Well, I’ve finally had to come face to face with the ugly and horrible truth: I will not be able to dodge the coronavirus any longer. Yesterday, a friend of mine from Mead High School texted me and said “you have to get tested, I have COVID.” What? Really? For a while I thought he was joking, I mean I was with him the day before and he seemed fine. I mean he stayed home from school because he had a fever in the morning, but he was 100% when we picked him up. Now he’s aggressively sick, extremely sick, catastrophically sick. How could this happen? For some reason, I seemed to think that I had an immunity to this virus because it’s taken so long for it to come to me. But nothing lasts forever, and now I’m stuck at home for the next two weeks. 

We’ve all been there, quarantined and not really able to go outside. But for me, and for a lot of others, it became increasingly difficult for me to stay inside. The longest I really stayed quarantined was three days while I waited for a negative test result to come back. I have a dreadful understanding of what the next two weeks will look like. I’ll be bed ridden and very very sick, which I already know, but when I told my dad he let me know that I would not be leaving my room and if I did for whatever reason I would have to wear a mask around the house. 

You see, the virus in my house could only lead to catastrophe as my mom has an auto-immune disease that makes her more prone to contracting the disease and makes the effects of it a lot worse. If my mom gets it there is a terrifyingly high chance that she will not survive, and if I have to stay in my room for two weeks to keep her safe, so be it.

I’m not sick yet, but I’m terrified of what’s in store. I’m afraid that since I was with him on a day where he had it, but didn’t know yet, then I have put everyone around me in danger. I feel like if I were to go outside, I would single-handedly cause an outbreak in my community. That is why quarantine is so important, but that is also the reason for most of my concern. I’m not worried about being sick, I know it will suck but I’ll get through it. I’m worried about my parents, my brother, my grandparents and those of my other friends’ families that were in contact with him. 

The virus is scary, and ongoing. If we were more focused on staying inside then maybe we would be able to combat the virus better. But as a community and country, we have ultimately failed to keep the virus under wraps. Now it’s our turn to make things right. So please, if you have a fever and stay home from school, don’t ask your friends to hang out. That could be the difference between life and death in some households. Keep in mind that you are not above a global pandemic, wear a mask, wash your hands, and stay home if you’re feeling under the weather. We must do better, for the sake of our elders. See you in two weeks, Freddie High.