Dear COVID-19,

Dear COVID-19,

If I were to look at the pandemic from your point of view, then I would have to say that the mission was a success. You are most likely proud to be the cause of the widespread disease, death, and desperation that is currently being seen around the world. However, you must be able to look at this situation from the perspective of the average human teenager.

I personally do not know anyone that has been affected by you, COVID-19, and I am lucky to be able to say that. There are plenty of people who have lost their lives or the lives of family and friends.

Metaphorically speaking, however, I do feel like I have lost my life. I mean that in the sense of my life before the pandemic, because I feel like my life has changed so much since March that it feels like I’ve taken on a whole new one.

I have had to adapt to an entirely new learning environment, that being in my bedroom on a laptop. Personally, I find it more difficult to focus on academics when there is no way to divide my personal home life from my more professional school life.

It is more difficult to socialize with friends and family now more than ever in my life. Even though the internet makes it possible to communicate with people without being in the same space, it is still necessary to have physical interaction with other humans in order to maintain mental health. Wearing masks and social distancing definitely help to stop or slow down the spread of you and your germs, but there is always still a risk of infection in public.

You cause people, including myself, to panic in such a way that causes other people to have things to panic about. For example, when you cause people to not want to go shopping in public in fear of catching your nasty virus, those people will buy out entire shelves of groceries. This panic buying causes other people to not have access to these groceries, so those people will panic about their inadequate stock at home.

As someone who has an autoimmune disorder, it is especially important that I stay healthy and away from people who may be carrying your virus. This causes myself and others in similar situations to be even more worried about somehow having germs being brought to us. If I were to come in contact with your virus, I would be more likely to have a severe outcome.

I do have some questions for you, Coronavirus. There is a lot of mixed information in the media these days, so I figured that I may as well go directly to the source.

Do you know the vaccine for yourself, Coronavirus? If so, you should make that information known to the FDA. If you want them to figure it out for themselves, that’s fine. I can keep a secret.

How did you prepare for your life of fame? I mean, before the pandemic, people probably didn’t even know that you existed. Call me uninformed, but I didn’t know that your cousin was the common cold until March. I especially didn’t know that you two had the same name.

Please write back with the answers to these questions, along with anything else you want me to know. I hope that you enjoy being pen pals.

Sincerely,
Mia Smith