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  2020

  The Paradox that is COVID-19

  It was early morning on the 7th of July, 2020 and a cough from down under woke me out of my sleep. It is 2020, the Plague Year. Somewhere in the depths of my mind I heard a voice that said ‘CORONA VIRUS!’, a social media phrase made all the more famous when said best by rap icon, Cardi B. This time the voice was not hers but mine. I fell back asleep and woke again at 7 am preparing to catch a flight to Ft. Lauderdale in just an hour. I had a fever. I never have fevers. I felt off in a way where I could not focus on the present because a dark cloud of fear was hanging over me. I shook it off as CoronaVirus induced anxiety is a common thing these days. I hung back in order to board last and ensure myself an empty row on the plane all to myself. It was mid flight that I knew without a doubt that I had COVID-19. COVID-19 in nutshell is near impossible to explain and is a paradox not unlike the paradoxes it created in the moral structure of mankind. Covid-19 began introducing its pervasive nature into a plethora of my systems. You are freezing cold to the touch but burning inside. One moment your blood pressure is so low you begin to think out loud to yourself…’excuse me everyone while I just lay down right here and die’ followed by hours of pounding heart rates that require medical intervention. Of course there's diarrhea and I lost bowel movement in the hotel walking back to my room. CoronaVirus also almost had me convinced that I was going to throw up in my mouth for the rest of my life. Every few days the virus manifested itself in a new profound way but not before convincing me that it was ending. At one point my brain was shaking so intensely that the left side of my face drooped and my arms went numb landing me back into the ER for a round of anticonvulsants and fluids. The fatigue and muscle pain and swollen diaphragm were the last to leave or were they? Yesterday I woke up with pink eye and stomach cramps just a few days over 4 weeks since my symptoms started, 3 weeks after diagnosis and 10 days after testing negative. COVID-19 has affected the moral structure of mankind in a pervasive nature in a plethora of misinformation, egotism and political affiliation. And just like its symptoms, CoronaVirus has no middle ground of sensibilities in the human psyche. Some of the most prevalent concepts of the Plague Year range from government conspiracy, global terroism, the wrath of God, a hoax, a completely fraudulent non-existent virus, or a huge covert operation to inoculate the world and take the spotlight off the rampant sex trafficking and police brutality wreaking havic on the worlds children. 2020 is The Plague Year in every way. Who can blame us for our ignorance but ourselves. As a society we have turned our backs on books, professors, scientists and even our friends’ own experience for the misinformation machine known as social media. Many of us have let politicians determine the depth of our hearts. COVID-19 has made me question the paradox of the heart as an emotional or love centered force that exists in all mankind. I am writing as a Biological Science Major, PreMed student at Arizona State University and as a part of Religion, Culture, and Public Life course where I have been given the opportunity to share my story to ‘A Journal to the Plague Year’. In this course we study what is rational thought as it pertains to religion, spiritualism and the conditions of the heart in retrospect to whether or not man can do good for mankind without the need to also do bad to mankind. I lost several friends through this year and diagnosis. Some of them have never returned a text or call and others called me a liar and some laugh at my symptoms when I tell them. Then there are those that laugh at posts of people in hospital beds and turn their noses up to simple fever checks at local businesses. CoronaVirus would not be complete however had it not also brought out a global connection of assistance. Mortgages and rents are suspended, utilities are not being disconnected, the government is sending cash assistance and our food and medical welfare services have expanded to all in need. The Small Business Associations in combined efforts are bailing out businesses left and right with grants to the tune in the billions. For once in history the little man, the big man, the poor man, the rich man, the athlete, the teacher...all of us were in need and all of us were susceptible to the same affliction; COVID-19. My final thoughts on COVID-19 are one of simplicity in the midst of madness. Regardless of the plethora of theories or origination ideas and outside of the political or religious realm; CoronaVirus is still a real biological virus. CoronaVirus does not need to be highly fatal to wreak havoc on an individuals life but for far too many it is. As a future practitioner of medicine it is my oath to believe that one life is too many. It would do humanity some good to stop and weigh out the inconveniences of a silly mask or a temperature check or an imperfect trip at the grocery store for the sake of just maybe the scientists are correct. Just maybe we can stop this before The Plague Year of 2020 becomes the plague decade.