How this Pandemic has changed our lives forever...??? #coronavirus #covid19 #pandemic #quarantine
Welcome to my next BLOG in the Coronavirus Series.
#coronavirus #covid19 #pandemic #quarantine #onlinelearning
#workfromhome #sanitizer #washyourhands #stayathome #stayhomestaysafe #facemask
#virus #cleanhands
Before you
read the comments:
Three months ago, reports surfaced out
of China that a cluster of pneumonia cases in the central city of Wuhan may be
due to a new type of coronavirus.
The
World Health Organization said at the time it was still assessing the extent of
the outbreak, but noted there were no reports of novel coronavirus outside
Wuhan.
Since
then, the situation has changed drastically.
More
than 1.6 million people have been infected across the globe, more than 100,000
have died and lockdowns have been ordered in numerous counties. The majority of
the states in the U.S. have also adopted some sort of shelter-in-place order.
Life
for some is at a standstill, while front line workers are facing a frightening
new normal. Here's some of the biggest ways life has changed:
1. Greetings
While the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention initially urged people to opt for an elbow bump
over a handshake, greetings have now altogether become a no go.
Americans have been asked
to maintain social distancing, or 6 feet, at all times and the majority have
been asked not to leave their homes except for essential needs, such as medical
care, groceries or exercise.
2. Hygiene
The CDC has continued to
urge everyone to wash their hands for at least 20 seconds.
Americans also have stocked
up on hygiene products. Hand sanitizer sales spiked 73%, according to data from
Nielsen covering a four-week period that ended Feb. 22, while sales of
thermometers rose 47% and aerosol disinfectant purchases climbed 32%.
3. Public gatherings
With the majority of the
states instituting some sort of stay-at-home order, public gatherings of any
kind are banned.
Numerous festivals have been postponed and
restaurants and bars in many states have shuttered their doors, only allowing
for pick-up or delivery.
One of the few places where
crowds do form is at the grocery store, where customers often queue outside as
stores have enacted new policies limiting the amount of people inside.
4. Economy/markets
The International Monetary
Fund said that the world should be prepared for the worst economic fallout
since the Great Depression.
"Today we are
confronted with a crisis like no other. COVID-19 has disrupted our social and
economic order at lightning speed and on a scale that we have not seen in
living memory," Kristalina Georgieva, IMF managing director, said in a
statement.
Meanwhile, unemployment in
the U.S. has reached staggering numbers. More than 16 million people filed
weekly jobless claims over a three-week period in late March and early April.
Some analysts say the
number of claims will only get worse as
businesses remain shuttered and the pandemic continues to clobber the U.S.
labor market.
5. Travel
The U.S. State
Department has issued a
Level 4 advisory, aka a Do Not Travel advisory, for all international travel.
The warning, the strongest of the department, has been in place since March 31.
Trump has previously said
his administration was "thinking about" grounding domestic flights
between coronavirus hot spots, however, he has not yet done so.
6. Stockpiling and price
gouging
People have headed to
grocery stores in droves, preparing to stock up and bear down.
Photos of empty aisles and
lines out the door circulated online in the early days of the spread in the
U.S., with one report showing that sales of several products on Amazon, namely
sanitizers and medical face masks, rose at least 50% higher than their 90-day
average after the World Health Organization declared an emergency.
Even products sold directly
by Amazon, not third-party vendors, saw prices at least 50% higher since
February, according to a report from the
U.S. Public Interest Group.
"When people need
something to stay healthy and prevent the spread of a potentially deadly virus,
merchants should follow the Golden Rule, not the money,” Adam Garber, the
group's education fund consumer watchdog, said in a statement.
7. Closed schools and
offices
Major cities, including New
York, Boston, Miami, Chicago, Houston, San Diego and San Francisco, have closed
schools for extended periods, with at least 55.1 million students impacted
nationwide, according to Education Week.
Tele schooling has been
adopted for many.
For the working world, many
companies have implemented telework policies.
8. Clothing/masks
As cases continued to
sharply rise in the U.S., talk of whether or not the CDC would change its
policy on masks persisted. The CDC had previously said that only those who are
sick should wear a mask.
Now the CDC
recommends wearing cloth face coverings in
public settings where other social distancing measures are difficult to
maintain, such as grocery stores and pharmacies.
However, concerns that
medical professionals do not have enough personal protective equipment have
also been on the rise, so any shortages of N95 masks affects them
significantly.
9. Fears and anxieties
With day-to-day life at a
standstill, anxieties around the disease and the future have been heightened,
according to Dr. Anne Maria Albano, a professor of medical psychology at
Columbia University.
Albano said the public can
either utilize that anxiety in a productive way or let it spiral.
"What people are experiencing is what anxiety in us is wired to do:
Say, 'Hey, wake up and prepare for how to take care of yourself,'" she
told ABC News back in March. "Now the thing is, if the anxiety gets too
high that then it becomes problematic, and this is what we want people to
recognize. Anxiety, when it gets out of control, you are exaggerating what the
risk to you and the people around you is."
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