Paige Hassen: JRN

COVID-19, or better known as the coronavirus, has been one of the main topics throughout the entire world for the last few months. The virus originated in Wuhan, China in December of 2019, and has already affected 150 countries. The World Health Organization characterized the coronavirus as a pandemic on March 11, 2020. The total confirmed cases was over 410,000 as of March 25th, 2020, with around 18,400 deaths. This strain of the coronavirus has not been known to be in humans before. The symptoms for COVID-19 are very similar to those of the flu, including fever, dry cough, sore throat, headaches, and shortness of breath. Some studies have even showed that people have been experiencing a loss of taste, as well as links to blood type A being more susceptible to contracting the virus. Countries have started locking down their countries as the virus spreads. China did this and has just recently lifted the lockdown. Italy was hit very hard by the virus and is still under lockdown. Many states in the US have canceled school, sports, gatherings of more than a certain amount of people, as well as closing non-essential stores. Whole isles in stores have gone empty due to panic buying, and some items are very limited now. The world needs to take this disaster seriously if they want to save lives. They need to listen to the countries that have been hit the hardest and they need to be extremely cautious.