I dealt with my own reality of the coronavirus, locked in my house for months, not allowed to do anything except go outside in my backyard.
My only human interaction came from the people I lived with.
I felt like I wanted to go out and interact with friends, but was reminded there's a virus running rampant. A virus that can kill me if I come within less than six feet of contact from another person who could potentially have the virus.
As an individual born with congenital heart disease and no spleen, this was my reality.
Because I was born without a spleen, my immune system is weaker than the average person.
I had to go into an even more intense form of isolation than the majority of the population, solely because of the way I was born.
This was torture.
I couldn't retrieve anything I ordered from apps, including DoorDash, outside my home without sanitizing it first. I couldn’t be near anyone in public and my only way of getting out was by taking a drive around town, both with a mask on and without getting out of the car.
Having gone through this, it's hard to believe that the coronavirus isn't treated as something nearly as relevant or deadly today as it was in 2020. Especially since we've now reached the three year anniversary of the pandemic.
With all the aid the government has given to help the issue, the pandemic isn't nearly as deadly.
Since the pandemic started, the government took immediate action to aid those in the United States, including the development of COVID-NET, a surveillance system to track current levels of hospitalizations caused by the virus, starting on March 1, 2020, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, CDC, Museum’s COVID-19 Timeline.
This was shortly followed by the World Health Organization’s declaration that COVID-19 would be classified as a pandemic on March 11, 2020.
The beginning of statewide shutdowns on March 15, 2020 and the first implementations of human trials for a vaccine on March 17, 2020, according to the same timeline.
The government and health officials from the CDC handled COVID-19 in a very fast and productive manner. Despite being limited with what I could do, I was very pleased with the actions the government and the CDC were taking to help stop the spread of the virus.
In the long run, it definitely proved to be helpful, as it gave me more hope that I’d be able to go back to a sense of normalcy sooner than I initially anticipated.
This would then be met with financial relief and the start of symptom monitoring. During the early days, the pandemic mask mandates and other rapid relief efforts were essential.
Actions like these helped stop the spread of the virus and once again gave me hope that we would come out of what seemed like a limited quality of life one day.
Vaccines were not an option until Dec. 18, 2020, according to the CDC’s timeline.
The public had to treat the virus with the worst-case scenario in mind, as not much was known about its effects.
However, in the last three years, we've learned even more about COVID-19 with the aid of the government and the CDC.
Companies including Moderna, Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson developed vaccines for the virus, with multiple boosters currently available.
This added knowledge and implementation of a vaccine proved that we would one day be out of the storm and made me feel a whole lot better about my future, as I had been waiting for a possible vaccine since the beginning of shelter-in-place.
The CDC’s website now has a detailed rundown on treatment, complete with tips on what to do if you're infected and even more information about the virus.
The increase of information makes me feel better about convincing others to follow guidelines, as this information proved crucial when informing those who didn't believe in the virus that it was, in fact, a real thing and it can affect you.
Different government organizations are now holding advertising campaigns, which help spread information about the virus and encourage people that COVID-19 is beatable.
California All is an organization under the California government that has a section that gathers and posts information regarding everything about COVID-19, from the amount of cases in California to how to get tested.
California All has information on its website on how to seek immediate treatments, where it offers a plethora of facts about the virus itself and supports people who catch the virus, empowering them to beat it.
California All even has its own TV commercials to accompany its campaign, along with several other advertisements and infomercials, which talk about infection and treatment of the virus, since the start of the pandemic.
The commercials promote these actions by repeating the jingle, “Test it, treat it, you can beat it!”
This lets people know that the virus is still here, but it can be treated. It gives me more hope that things will get even better by encouraging more people to take precautions and follow CDC guidelines.
Something like this, rather than taking the serious aspect away from the virus, catches peoples’ attention and educates them about the effects of following guidelines and mandates for their own sake, as well as for the wellbeing of others.
I am living proof of this, as I actually got COVID-19 back in August, just before the 2022 fall semester started.
I still had to follow a line of protocol and comply with the policy of my employer at the time I tested positive.
The virus made me feel extremely feverish for about a night and a bit during the following day. I had all the feverish symptoms, complete with body aches and major congestion.
However, not only did I survive the virus, I also got to return to normal daily activities in what felt like no time at all to me.
The fact that COVID-19 didn’t affect me as heavily as it could have in the beginning of the pandemic is completely thanks to the knowledge we now have and the fast reaction our government implemented with the vaccine.
The more I would hear the government learning about the virus on TV, the more it would give me hope and make me feel better about my own situation, especially after learning that I could finally be vaccinated after a long, anticipating wait for such an option.
If I didn't have the opportunity to receive the vaccine prior to this and did not comply with government guidelines in the beginning, I surely wouldn’t have been able to fight the virus as effectively as I did.
I am grateful information about the virus is easily accessible and that our government took such fast action to do damage control.
This surely played a huge role in helping people effectively deal with the virus and has allowed me to live my life, more or less, the way I always have.
I feel like I can truly live a less restricted and more happy lifestyle, thanks to medical advancements made by the government's fast action to fight the virus.
Follow the advice of medical professionals and help eradicate the virus.
