PHOTO CREDIT: PIXABAY VIA PEXELS
COVID-19 has changed life as I know it; but not everyone is changing.
While writing my previous post about death rates and the coronavirus, thousands of social media posts flooded platforms with warnings against mass hysteria, overreaction, and inciting anxiety amongst the public. Like the good citizen our watchdogs wanted me to be, I compared the novel coronavirus to the thousands of food-borne illness related deaths in the U.S. every year, presenting some perspective in attempt to lessen the impact of COVID-19.
I was wrong.
Almost 200,000 domestic infections later— with real numbers likely surpassing a half million– it has become clear that the underrated attitude young adults hold towards the coronavirus has been gasoline on its flaming spread. With cities across the nation preparing an onslaught of temporary morgues to keep up with the unpredictable death toll of COVID-19, the immersion of complete containment bears a question:
Why are we more afraid of being alone, than being infected or dead?
This isn’t a virus that affects the foot, people– it’s an infection that tricks your body into killing its own respiratory cells. Simply put, it may not let you breathe. And yet, thousands of late teens and twenty-somethings shuffle to find a perfect tanning spot among the un-phased spring breakers, because “I’m not gonna let it stop me from partying.”
PHOTO CREDIT: WENDY WEI VIA PEXELS
The problem: our information age isn’t really informed.
So what do Florida Keys spring breakers, Bourbon Street tourists, and St. Paddy’s Day Chicagoans have in common? They’re actually proud to be posting their social-distancing-defiance, bathed in the ignorance that is their own disregard of logic and science.
How is it that a generation– who self-identifies with memes about being anti-social, tweets about cancelling plans, and posts about staying home– has become afraid of the indoors? We know coronavirus spreads rapidly, we know it will likely kill the elderly, and we know it has has proven it can kill the young too. Yet over, and over, and over again, young people across the country prove not to care. Scratch that: they care more about getting Starbucks with Becky than exposing family with pre-existing conditions.
IMAGE CREDITS VIA GIPHY
The COVID-19 outbreak has reignited the oh-so-uncomfortable topic many Americans try to dodge at all costs: death. While only the minority of coronavirus cases have resulted in hospitalizations, the sheer rate of infection/complete lack of preparation has put millions of Americans face-to-face with their own mortality; something society desperately attempts to bury under the cover of euphemisms and good manners. And yet, facing the reaper, we don’t seem to care. We hear about COVID-19 killing, we see COVID-19 spreading; and we feel that our personal preferences are still far superior to the needs of the millions.
PHOTO CREDIT: VLADA KARPOVICH VIA PEXELS PHOTO CREDIT: ANNA SHVETS VIA PEXELS
Information is not a luxury good. The internet is not a gated community. Yet in the age of the easiest information known to man, we have never been less logical. If you take the threat of pandemic seriously enough to bulk-buy toilet paper and Kraft pasta, Boomer, take it seriously enough to stay inside. If it’s serious enough to disrupt your sales team, Millennial, it’s serious enough to disrupt your social circle.
And finally, if you’re one of the “enlightened” individuals of any age who believes COVID-19 is a punishment from your all-mighty god: I hope you get to meet him, very soon.
Life Expired. 