Q: What are you worried about?

Owen: I’m worried about not knowing what to be worried about. Fear of the unknown. Knowing to be scared of an illness is one thing, but I don’t know whether to be scared for myself or my neighbors. There’s no straightforward answer. There’s no easy fix. There’s too much and too little information, there’s a million theories but no answers. Am I in danger? Are my parents? How seriously should I be taking this? There are so many different approaches. Do you go to the grocery store as much as possible to maintain your food stores until you have to stay inside? Do you stock up enough for a year and barricade yourself in your home? At this point where’s the line between paranoia, carelessness, and good sense?

Njoki: I’m worried about how long we will have to live like this and how bad the pandemic will get.  We went from planning to go to school to figuring out how to learn from home. Personally, I’m worried about how my AP tests/SATs are going to take place and how this pandemic is going to affect my college application process, and even further into the future, how will this affect the economy? Are we going to have another depression? I’m also worried that the virus will spread and everyone I know will have it at some point. I’m worried hospitals will be overrun and materials and equipment won’t be manufactured at the rate that they will be needed. I’m worried that the pandemic will get worse and it will take longer to recover from the damage that will be done.

Alexis: The biggest thing I worry about is that people that aren’t following the rules of quarantine and are still leaving their homes for non-essential things. I believe that people who don’t take the suggested precautions, sick or not, contributes greatly to extending the amount of time we have to stay inside.

Kaitlyn: I’m most worried about Coronavirus affecting my grandparents or my brother with asthma. I don’t think that me getting the virus would be that big of a deal, because I’m young and have a strong immune system, but I’m worried that I could spread it to family. A virus like this puts them at risk, and it scares me that they could so easily get it. I also know that a lot of young people, in particular, have not been strictly following the rules of social distancing which can just spread it more. It also worries me because there are so many conflicting sources saying completely different things, and it’s hard to know what’s true. I wish that there was more concrete information available, because the different sources are freaking people out more. Right now, we have no idea how long this will last, if we’re going back to school, or if this could be the new normal for a while. People want to be prepared, but they don’t know what to be prepared for, so it’s just making everything worse when everything’s gone out of the grocery stores and everyone is terrified.