s lives while putting their lives at risk is very insane. All the difficult decisions that they have to make like who gets a ventilator and who doesn’t is just so sad. Many people are doing essential work that puts them at risk. I am grateful to them and I am thinking about their safety. We can keep them safe by keeping ourselves healthy.