My daily life changed in the blink of an eye. When I first heard about the coronavirus, I thought it wouldn’t have caught up to us since it was on the other side of the world. But the virus spread so quickly that it caught up to the valley. I had a gut feeling that spring break would’ve caused us to get cases here in the valley, and it did.

Quarantine has taken place in the United States, and I initially believed it would’ve lasted only two weeks, but since people still don’t listen to what our government officials are saying and continue to go out without precautionary steps, they’ve moved quarantine until April 30. Our health has been our primary concern in all of this chaos.

At first, when I would sneeze or cough, people would nicely say, “bless you,” now you have to hold it in, or else people will look at you with fright. Our society has to go out for groceries or basic needs in masks and gloves to prevent this virus from spreading. Due to this life or death situation, in order to get all the necessary things you need, now you have to wake up at 8 am to be in line outside of Walmart or HEB to be able to get toilet paper, eggs, etc.

People are fighting over essential needs as if they don’t restock every day. Everyone is trying to accumulate their thoughts, trying to comprehend how this got out of control—coming up with new ideas of how to take care of themselves. Although the virus originated from China, people have become so rude and racist, thinking that the best way to take care of themselves is to not get close to Chinese people because “they must have the coronavirus.”  About two days ago, I saw a news article about how our own president Donald Trump was encouraging racism by calling the coronavirus a “Chinese virus.” Nobody wished for this virus to exist, and bringing more problems to the table doesn’t bring any good.

This virus has made me overthink about myself, sometimes I cough, or I have a headache, and right away, I start googling, thinking that it might be the coronavirus. It has driven me paranoid, but I have hope that this will all end soon. Several schools have closed down till further notice; education is now being taught through online classes. Now I spend my days on my laptop trying to finish up every work I have assigned from my teachers. Every day there’s something new on Google Classroom, and I don’t know how to balance my time with work. I sleep a lot because I feel so drained, it’s like I’m never full of energy. I sleep and work, sleep and work, sleep, and work. It feels like a never-ending cycle. I feel trapped as if I’m never going to be able to go out again, and if I get the chance, we have to go out early due to curfew. The valley keeps announcing more and more cases every day, yet I still see people on the streets. People won’t take this seriously until it directly affects them, and I am afraid it has to get to that point where we’re all sick for us to finally understand the gravity of this situation.