When most Americans first heard of Coronavirus, it was a little alarming, but didn’t seem to be too big of a deal. It was a breakout of a new disease in Wuhan, China, from what we thought was a woman eating a bat. Shouldn’t be too much of an issue for us in the United States, right? Fast-forward about 3 months, and here we are, with around 26 million Americans filing for unemployment, schools moving online, and the economy is on the verge of falling into something worse than the Great Depression. It’s crazy how it all seemed to hit the fan so fast, and it makes us wonder how we got here this fast. Of course, a major part of it is that the entire world is dealing with a completely new, fast spreading virus, but when it comes to the United States specifically, it seems like the Trump Administration decided to handle it a little differently than other developed nations. 

The CDC first issued warnings about COVID-19 in early January, from around January 6-8. Later, on January 21, the first US case was confirmed, and Donald Trump stated that everything was under control. On January 31, travel to China was restricted, and Coronavirus was declared a public health emergency. 

When I think back to what I was doing in January, it doesn’t really seem all too important to me. I remember that school was starting back up from winter break, my friend’s birthday, starting an online french class, and overall, things being business as usual. Nothing changed throughout the entire month, and coronavirus to me wasn’t anything I was scared about or anything that was even on my mind. 

In February, things felt pretty much the same as January did. Another friend’s birthday, going to school and doing my homework as normal, and spending time with friends as normal. I never really thought about the virus until near the end of the month, when Donald Trump wanted to put $1.25 trillion dollars into the stock market. I remember being shocked that whenever we asked for things like cheaper education, or healthcare, we were always met with “but how will we pay for it?” but when it comes to money into the stock market that many of us won’t feel the effects of, it’s like a piece of cake to pull $1.25 trillion from who knows where. As annoyed as I was with this though, I could tell that the reason the stock market fell by about 1000 points was because companies were afraid of coronavirus. Still at this point, I wasn’t really afraid of the virus affecting me or my family personally. On the second to last day in February, Donald Trump went on to say, “this is their [democrats] new hoax.” Although I wasn’t too worried about the virus, I could tell that he wasn’t taking this seriously. COVID-19 should have never been something that was politicized on party lines. Yet, that’s exactly what the president did. 

March is when it all really got exciting. In the first two weeks, Trump passed an $8.3 billion dollar emergency bill, banned travel from Europe, promised us that treatment would be free, and declared the virus a national emergency, giving him access to $50 billion dollars for states’ and 

territories’ doctors and hospitals. Shortly after, on March 17, Trump asked for people to start practicing social distancing, which is what ultimately made people lose their jobs, closed schools, and cancelled many other important events. This is when I remembered starting to feel especially bothered about how this whole thing was being handled. Trump claimed it was under control, and if it was, that would mean that we could go through life like normal, right? But instead, case numbers in the US just kept rising and rising. At this time, we had reached around 10,000 cases, mainly in California and New York. 10,000 wasn’t something that necessarily scared me, but it was still alarming that we had that many cases so soon. Then, by March 26, we had more cases than any other country, reaching a staggering 83,846, with about 1,300 deaths. The next day, Trump signed the stimulus package that granted, in simple terms, around $1200 per individual. 

March felt like the longest month of my life. Spring Break was extended by a week, then school in-person was cancelled for the rest of the year. And while all of this was happening here, we could see how other countries were handling the virus. In Italy, rent and mortgages were frozen nationwide as the outbreak continued on. Some Canadian provinces did as well, and both Canada and Italy adopted social distancing measures before the United States did. When you compare how things were handled by the Italian, Canadian, and American governments, you can easily see the difference. In the United States, one of the government’s first moves was to put money into the stock market. In other countries, they quickly moved to isolate people and freeze many of their bills. By this point in March, only California and New York froze mortgages. Still today, we have yet to see anything on a federal level. 

April has really allowed for things to set in. In the first week, 6.6 million Americans filed for unemployment. At my sister’s work, she is one of 8 people that kept their job. For the other 60-70 people in her department, they had to pack up their office things and file for unemployment. This month is when Trump got especially creative with his treatment methods. After weeks of debate, the administration advised people to wear face masks when they went outside. Then, also in the first week of April, Trump advised that people take hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for Coronavirus. This eventually led to the death of an Arizona man and hospitalization of his wife, because they took the version of the drug that is used to clean fish tanks, not the pharmaceutical version. A few days later, the US reached the highest number of deaths in any country, with about 19,700. Despite this number, people began to protest the stay at home orders! There may be a deadly and still relatively unknown virus on the loose, but staying home and avoiding it must be so much worse for these people. How sad! 

Just a few days ago, the Trump Administration released guidelines for states to reopen, in a 3 phase manner. Basically, places would allow for a small number of people to be in them at a time, and then as case numbers died down (if they do), larger events would open up and things 

would hopefully return to normal. States like Tennessee, Georgia (which opened its beaches, along with Florida), and South Carolina announced measures to help businesses reopen. 

And just a mere 24 hours ago, in a coronavirus briefing, Trump has done it. He has truly found a way to treat this terrifying, horrible virus: disinfectant and UV light. Why haven’t we thought of such a simple thing before? 

Trump stated, “I see the disinfectant, where it knocks it out in one minute. And is there a way we can do something like that by injection inside or almost a cleaning, because you see it gets in the lungs and it does a tremendous number on the lungs.” 

Yes of course, Mr. President, let me just inject bleach into my veins! That’ll surely keep the coronavirus out, with no other effects to my body. The human body is just like a kitchen counter! There’s no difference between us ingesting disinfectant and using a Lysol wipe on the bathroom counter. 

If we didn’t want to try bleach, we could try UV light: ”I said supposing you brought the light inside the body, which you can do either through the skin or in some other way. And I think you said you’re going to test that too… So, we’ll see, but the whole concept of the light, the way it kills it in one minute – that’s pretty powerful.” 

Don’t mind me, I’ll just be discovering a way to put UV light rays into my body. This is absolutely foolproof! How has nobody thought of this before? 

Obviously, we shouldn’t be going around putting things like bleach or UV light rays into our bodies in hopes of killing a virus. First Trump decided this was some type of hoax brought by the democrats, now he’s acting like he’s an all-knowing doctor who’s just coming up with treatments left and right for this virus. Meanwhile, a large part of his base is out there protesting to end social distancing. Is this proof that the fish really does rot from the head? 

All in all, I believe that all these talks of bleach and UV light is really reflective of where we’re at as a nation. We have a president who clearly doesn’t know what he’s doing, his base thinks they’re invincible, and we’re this close to an economic breakdown. Not to mention, all of this is going to be remembered in history. You know how doctors initially thought the plague was spread by bad smells? And we think that’s laughable now? Generations to come are going to see that the leader of the richest country in the world really proposed the idea of ingesting bleach to kill a virus. We’re the laughable ones now. And it doesn’t feel too great, honestly. Please, make sure to stay home, wear a mask, wash your hands, and please, please do not try to inject bleach 

or some type of UV light into your body. Didn’t you hear? Trump said he was just being sarcastic. What a funny joke!