The Year of Quarantine

Written by Taylor Mattingly

When 2020 began, people weren’t worried about the now famed covid, covid-19, coronavirus also known as… Corona…. January and February were seemingly normal, and the United States was doing what it does best, being invincible. Eight year old Jacoby Gabree simplifies Corona which actually isn’t all that simple.

It was a normal Thursday in March when fear set in, and suddenly we weren’t invincible, and the virus was rapidly upon us… In the beginning it was a simple suggestion, but a mere three days later and dining rooms of restaurants were forcibly closed.

Now, a month later, and schools across the US and the entire state of Illinois have moved to e-learning for the rest of the year. This includes Zachariah Mattingly who is a senior at Tuscola High School. When four long years of high school was cut short he didn’t know that he wouldn’t get the chance to say goodbye… Zach is a senior who participated in Cross Country in the Fall and Track in the Spring. But his senior season was cut short when Corona became an issue. The common theme from all of these students is simple. They miss their friends, and they can’t handle the fact that some of them will never walk those empty halls as a student again.

Ashley Mattingly is a Junior at College of the Ozarks in Point Lookout Missouri. Her biggest struggle is that professors are giving her even more assignments now that her campus has switched to e-learning. CofO is known as a “work-hard” university, so normally she works on campus for at least 15 hours a week, but now that she’s working from home she’s spending even more time online…

Though the workload has gotten more tasking there’s one thing Ashley won’t take for granted once she gets the opportunity to study on campus again…

Students are in the spotlight because they are losing their last sporting event, dance, and their graduation, but heroes on the front line are putting their lives at risk daily in order to protect the people around them. Kyle Gabree is a maintenance technician for Strive properties. They are currently only allowed to complete emergency maintenance requests. He’s just trying to stay positive about the situation and hopes that they create a vaccine soon.

Janet Dukeman is a registered nurse who says that her work is taking extra precautions in order to ensure that the residents don’t get infected. They are required to wear masks at all times. The nurses are not allowed to bring in any outside for or drink, and they have increased their sanitizing and hand washing to even further lengths than it was before.

Through everything that is going on in the world people are finding ways to connect online. Technology is making waves in order to bring people together. We may have to socially distance, but we won’t be socially distant…