Peyton Dixon Mr. Steineker

Honors Chemistry 8 April 2020

CoronaVirus Essay

The coronavirus, COVID-19, has impacted everyone's daily lives. Today you’re going to hear about how it has impacted my life specifically. But before we can get into how it affected me, we need to understand what COVID-19 is, and how the future will be impacted, whether good or bad.

COVID-19 is the newest coronavirus coming from Wuhan, China. This virus is one of many coronavirus commonly found in animals. It’s uncommon for the virus to spread to humans however COVID-19 isn’t the first coronavirus to make the jump from animal to human. In 2002 the first case of SARS, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, was reported as an atypical pneumonia in the Guangdong province in China. The animals suspected for SARS are civet cats and bats. In 2012 the first human case of MERS-CoV, Middle East Respiratory Syndrome, was reported in Saudia Arabia. The animal that is suspected to have been the original carrier of MERS are camels. The first cases of COVID-19 were in Wuhan, China in 2019, these cases were thought to be due to the animal market and animal-to-human direct contact. However, more and more cases began to appear in patients who hadn’t attended the animal market. The lead to the realization that the virus is spread through person-to-person contact.

The person-to-person contact in airports and public places lead to this becoming a world wide pandemic. Without the proper care at the start of the virus the world began to be infected. As of now 184 countries have reported cases, there are 1,506,936 confirmed cases world wide with 90,057 confirmed deaths. In the US there are 432,596 cases making it the most infected country. This is suspected to be caused by the firing of the pandemic response team in 2018 by the Trump administration, there is no clear answer to why this was done. The president has downplayed the virus leading to more of a spread. In Kentucky, as of writing this, has 1,547 cases, 73 deaths, and 339 recovered.

The CDC, to try and start a steady decline, recommended social distancing but the opposite is true. However the number of cases has slowed down but is still growing but there are ways to help prevent another spike. As previously stated, practice social distancing, staying at home and only leaving for what is necessary. In my family, only my dad and mom leave to go to Costco and get the bulk buy of some foods and my mom buys regular groceries online. In order to take more precaution we wipe down all the groceries before putting them away. Even with all the groceries we still eat out in a way. We order food from local places for dinner, this is important to do because these businesses are struggling and the chain places won’t really take that much of a hit. This has made staying inside less horrible.

As a teenager staying inside and getting a kind of break from school and stress sounded nice until it actually happened. I’m someone who gets bored very easily and there are only so many things I can do. I made a dress, I painted my window, I cleaned my room, but I’m still bored. This has caused me to only be able to facetime my friends. But I’ve gotten to hang out

with my dog almost all day, he’s definitely loved it. I also bought myself and switch and Animal Crossing New Horizons with my Spain Trip money. The trip to Spain I was supposed to go on with my old school did get cancelled along with prom. I would return my prom dress but I got in hemmed the day before it was cancelled. Even with all the cancellations I’ve been doing ok getting plenty of sleep. The coronavirus can’t stop people from living but they need to do it responsibly and think about the other people around them.

Here are the personal images of me and my

friend Macro, my switch, and my dog.