The Face with a Mask

By Hanan Shah

During my senior year of high school, my History class always happened to have a different “vibe” going on. I will always remember the time when I overheard a fellow classmate ask this boy named Lou, who always wore a facemask... “Lou, why are you always wearing that mask?” asked “the interrogator” Adam. Lou’s only ever response was “to keep your germs away from me.” To this present day, always remembering this odd conversation shakes me to the core and brings awareness to the current pandemic going on in the world now.

On March 11, 2020 Stat News reported:  “The World Health Organization officially declared the rapidly spreading coronavirus outbreak is a pandemic, acknowledging what has seemed clear for some time — the virus will likely spread to all countries on the globe.” Additionally, the “Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the situation will worsen.”

One can easily conclude that this is no longer a joke and it needs to be taken seriously. This caused a lot of hearts to sink when this pandemic was announced. Meaning, we are left to ponder our next moves and how we should approach this pandemic.

Currently, a lot of countries across the globe, including the USA, are in a “stay at home order/ lockdown” state of solitude. This means that we should be staying indoors, not traveling unless it is essential and making sure “we wash our hands,” according almost every news outlet. However, what we aren’t being told is how we can truly prevent this outbreak further than just washing our hands. This brings me to focus on what has cycled through China and their experiences with this outbreak.

China was one of the first countries to report having contracted the coronavirus outbreak. Although they have lost many people to the virus outbreak, they have been recovering even more. China has been through the entire cycle of this outbreak, and they were able to contain it, recover a mass amount of people and get rid of their lock down state. Present date, they were able to restore their cities to normal. However, no one is quite sure if the virus has been completely eradicated from China, but I am sure that it will most likely get better as people become more educated and aware about Covid 19.

Stat News has noted that “The virus, which probably originated in bats but passed to people via an unrecognized intermediary animal species, is believed to have started infecting people in Wuhan, China, in late November or early December of 2019. Since then the virus has raced around the globe. While China appears on the verge of stopping its outbreak — South Korea, which has reported nearly 8,000 cases, also appears poised to bring its outbreak under control with aggressive measures and widespread testing. But other countries have struggled to follow the leads of China and South Korea — a reality that has frustrated WHO officials who have exhorted the world to do everything possible to end transmission of the virus.”   

Understanding the natural culture of China, it is a norm to wear facemasks, and take cleanliness seriously. In my personal opinion, I feel that we as a country should mimic certain steps China has taken in order to prevent further outbreak. I agree with the WHO officials who stress that we as a country, “should be implementing a strategic combination of both containment and mitigation measures. The containment involves trying to detect and stop known chains of transmission by isolating cases and potentially quarantining their contacts. Mitigation involves community-level steps like social distancing and comes into play when the virus is spreading more broadly and transmission chains can’t be tracked. They dismissed questions that such efforts are too costly or resource-intensive, given what countries could face if they do not slow the spread of the disease.”

In order to prevent the worst from happening, we need to act now. That is to continue with our isolation, have our public buildings thoroughly cleaned by professional teams, and continue the need for social distancing. We could also implement some more in-depth methods that China has taken; according to two videos online, China has been spray disinfecting their residential areas, public buildings, cities and streets daily in order to prevent more of an outbreak. It is a shame that these type of natural cleaning methods are not used biweekly as a law or heavily enforced as a normal. Especially since population keeps growing and more places become heavily populated and not everyone is the best at keeping clean. Cleanliness should be a key component to any establishment or home.

History usually repeats itself if we don’t learn our lessons from the past. That individual in my senior year History class opened up my eyes and taught me a valuable lesson that plays a crucial part into today’s life. We should always take precaution, no matter how silly it sounds. That individual always wore face masks even though there were no outbreaks going on during that time. It’s always better to take the extra precautions rather than taking the risks even if there is no pandemic happening.  That individual was ahead of his time, and now looking back it shows just how careful we have to be in order to defeat this outbreak.

Works Cited

Helen Branswell, et al. “WHO Declares the Coronavirus Outbreak a Pandemic.” STAT, 11 Mar. 2020, www.statnews.com/2020/03/11/who-declares-the-coronavirus-outbreak-a-pandemic/.

China Clean streets corona video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_paSG16bWg

Hazmat daily city cleaning: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vLdwCdyiDCw