The Brave News

by R.J. Johnson

How serious is the “Coronavirus” or “COVID-19”? With COVID-19 being a new disease, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are still in the works of finding out how severe the illness might be and what causes it. 

So far, one of the most important things that we know about COVID-19 is how easily it spreads from person-to-person. The main way that the virus has spread is through close proximity with other people through respiratory issues like coughing or sneezing. Droplets admitted from the mouth or nose can make its way onto people nearby, possibly being inhaled into the lungs. 

According to the CDC, people are most contagious when they are most symptomatic. Although people mainly spread the virus through being visibly sick, the CDC believes that some spread might be possible before visible symptoms are shown. A recent example of this would be an NBA player from the Utah Jazz in Rudy Gobert. 

“I have gone through so many emotions since learning of my diagnosis…mostly fear, anxiety, and embarrassment,” Gobert wrote.

Having recently been diagnosed in the past few days, Gobert appeared to be perfectly healthy before his diagnostics. Shortly after Gobert was diagnosed with Coronavirus, his teammate Donovan Mitchell was too.  In an interview, he jokingly had touched all off the microphones with his hands before concluding. This contamination of surfaces and objects has been found to spread Covid-19 according to the CDC.

“The first and most important thing is I would like to apologize to the people that I may have endangered. At the time, I had no idea I was even infected,” wrote Gobert.

Since the Coronavirus outbreak has taken off, we have seen an obvious shift in everyday life that has not been quite welcoming. There have been travel bans, leaving people stranded in countries that are not their own all over the world. Professional leagues such as the NHL, MLS, and NBA have all shut down due to the Coronavirus. There have also been colleges across America that have shut down such as Georgetown University, University of Florida, Michigan State University, and University of California, Los Angeles. 

After seeing plenty of universities temporarily close down the school, each state’s respective elementary, middle, and high schools all began to shut down as well. For many schools, online instruction is being offered to students to keep everyone up to speed with their work. 

Should we be missing out on school, work, and sports? As of right now, America is the 8th leading country in total Covid-19 cases and wants to continue to keep that number as low as possible. There are 135,837 confirmed cases of Covid-19 worldwide. Even with 70,427 people recovered and 4,990 deaths, there are still 60,420 currently infected patients worldwide according to Worldometer which is keeping track of the virus spread in real-time. 

The goal for scientists across the world is to slow down the spread of the virus so that they could study it more in-depth and develop a cure for it. There is currently no vaccination for the Coronavirus, but researchers in the U.S. National Institutes of Health are in the early stages of development. The first phase of the clinical trial of the COVID-19 vaccine is set to come within the next couple of months. 

The world moves fast and is ever-changing, waiting months for a vaccination like this might take an even larger toll on certain countries’ trade economies than expected. There is always room for the world to recover from this virus, it is just a matter of how and when. 

Until we find a vaccination, the best ways to try and avoid obtaining the virus are by not sharing food items, keeping your hands away from your face, refraining from unnecessary physical contact with items or people, and washing your hands as frequently as possible for twenty seconds at a time with soap and water!