For anyone living in the states, the past week has been a bit crazy. As the coronavirus pandemic grows more severe in the USA, we are starting to see the mass closure of schools, restaurants, and chain stores. Almost all companies have asked that anyone who can work from home move to remote work. Additionally, all large events for the next month or so have been postponed and many cities are even enacting curfews to help slow the spread of the virus. Even Disney and Universal, two of the largest theme park chains, have closed all parks nationwide in an unprecedented move to help combat the coronavirus.
As people prepare for two weeks of social distancing, supermarkets are running out of supplies and people are panicking. People with hourly jobs and small businesses are preparing to have little to no income for the foreseeable future. Tensions are running high and people are uncertain of what these next few weeks will hold.
As these cancelations are rolling out, many people are taking to social media to express their frustrations about their "senior year being ruined" and their "concert experience being taken away from them." And, without a doubt, these cancelations do suck. No one wants to have to put their life on hold or miss out on important milestone events. It's not easy to be asked to social distance for the foreseeable future and have no idea when these events are going to be rescheduled
However, this overwhelmingly negative outpouring about how event cancelations are ruining people's lives is not helping anyone and is trivializing the severity of the situation at hand. The coronavirus is a pandemic that is actually ruining people's lives. Your canceled concert, graduation, fundraiser, etc. is a measure that is being taken to help prevent the coronavirus from spreading and ruining even more lives.
If we don't act now, we could end up in a nationwide lockdown similar to Italy. We have to be proactive, not reactive, and that means canceling all major events and social distancing. Is this an ideal situation? No. But is your canceled concert the biggest priority right now? Also no.
Events can be rescheduled. Meetings can be held via video chat. You will still graduate whether or not you walk across the stage in a ceremony. But we cannot go back in time and take these measures when the coronavirus has spread too far and too fast for social distancing to help. We have to act now and it's better to sacrifice all social events for the next few weeks than pretend that the coronavirus pandemic is not as serious as it is and sacrifice potentially hundreds of thousands of lives instead.
So is it okay to be upset about this horrible situation? Of course. But remember that all of these measures are being taken to help keep us safe. We should be thankful that we, as a nation, have been pretty proactive so far (though nowhere near perfect) in responding to this global pandemic. We can only hope that the measures we are taking are enough.
