From my opinion, I think corona-virus started as a pathogen. I think this pathogen started as someone ate an animal that has never tried before and they didn’t know if it carried a disease or any cells that if match with humans, can be critical. I also think that about this Covid-19, there’re a lot of theories or believes that can encourage somebody to think in these origins.

I welcomed my first child into the world at the very beginning of the COVID-19 crisis in the United States, leaving my fiancé and me isolated at home with a newborn. After three months, we desperately needed a night away from our precious bundle of joy. The only restaurant open was a sketchy looking German beer garden blasting accordion music, but we were just thrilled to be spending some adult time together while our son was with my mother for the evening. Upon walking into the restaurant, I readily pumped some off-brand hand sanitizer into my hand, and nudged my fiancé to do the same. I rubbed my hands together as we were seated, and breathed a sigh of relief that we were free from the colicky cries of our beloved child for the night. Suddenly my nostrils filled with the stench of bottom shelf tequila. The hand sanitizer wasn’t simply off-brand, it had been homemade by the restaurant. It was as if whomever had concocted the sanitizer was convinced that the best way to ward off the COVID-19 virus (and the fear attributed to it), was to completely bombard the olfactory system with the smell of alcohol. My fiancé remarked that because the sanitizer smelled so horribly, it must be killing all of the germs; unknowingly, he became a perfect example of how individuals have come to associate certain scents, like alcohol, with the illusion of cleanliness. Thinking back on that experience, I find myself pondering just how effective their homemade hand sanitizer really was. Or, more than likely, was it a last ditch effort (forced into action by society’s panic buying of cleansers), to provide their customers a sense of security through unconscious sensory associations.

It was a cool, breezy Sunday afternoon. it was the third of April when the world had just started warming up to this infectious Covid disease. The memers were calling it the 'Rona. I was flipping through the tv stations and I came across the FoxNews channel. it turns out all this chaos and coughing came from Wuhan, China. Word is it was some guy eating a bat, contracting the disease from it. At first I thought "How stupid do you have to be to eat a bat"? I then realized I shouldn't be questioning the intelligence of others when I myself didnt think of pressing the "submit" button after turning in an essay.

It was February and I was just hearing about this virus that had started in China. People were saying the cause was from someone eating an uncooked bat so that's what I thought too. For the whole time, Covid has been going on there I haven't seen another solid reason for why it started. I think that it is completely possible that Covid really did start from some disease in a bat but I don't think anything has been released to prove that.

It was a cool, crisp, Monday morning. January 13, 2020. I remember the day so clear that I could recall it in deep detail. I had just returned to school a few days prior. I went on my new iPhone 11, which I had just received as a Christmas present, and began texting friends. I soon went onto an app called TikTok, went onto the for you page. There was lots of silly videos. Then, suddenly, I saw a video joking about some virus in China. But it was in China!! So for away. I thought it would never make it to America. I began researching it but time was limited. I thought it was just a regular virus, I doubted it wound affect me. I quickly ate an English Muffin with creamy apricot jelly and butter on top. I got in the cary and talked to my mom on the way to school. "Mom," I muttered as my brother sat silently in the front seat while I was in the back seat of the Prius, "what is this corona thing I heard about?". MY mom breathed out harshly and then back in. She promised me that it was just a little virus in China and that everything would be okay. We hugged goodbye, little did I know that in a few months, she would be the one of the only people I could hug. Then I went to school and said hello to my friends. To be completely honest, there was one of them that was not super kind to me, for privacy's sake, we are going to call her Bailey. I asked my not so friendly friend, Bailey if the had heard about Corona (which was the slang everyone was using to refer to it). "Ya duh!" she replied, "It's a huge virus that China created!". I was not interested in starting conspiracies. Then I went to class and my mind continued spinning for the rest of the day.

The origin of coronavirus came from Wuhan, China. It started in a laboratory in China. Many people believe that coronavirus came from a bat but that's not true, I mean there are a couple of types of coronavirus that come from bats but the one we are dealing with was traced back to a lab in Wuhan, China. We were first told that it came from a bat, so we all followed it because we had no idea what we were dealing with. We believed anything major news would tell us, just blindly. It wasn't until I found out the truth that I truly know where this little cold came from. We should not blindly trust people until we can find the truth. Also, it came from China, we can't trust China so why would we listen to what they tell us about a virus that came from their land. Covid-19 came from a lab in Wuhan, China.

When this first began, people first thought that it was this crazy thing and we should be freaking out. Yes it is a big thing, but the media is just trying to blow it up, its not that bad. At first I didn't know what caused it, I just knew that it originated in China and that some how it got brought to the U.S. I first thought when we went into lock down that it would be for like a few weeks maybe even a month. Then 2 weeks turned into a month, and a month turned into 3 months, and 3 months turned into 7 months, and now we have almost been in quarantine for a year. I thought that the virus was just like another thing like influenza (flu) because it was a season where a lot of people get sick. Over this last almost year, my opinion has changed a lot. I think that the virus started in December late November, and that it didn't immerge until late February. I now think that some how someone in China caught it in late November and didn't show any symptoms. I think they then spread it to someone who showed symptoms and then that person spread it, so on and so forth. When I found out it was a lot more like the influenza (flu) then really anything else I wasn't that surprised, but I was kind of.

When I first heard about Covid 19, I heard many... "interesting" theories on how it first came to be. These ranged from secret labs on the other side of the world to aliens from outer space. Of course, I didn't really believe most of these, but then again, I didn't know what believe. Since then, I haven't really put a lot of thought into the origin of the virus, because I've been more focused on avoiding the sickness itself. As of now, I believe what the majority of medical experts are saying, which is that it most likely started in animals such as bats or pangolins. However, after this assignment, I think I will keep tabs on what is being said about COVID-19's beginning from now on.

Well, way before Covid was spreading, I first discovered that Covid originated in Wuhan, China by watching a video. I thought about how unsanitary that place was and how disgustingly dirty it was. I learned that it originated in bats and that it was in a "wet market". I was disgusted by this and I felt that China should shut down all of their "wet markets". Over the months, I learned more about this virus and I learned that there is another version of it in North Africa. When I first discovered this virus, I thought that it was just a virus and we did not have to worry about it. Apparently not. It spread all over Europe and came to the United States. Everyone was freaking out and then schools closed. After, quarantine started. Now, I realized how serious this virus truly is, and I am downright scared.

COVID was not a mistake or an accident. It didn’t just come here like other viruses did it was on purpose. The far left, Germany, Italy, and other countries used this virus to shut down people, shut down opinions and anyone who thought otherwise. Their main goal was to get President Trump and company out of the White House. They rigged the election, rigged the senate races and put in a fony President Joe Biden. Joe Biden isn’t the problem it is his Vice President Kamala Harris, she will bring socialism into this free country. You see, mail in ballot votes are safer cause of COVID, we can’t voice opinions cause of COVID, we can’t live cause of COVID. It’s all fit into a plan to turn this country into China, the left have used COVID to get rid all that we have loved about this country.

they say the virus came from biological warfare, but that is impossible cause a virus cannot be bred, and people could tell if it was artificial, so that means that this virus either evolved from a different covid, or lung virus and adapted to the vaccines, or it was a virus that was originally from a different species and got on a human and evolved over a long time. However, the first option means that vaccines are quickly being evolved and adapted over because of overuse and that other viruses could follow, and the second means that viruses evolve faster than we think and exotic animals are dangerous in regards to their sicknesses and viruses.

There have been many different theories on what caused covid-19 many of which are ridiculous ideas. A few of these include bats, 5G cellphone towers, pangelions, and genetic modifications. However, I think that the coronavirus is a regular strand of virus that mutated normally to make it harder to stop allowing it to spread rapidly across the world. This has happened before in several different viruses and pandemics before including yellow fever and polio. This is what I believe is how covid-19 started however I could be completely incorrect and this is just my opinion.

Perhaps the first thing about COVID was that it was from China. They said people contracted the virus by eating bat guano. It was on almost every news network, and everyone was talking about it. I certainly believed it. Why shouldn't I? And I kept on believing it until a certain point. One day while I was watching Fox News (before they were taken over by liberals), a Chinese woman came on talking about the virus' origins. She claimed that the virus was created by the Chinese communists. Now this was very interesting. It was certainly something they were capable of. The woman said that she fled China after her mother was imprisoned by the government because she was calling out their lies. It seems that China punishes those who expose them, so maybe the woman was telling the truth. I don't know if we'll ever be 100% certain of what caused the virus, but I guess we all have our own theories.

For about a year now, we have been quarantining from covid-19 and there are questions to how it started. I believe it started and the cause is from a disease from bats. I believe this is true because of all of the information we gathered from the scientists. I also believe that the people we can say caused it are the people who ate the bats.

I was browsing the internet one time when quarantine just started, I didn't have much to do since we were supposed to be cooped up in the house all day. I came across a document that stated what was assumed to be the start of the virus. It said that It started in China which was already confirmed, and it started going on about how the virus started when someone ate a bat. I personally thought this was absurd, and didn't put too much thought into it. More people I knew actually believed this assumption was true, I didn't. Flash forward a couple of months and it's August and a new article comes up about how the virus was man-made. This one was actually believe-able. If this was true (I still don't know if it is) I would be pretty upset. 2020 kind of ruined everything it could. Let's hope that they're wrong and that the virus wasn't man-made.

I think the most believable way is The outbreak began in Wuhan, China a city with a population of over 11 million. The virus is believed to have originated from a market where animals such as bats, snakes, rabbit and birds are illegally sold. Humans as well as animals both living and dead are put together in close contact in markets in often unhygienic conditions. As the coronavirus is known to be transferred from animals to humans, it is believed market stallholders, who came into contact with animals were the first people infected with the strain. A 61 year-old frequent shopper at the wet market was the first person to die from the virus.

I think that COVID-19 was made in a lab. Not only do I think it was made in a lab but I think it was tied into an Election. Which caused certain things to happen which caused the result of the election. Therefore COVID-19 was made and used to corrupt America and I think it is tied into bioterrorism and biochemical warfare. That is what I think and still think COVID-19 is and was.

I think that Covid-19 is simply a virus that mutated from a different common virus. I truly have no knowledge on how the virus started therefore this is a total and complete guess. I think it is possible that it evolved from something such as the flu or common cold.

What I first learned about COVID-19 was that it was a flu created by people eating Bats in China. I heard that from social media. But then I heard those rumors were false. Now I think COVID was made by china in a lab to destroy America.

I was watching the news and in the broadcast, I first learned the cause of the virus. The cause was from bats. I thought this was a little odd since I thought only insects could spread a virus. My opinions/knowledge has changed since I learned that any animal could spread a virus. Now that I know the true cause of the virus, I am more informed and I can tell people who are uneducated on the cause of the virus, the real cause of it.

With quarantine entering its eleventh month, and looking for ways to exercise when it ‘s cold or wet outside, we turned to our garage and roller blades. With 70s disco and r&b bumping, it’s not too hard to pretend we’re at the roller disco. Time to get on Amazon and get some colored lights! Anything to keep us active and having fun even as the pandemic outside these walls shows no sign of slowing.

Many people believe the virus originated from a bat in Wuhan, China. I believe it came from an animal, that could be a bat, rat, etc. After the animal transmitted its sickness to a human, the virus did the work from there. It kept on spreading throughout the Earth. It is likely that it came from a bat, as that is what scientist's best guess was, but nobody knows exactly how it happens. Bats are known for spreading new diseases around, and are very unsanitary.

Coronavirus has been hard for our economy and has affected everyone. This virus has shut down schools, people have lost their jobs and everyone has had to adjust to the new rules. This pandemic has being going on for a whole year and 1,899,285 have died. The epidemic started in Wuhan, China, it started spreading through the world. The disease then spread across several countries and affected a large number of people, it was classified as a pandemic.Jul 1, 2020

I think Covid-19 because of how the modern day world keeps itself clean and how it deals with its sanitation and politics. Over time, it was bound for something to happen like this. It almost like we can't keep up with ourselves. Our world was broken and it allowed something devastating to enter it such as Covid-19. With travel such as airplanes and motor vehicles traveling everyday, it allowed Covid-19 to spread all over our world so quickly and that's how I think Covid-19 started.

My Christmas was basically normal. The only different thing this year was that all the dogs came there was 8 dogs there! Also some of my older family members did not come. But overall is was surprisingly good.

My Christmas was pretty normal, to be honest. The main difference was I was not able the see my grandparents. That was very sad because I spend Christmas with them almost every year. I was able to talk to my whole family everywhere over zoom witch is something we have never done. That was fun to talk to some of my family that I don't talk to very often. But other than that my Christmas was pretty normal.

When the Virus first started to deeply affect America (mid-march) everyone wanted to know how it began. People said it was bats and when I first heard it I was a little unsure. I was uncertain if it was real or just something chosen to put blame on. As weeks gone by I accepted that as the origin because animals carrying a virus was not very unusual or far fetched. To be honest as the virus continues I haven't heard any other causes probably because after a while the need to know sort of settled down. People stopped talking about it because there are way more important things to worry about such as schools, business, hospital room, and peoples general safety. When I was first learning information about Covid as a whole I took everything with a grain of salt until there was more research.

I have heard many different stories about how the Corona virus started. Everything from the government made it, to its warfare. At this point the only story I really believe is the one that takes place in Wuhan, China. My dad's side of the family lives in China, Taiwan, and Japan and we visit there a lot. There are these night markets where they sell everything that you could ever need and more. They have things from food, to arcade machines, and even fake luxury goods! I know that in the more parts of china they have markets that sell animals that the Americans would gag at. So the story goes that there was a person who got a bat to eat at one of these markets. However, this bat was infected with a disease. They didn't know and they saw people and that person saw other people. That's how I believe that it started.

This is how I think Covid started. Covid has been a thing for a very long time but it was never carried by humans. It was actually carried by bats! The way the sickness actually started was someone killed a bat and then made it into a soup and ate it! When he ate it the sickness some how transported into his body. Then he got corona and spread it, and now it is a world wide sickness that has the world scared.

In January, my parents heard the news about a disease that originated in Wuhan China. The assumption was that the virus Covid-19 was caused by bats. In the food markets in Wuhan, I think since the meat was not healthy and clean, the person who ate it got contaminated. The virus was first discovered when a patient arrived at the hospital with an unknown virus. The doctor that tried to treat the patient is already dead. Many viruses have been caused by sick animals. People could get sick by eating the wrong part of poisonous animals such as pufferfish, so the idea of getting sick because of bats seem reasonable.

One of the longest lasting memories for me of the Pandemic will be the olfactory association I will forever have between the smell of musty, soiled fabric and this period of time. The combination of coffee, toothpaste, sweat and laundry detergent was a defining one for me this year. As a high school teacher and coach, my days were long and required extensive periods of lecture based discussion and non negotiable face coverings. While the requirement was understandable from a safety perspective, the result was a facemask that always either smelled like it needed washing or had just been washed. For that reason, these scents will always remind me of this period

In the beginning, there were many theories of where the coronavirus came from, all of them having to originate in China. I was told that it was from eating bats, which sounded absurd. I think this is one of the many reasons why I thought the virus wasn't real or wasn't as serious as it is because it all sounded ridiculous. And then I was told that it was Chinese scientists' fault and that they had created and manipulated the virus in a lab. I started to believe this theory, and it clouded my judgement when I was told the truth: the coronavirus was from the wilderness. As I said before, I did not believe in the eating bats theory which is why I was skeptical that the new theory involved bats once again. But, once I got concrete evidence, like the fact that in the 2002-2004 SARS outbreak, it originated in bats, I started to believe this new theory, or the truth. Over the last 10 months, scientists have uncovered so much more about the coronavirus than thought possible. Because of the many false theories and accusations made throughout the COVID history, China has become the scapegoat for many people to blame this whole situation on, stating that is all their fault, even though we don't have concrete evidence if this is true or not. Whatever the cause of the COVID breakout, we should not blame it on other people, but help each other get through these tough times.

I personally don't believe there is one person to blame or one specific start of the virus. Yes, it had to have first started somewhere, but because it spread so quickly it's hard to narrow it down to just one specific starting point. I've heard all the different theories of what "truly" caused the virus, but I believe it started with a few people and it then spread quickly from person to person. Because it was a mutation disease no one had the antibodies to fight it off quick enough to not spread it or carry it with them. Since we also don't know where it truly began or even when there is really no way to find the original cause of this virus.

When covid first came out, it was a really small issue. No one immediately required social distancing measures and we were continuing life as normal. I was told that it was only in China, and the likely cause was someone eating a bat. However, as it got to the US, cases quickly escalated and everything shut down, taking sanitizer and toilet paper off the shelves and destroying small businesses. I was scared, but I knew I wasn't going to die. When school got off I thought the virus would go away in 2-4 weeks. Now the cases keep escalating, and it is January 2021. I am way more serious about social distancing now, having learned the impact of following the rules and the terror covid nurses go through. Looking back on myself in march, I feel stupid because I had no idea what was coming. I feel like this was a year of karma, learning, and self-growth and improvement.

I think the cause of Covid-19 is a food item. Near Japan, they eat a lot of things that probably shouldn't be eaten, and if you don't cook it right it can have bacteria still on it. Actually, most animals haw viruses that their body they can handle that humans can't. And that is how I think the virus started, from something on an animal.

When the Corona Virus was just starting, my family and I were in Mammoth for our Winter Vacation. We started to hear stories on the news about a deadly deseise spreading throughout China. Back then we weren't really discussing where it came from, we just thought of it as something that was happening in a far away country that didn't concern us. Once we wen't back to school the virus had started to spead all throughout Europe and Asia and it was becoming more of a concern. Because of this there was an exponential growth in interest in the facts of what the Corona Virus is and where it came from. At first it was thought amoungst our group that it was created in a lab and escaped (much like the killer bee). This was later proven to be false by science studies. The next belief was that it came from bats! That stuck for a few months. Then, right before summer we stumbled on what we still believe to this doay to be the cause of the Corona Virus pandemic. The research of many scientists found that the virus come from an animal called a pangolin being sold at black market traders in China. There were may of these black markets all around the country. They all eventually got closed down, but not soon enough. COVID-19 had already spread to the entire planet and is now one of the most deadly pandemics of all time.

I first found out about COVID was from my former science teacher. We had been talking about viruses and someone had mentioned the word "coronavirus" well all thought this would just be another virus that would just come and go. We were told that covid initially came from a snake in China and it would never travel to the US and we would be fine. Now my knowledge from what we learned I really don't trust any government with heir telling of the story because each one if different. This experience really has changed me and a person and who I really trust in many things.

when I first heard of covid was when I was in my moms car like a little less then a year ago. On the radio it said there was a virus in china and the suspected its origin was in a meat market in Wuhan China. some people thought it came from a type of rat that when skinned it spread through the air. the more popular idea was it some how cam from a bat. I first thought it bit someone and gave it to them that way. but some of my friends thought it was from when the bat died or was eaten. I don't think anyone knows for sure where it came from but everyone knows it came from that meat market.

I think that the cause of covid-19 is that the covid virus mutated in an unexpected way, and people didn't realize that they had it, and brought it to other countries. Then it spread throughout the world, becoming a rather deadly virus, but we don't really know, because the statistics are so skewd.

When I first heard about the virus I was at school in the hallway going to Spanish. I didn't know much about it, but I remember them saying we might have to be online for a month or two, maybe even going through summer. When I got home that day I watched the news about the virus with my dad and saw details on it I originally thought it was like the flu and I turned out to be right. And when I found out that we would maybe have to wear masks wherever went, I was distraught. But I learned to live with it and shockingly we still have to nearly a year later. I don't know many people who got covid except for my aunt and her sister who had gone on a trip to Europe and got it on a plane. She lost her taste and smell for a few days and she was better in about 2 weeks and she slept in the same bed with her husband and he or her kids didn't get it. So to the average population, I believe that it's not too harmful as long as you are healthy and aren't too old.

I thought this was going to be like the common cold everyone would get over it in like 2 weeks. but after a few days it started to get a lot more serious in a way that everyone had to start wearing masks.i think the cause of how its spread so much is that some people don't want to wear a mask. my knowledge has changed because now I know a lot more than it can just kill people. some of my experiances with this is that when the people came across the news that they were saying that the first case of covid has came into the u.s., was that it was kinda confusing because I didn't know what it was.

I have always loved cooking, and from a very young age, I spent time working through tough moments in my life with the comfort of flour, sugar and butter in the kitchen. When the pandemic hit in March 2020, I was a student teacher at a middle school in California, and finishing up my final quarter of my masters in education. I loved my job, my students, and my colleagues and I was heartbroken when I had to say my final in-person goodbyes to my first set of students. Just as I had in the past, I took my confusion, worry and stress to the kitchen, and began to procross the difficult road that I knew was ahead of me. One of the first recipes that I baked in quarantine was coffee cake because I had been talking to a friend, who had never tried it before. As I listened to my mixer beat the sugar and butter together, I could feel a sense of calm wash over me. Baking, even though it’s science, has an interesting paradox of being confusing and straightforward at the same time. I typically understand how the ingredients work together, and the process of following each step of a recipe brings a sense of peace. As I incorporated the eggs, vanilla, cinnamon, dash of allspice, salt into my mixture, the daunting nature of a global pandemic hit me. How was I going to adapt to online learning? How was I going to get a job in the fall as a teacher? How was I going to handle the next unknown amount of time? The smells wafting from my mixer comforted me, and even though the smell was confusing to my nose, I knew that the end product would be delicious and bring warmth to those who tried it. As I poured the mix into a pan and set it in the oven, a new sense of ambition began to bubble in me. If I could bake this wonderful cake, how hard could it be to face a pandemic? As I said this to myself, I knew how ridiculous it sounded, but I knew at this point I had to fake it until I made it. So as my coffee cake was baking I sat down and began to plan the next few weeks of virtual learning and by the time the timer went off, I had a rough plan of what I wanted to do. Taking the cake out of the oven and sampling it for the first time was glorious. I had worked hard to produce this thing, and I knew I could do the same with any task put in front of me during this pandemic. As I delivered baked goods to my friends doorsteps, while maintaining 6 feet of distance, and wearing a face mask, I hoped that a taste of coffee cake would bring the same comfort to my friends as it did to me in the tough early days of the pandemic.

My mom said that we were going to keep me home from school for a couple of days and I remember thinking...what is happening? I stayed home from Wednesday-Friday and on that Friday, my mom drove me to school in our Black honda to go pick up my books and clean out my locker because we were going to have an "extended spring break" which really turned into 8 months+ of online school. I thought that this was all super crazy! I was in shock that we had to stay home and learn from a computer. My opinions have changed a bit from back then. I started off thinking that this all would fly by and we would be back in school in a couple of weeks and maybe a month, but now I am not even sure if the world will ever be the same. Will we always have to wear masks? Maybe, but no one knows because the virus keeps getting bigger and bigger. I just couldn't believe that all of this was happening, at first, I thought it would be fun, but as time went by it just got kinda boring.

The first case I heard about this was back 2 years a go in December. I heard lots of theories the first one I remember hearing is that someone ate a bat and contracted this virus. I didn't think much of it at first but after time I realized how serious it is and how much it affects everyone in the world. My opinions on the virus have defiantly changed over time though, but I still manage to keep the same precautions and make sure to follow the instructed rules to keep everyone safe.

When this pandemic first started there were many different theories of how COVID-19 started. The one I knew about was this virus came from a bat in China. Someone ate it and got contaminated. To me, it sounded ridiculous because it didn't make sense to me that a bat started this whole entire pandemic. Since then, my opinion has changed. I believe that in China scientists were looking at the Covid 19 in a lab. I think it escaped and that's how it got out to the whole world.

At the beginning of the pandemic, I thought that the Coronavirus originated from a bat in a Chinese marketplace. While we still don't know where the virus originated, I highly doubt it came from a bat, though you never know! It truly could have come from anywhere.

I'm still not quite sure what caused Covid initially, even after almost a year. I first thought that it was just another mutation of some other virus or something else, like the flu. I didn't really give it much thought. I first saw the claim that Covid came from eating bats in China in a youtube meme video, where one of the memes implied that Covid came from animal consumption. I have seen a few other things that also say that it originated when we ate bats.

My story begins February of 2020. I remember that Covid had not become such a big deal in the USA yet, but it was about to. School had not been closed yet and I remember that the Science Fair was maybe going to be canceled. I had been working on it for a long time and I was hoping it was not going to be canceled. Thankfully, it was not canceled and we were able to participate in the Science Fair. As the month of March began, it became more serious and they had to shut down the School. I though it was just going to be until the end of the school year, but it lasted until 2021. That is myself story of the time before Covid-19.

When I first learned about the virus, I was told that it came from bats. And the first people that had contracted covid-19 had eaten bats that were sold at a market. I thought it was sad because people were dying from it. I also never thought it would be more than a couple of people that ate some bats and got the virus, I never thought it would become a world wide pandemic. I still believe that there is a virus and that masks effectively work. I know what you can do to prevent you from getting it. When I was first told about the virus, I was told that the flu was worse, in some cases that is true, but because there was no vaccine yet, and it can have also a larger long-term effect on some people. Also, I think that if our president put the entire country in a 4-week mandatory lock down where you were only allowed to leave your house for groceries, we would not be in this massive outbreak now. Also if all those anti-maskers just put a mask on and stopped saying that they have medical conditions that prevent them from wearing a mask, it could also be a lot better. Yes, there are certain medical conditions that prevent you from wearing a mask like a face burn, but if so just get your groceries delivered and stay home. Also if people stopped spreading lies that covid-19 is just a hoax, maybe some people would take it seriously and we would be in a much better situation.

For the past four or five years, New Year's Eve was always something I greatly looked forward to. Usually my night was spent with friends, playing games or enjoying a drink while waiting for the all-important countdown to the new year. One year, my roommate's mom came to visit and we celebrated by bombarding each other with silly string as the clock struck midnight. The next year, my friends and I decided to participate in the Spanish tradition of eating 12 grapes at midnight, one at each stroke of the clock, but forgot until about 5 strokes in and risked choking as we attempted to catch up with the clock. In 2019, which seems like so much longer than a year ago, I celebrated with a friend who worked for a dog-sitting company; as midnight came and the fireworks began, we toasted with champagne while comforting the nervous pups. Despite what had happened in the previous year, or whatever challenges I already foresaw for the upcoming year, New Year's Eve was a chance to end the year with some fun, and start the year with good company. Obviously, this year was different. Leading up to December 31st, I felt a sense of loss. In 2020 I had moved to a new state, and the friends I usually celebrated with were over two thousand miles away. Even if I was in the same state as them, it would have been irresponsible to celebrate in the way we previously have. What was usually a night I looked forward to every winter was instead serving as a reminder of the often overwhelming sense of loneliness this pandemic can bring. I was heading into the end of this year melancholy and disappointed. But then one sentence, which I saw on instagram, changed my outlook. While I did not screenshot it, it said something along the lines of this: Celebrate New Year's Eve by going to bed early, so you can start 2021 rested, refreshed, and ready to take on the year. So that's what I did. After finishing work around 7:00 PM, I went home, took a shower, read a little, and called it a night. I recall briefly waking up to the sound of fireworks, but for the most part I slept well and began 2021 rested, rather than exhausted from staying up all night. While I was still a little sad to have spent the night alone, without the usual fun activities, I think it was a good way for me to start out the year. I can use that night as a reminder that even though 2021 will still be unusual and, at times, a bit lonely, I can take this alone time to focus on myself, and what allows me to feel rested and refreshed. It's not the most revolutionary resolution, but as far as New Year's intentions go, I think it's a pretty vital one.