The Strange Times We Live In
March 21, 2020
Is it just me, or does it feel like we are in some apocalyptic film? I mean, back in January, there were threats of World War III. In February, there were wildfires burning Australia. And now in March, there is this global pandemic?! So much has happened in such a short amount of time that it has mentally, emotionally, and psychologically drained me. Now, I want to give a couple of tags for this post here in the beginning. First off, this is going to talk about the Covid-19 pandemic. I felt that it is important to capture this moment because of the deep impact it is having on every aspect of life and society. Secondly, while I think being well-informed is crucial, there is such a thing as too much information. Feel free to skip this post if you feel anxious about this topic. Lastly, all of this will be outdated by the time you read this. This post will go up at the end of April, a time I hope we have moved past quarantines and social distancing.
These sure are strange times we are living in. How are y’all doing? I hope you are taking care of yourselves, listening to your local authorities and staying at home. If you are called into work, or if you are getting groceries or something else crucial, that is another story. But please, refrain from being in physical contact with other people. It may not seem like it, but it is crucial we get ahead of this pandemic.
Do you know what gives me a lot of anxiety nowadays? Watching the news. Honestly, I have almost stopped listening to the daily updates. The case numbers are increasing exponentially and, unfortunately, so are the death numbers. It is not only the elderly and at-risk population that are catching the virus; it is practically all age groups. Every time I turn on the TV, it is always a new update on what is going on. Honestly, it feels hopeless. I am all too familiar with this feeling; when the majority of my media outlets flood me with a single topic news item. It is the same sense of dread I get during election season. So the only thing left for me to do is take extreme measures. I avoid the topic as much as I can. I allow myself thirty minutes each day to catch up on the cases, the updates, the new regulations in place. That is it, thirty minutes and then I go on with my day. I will scroll past anything related to Covid-19 on Facebook, I will not download images or recordings on WhatsApp (not that I did before, but I make it a point to not do it anymore), and the TV is only for mindless entertainment. So far, these measures have kept my mental health well.
But you know what frustrates me more than the depressing updates? The “doctors” who have graduated from WhatsApp University! For those of you who have never heard of WhatsApp, consider yourself lucky, it is a messaging app. You can make groups, share media, video call, and a whole bunch of other things. Its main selling point was that it worked via WiFi, as opposed to over data like regular text messages. It spread like wildfire in places outside the US. Unfortunately, a huge downside of this is the scam messages that also spread like wildfire. The problem is not unique to WhatsApp, do you remember the scam emails from the 90s-00s? Like how if you do not send this email to 10 people in the next hour, the ghost of some dead girl will haunt you tonight? Or how you will share a joke email with your friends, but you will not share this message of Jesus’ love. Yea, those messages are still around, they just found a new medium to travel through.
Things have not gotten better since the outbreak moved up in category to an epidemic, and it got worse now that it is a pandemic. I have seen a whole slew of these messages, and I am sure many of you have come across some ridiculous ones as well. Feel free to share some of them in the comments below! It seems like everyone has “the cure” for Covid-19. All you need to do is drink lemon ginger tea, or gargle with salt water, or have your doctor prescribe an antibiotic to lower your viral count. What is frustrating is that many of these “cures” do kinda work, but not in the way or for the reason they are advertised.
Lemon ginger tea is great when you have an upset stomach. I know when I get a cold, I will start making black teas because it is a warm bitter drink that will not upset my stomach. There is nothing Covid-19-specific about lemon ginger tea. Same thing with gargling salt water. When you gargle, the salt water gets into the back of your throat and helps to reduce any swelling, a tell-tale sign of an infection. This is a great remedy for many sore throat related problems, including a sore throat from coughing.
And I do not know how many times I have to say this, so let me say it again: you cannot cure a viral infection with an antibiotic! It is like using a hammer to cover a paper cut; different problems, wrong tools to fix it. Antibiotics only work on bacteria. The reason antibiotics are prescribed to people who have viral diseases like the flu and Covid-19 is to stop the bacterial infection that now has the chance to proliferate because the body is weak from fighting the virus. Pneumonia in the wake of the flu or Covid-19 is lethal. But the antibiotic will not lower the viral count.
But despite all that, the one thing that I do appreciate is all the memes people are creating. One of my favorites is the “Day 3 without sports” memes. I still crack up when I think about, “found out my wife’s favorite color is yellow. Who the hell like yellow?” And there is so much commentary on the fact that people are hoarding toilet paper! Like why toilet paper? Imagine if a virus that causes diarrhea was going around instead. It would have been chaos!
You know, I was mad because I could not go to a concert last week. I bought the tickets back in December, during pre-sale. For three months, I was looking forward to this concert! But then Corona hit and people started to panic, including my dad. The weekend before, he was adamant about my not going. I ended up not going because my sinuses began bothering me, we are in spring after all. The last thing I want to happen is to get my seasonal cold and have my dad blame it on the concert! The show went on, and I heard it was a good one, too. Funnily enough, three days later, the governor ordered all gathering places to shut down. There were outbreaks happening all over my state and “we need to flatten the curve.” It has been a week and every day the news just gets worse and worse. I do not know how bad things will be getting. I guess it is one of those things that you really will not know until years from now when the dust has finally settled.
Alright, that is enough of this sad post. Come back next week for something a little more upbeat!
- Aemi
