So at the time of this writing, the Coronavirus pandemic is shutting down the country and causing widespread panic and confusion. I have not left my neighborhood in a week and it looks like I'm going to be stuck here for the foreseeable future. After getting home from school last Monday, I received word from the University President that due to a student group attending an out of state conference that had a confirmed case of coronavirus (some internet sleuthing revealed to me that it was the local College Republicans chapter and CPAC because of fucking course it was), the University would be shutting down until at least March 25th. I'm technically on Spring Break right now and the 25th is still the tentative opening date, but with how bad things are getting, I don't see us going back anytime soon. I may very well spend the rest of my last semester of undergrad taking online classes and possibly won't have a graduation ceremony if things don't improve. I wanted to go see Ringworm and All Out War in New Haven on Sunday, but the show, along with pretty much every other one for the next month, was understandably cancelled due to everything that has been going on. Good thing I can keep myself busy with the research papers I need to write, music, YouTube videos, and video games. I actually pre-ordered Doom Eternal, which comes out in 4 days so I'll be riding this thing out in style. Looks like being an introverted autistic dude is finally paying off!
I have to say though, this is a really shitty time for a viral pandemic. Not only is it my senior year of college, which means I can't be on campus doing things with my friends and participating in things I'm involved with, it's coincidentally the Centennial for the University of New Haven. What are the odds that during my graduation year, which is also the 100th anniversary of my university, there would be a worldwide viral outbreak that would essentially ruin everything? Also, like I said before, this pandemic means I can't go to shows, which really sucks. Funny thing is if this happened when I was like 16, I probably would've been thrilled. I would've said something like "You mean I can just stay home and play video games for two months straight without having to go to school or speak to anyone? Fuck yeah!" But of course, now that I'm not a total shut in and want to go out and do things, the Chinese Death Virus picks now to make life as we know it grind to a halt.
On a more serious note, I seriously can't stand these fucking morons going out and partying in places packed with hundreds if not thousands of people when there is a virus rapidly spreading across the globe. On social media, I've been seeing people in packed bars, beaches, clubs, you name it. I guarantee a ton of these people got the virus and are spreading it right now because they don't realize they have it. They're actually starting to shut restaurants and bars down because of it. What choice do they have? These people think they're invincible. They look at the number of confirmed cases and think "Psshh, this isn't a big deal", not realizing that the actual cases of the virus are way, way higher than the confirmed cases because there still aren't enough tests going around and there are God knows how many people with the virus who aren't symptomatic yet. They don't realize that even if they get the virus and are fine, they may spread it to high risk individuals they live with, endangering their lives. This is exactly what happened in Italy and the whole damn country was put on lockdown because of it. I fear that in a week or two, this thing is going to get real bad just like it did over there. We had 89 confirmed cases on March 1st. Now, on the 16th, we have 3,487. I dread to think what's going to happen to those numbers once all the Spring Break partiers are back home. Italy's hospitals were totally overwhelmed and hospital staff started getting sick and spreading the virus to their families. And the scary thing is their healthcare system is better than ours! So if the same thing happens here, and it looks like it might, we're totally fucked. Oh and lastly, bravo to our moron President for disbanding the Pandemic Response Team in 2018. This probably wouldn't have been this much of an issue if they weren't let go. Now, thanks to the virus and the oil price war between Russia and Saudi Arabia, the economic bubble popped and the stock market is in free-fall and we're probably going to slip into a recession again. Just in time for my college graduation. Yippee.
