When the deadly new virus, COVID-19, made itself known on March 11, the country faced a never-before global pandemic. Eight months later, the country is in the second wave as the grip of COVID sweeps the world.

At press time, over 250,000 Americans and a total of over 1.5 million worldwide have died from COVID.  Without a cure for COVID, the country has once again been placed on lockdown with curfews in many states to social distance for a few months until cases drop. While in quarantine, social distancing and the uses of masks were ordered.

“I knew COVID would be bad figuring there was no cure and it came so unexpectedly,” Anthony Maharidge ’23 said. “But, I would have never thought it would have gotten this bad over the months. I did not expect us to be in quarantine the rest of spring and again in late fall.”

With COVID-19 still on the rise, it has affected teens with their public education, home life and social life.

“My first impression on COVID was that it would not turn out to be such a big deal and that we blew it out of proportion,” Aiden Kretz ‘23 said. “I was wrong. Now, I am stuck at home doing online schooling and it could not get any worse. I am not so sure if we will even go back to school because of COVID.”

According the article published by besacenter.org, “Where Did COVID-19 Come From?” (July 28, 2020) by Dr. Dany Soham, “Patient Zero was apparently infected in Wuhan, China in October or November of 2019. However, it was not until December 31, 2019 that the Wuhan Municipal Health Commission issued an alert that there was a cluster of cases of “viral pneumonia” in Wuhan.”

The Wuhan Municipal Health Commission did not expect such a lunge in COVID-19 cases, so when it did, they issued a shut down so the virus could not spread no further. Unfortunately, the virus did spread.

“It is getting quite exhausting on teaching online with everything that is currently happening with students of mine,” Treavor Smith, history teacher, said, “I do not even know what half of my students look like because they do not turn their cameras on when I ask them to. It is unfortunate of what is happening, but hopefully, the vaccine will come out and we will be back too normal by summer of 2021.”