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• 2020-05-09

  Quarantine Thoughts

  March 25 This time has truly been a busy and challenging one. It is worrying and stressful. I believe that the 24-hour news cycle is part of the cause for this stress. There is no escape from the virus. I used to watch a lot of sports, but now there is nothing on TV. All ESPN has become is how Covid-19 is affecting the sports world. All anyone talks about now is the virus, nothing else really is being focused on. While this is a very negative view of this whole situation, I have observed one positive myself from this whole ordeal. I have been able to spend more time with my family and this has made weathering this whole situation easier. But this does make me feel for those who are not in the same situation as me. There are many whose parents are still working outside the home because their job requires them to or to help those with the virus. To those people I offer my gratitude and wishes for their well-being. April 15 What I have found most interesting about these times has been how hard it is to do work. I really did not think it would be this challenging. I expected some change, but it really is much harder to concentrate and get motivated in these times. But the more I think about it the more it really makes sense as to why it is so hard to do work and focus. At Fordham I would normally go to the library for 2 or 3 hours a day and be able to focus and tune out the rest of the world and just focus on the tasks at hand. It wasn't hard to focus back then. My biggest worry was the next exam or my GPA. A pandemic wasn't on my mind always in the background. This pandemic makes it hard to tune out the world. It is all over the news and all anyone talks about, so it’s just hard to think about anything else. It is also harder to do work at home. At the library I was there for one reason, to do work and I left when I finished. It is different at home. There are distractions everywhere and it is not a place I am accustomed to doing so much work. It was a place I came to relax and take a break. This whole ordeal has really been an adjustment. But I count myself among the lucky ones. My challenges are mundane in the face of what others are facing. All I can truly say is that this is truly a crazy world we live in today. It is like a movie playing out before our eyes. April 21 Over the last week it looks like things are starting to improve a little bit in New York. We are making progress against the virus and the curve has begun to flatten according to Governor Cuomo. We still have a long way to go though. But hopefully this trend continues, and New York will be able to go back to some sense of normalcy this summer. Not every state is like New York though. Not all states are taking the proper precautions about Covid-19 or are truly taking it seriously. New York is thinking of opening in June. Other states are considering reopening next week. This is truly concerning. All the leaders of these states seem to care about is the economy. They want to open back up as soon as possible to restart the economy. What these leaders fail to consider though is that if they reopen too early the economy would be even worse than it is now and so many more lives will be lost. But they do not seem to think about the future, just the present. April 22 I thought I would post an update today. I have not left the house frequently since the Covid-19 outbreak started but today I did. While looking out the car window I was truly shocked at the amount of people I saw not wearing masks. There were construction workers, runners, and bikers all not wearing masks, even though the governor mandated them days ago. These individuals looked like they were coming in close proximity with others, so I was surprised they were not taking the proper precautions. While I understand those, who cannot get their hands on a mask due to supply issues, I believe that there must be some way to cover your face to protect yourself and others. A simple bandanna or even a scarf could go a long way toward protecting yourself. To me this seemed to show that some people are not taking the pandemic seriously and are ignoring it. May 9 Today I wanted to discuss a particular issue that I have observed during the Covid-19 crisis. This is the issue of ableism in society. I was encouraged to read more into this topic after a classmate had mentioned it a couple of weeks back. Ableism is already an issue in society today, so you may wonder if it can really get worse. It indeed has gotten worse since the Covid-19 crisis has begun. The reason ableism in has gotten worse in society, actually has to do with something called a ventilator. Many states have found themselves woefully unprepared for this crisis, lacking many key products. One of these key products is a device called a ventilator. Ventilators are important because they can provide mechanical ventilation for people whose lungs have shut down due to an injury or infection, such as Covid-19. Ventilators were in short supply towards the peak of this crisis, but the issue has mostly been solved for the time being. At the beginning of the crisis however, some state officials tried to conserve their dwindling supplies of ventilators. Some states took this effort too far though. They enacted policies that could deny individuals a ventilator based on if they have certain underlying conditions such as dementia, cystic fibrosis, or “severe” intellectual disabilities. Upon reading into these policies, I was highly disturbed. We are deciding who lives and who dies based on these policies. In a way we are judging who is more “worthy” of life. The way these policies are written makes it is clear who these policy writers are considering more “worthy” and less “worthy”. These policy writers clearly believe that disabled individuals are less “worthy” of life then the rest of mankind. By denying disabled individuals a ventilator, you are denying them life and enforcing the notion that these individuals are not “worth” keeping alive. I truly believe this is wrong in every way. These policies blatantly violate the rights of the disabled and treat them as “inferior” to the rest of society.