POINT OF VIEW

The coronavirus infects far more around us than just our health

Posted

It is a fact. As all America can see, the coronavirus outbreak is causing an economic downturn and mass hysteria, similar to the panic mindset of the Great Depression. If this economic trend continues and the gross domestic product worsens, we can expect for a depression on a large scale even worse than that of what happened in 1929.

Here’s why. Unlike the last depression, with this crash will come the plummeting of online businesses. Many startups have been created in this time, and these as well will experience a significant loss as a result of this crash. This also will cause a reduction in the amount of medical services available to treat the virus leading to a spiral with the virus.

This also will mean as the virus spreads more, it will cause more quarantining — and like before, more spiraling.

With all the required quarantining and sheltering orders, Americans are staying inside more and more. As people stay in and conserve money more, they only purchase the necessities. This will be a trying time with unemployment and pain for all.

The solution is a simple thing to say, but will require an execution that may seem counterintuitive: The American public needs to stop being conservative as we are currently. People need to continue to buy consumer goods from stores and continue the exchange of stock. If we conserve, then it will stop the flow of money. If money doesn’t flow, it will cause an economic struggle.

This economic downturn will lead to people having a need to conserve more money. This will put us into a vicious cycle of economic downturn and unemployment. We need to encourage the American public to continue being safe and quarantining, but we need to do it in a way that promotes spending and a way to keep an income.

On a large scale, this depression will cause the world to have a crash of the stock market, create intense political pressure, and — most dangerously — encourage war. On a small scale for the individual, it will cause a loss of financial stability and a lack of basic necessities. We need the public to act in a way that is both sensitive to the outbreak and to safety, but we need life to be as close to normal as possible.

With this comes an important notion. There is a dire need for more infrastructure to be put into place to encourage this and replace the loss of money. The government needs to subsidize relief programs and make budget cuts to non-essential departments in favor of re-allocating these resources to aid this country and others.

If we do not act by thinking critically, educating the public, and keeping a clear mindset on what is necessary to be done, we will, without a doubt, be looking at a financial collapse that will skew progression for many years, and kill millions of people.

The second pressing matter here is dealing with the coronavirus to limit the need for change in people’s lives. The quarantine is a step in the right direction, but it alone is very clearly not doing enough to stagger this virus.

We need to look at other countries for what to do here. Hong Kong has given out medical masks to many of its citizens, and has created easy access to testing for the virus. China has pushed for the construction of more medical facilities.

We need more government action than what we have. We need to have money invested in research for long-term relief, and medical care for short-term relief. We need to find a way to make the coronavirus curable and preventable. A vaccine is direly needed, and once developed, should be required for employment with companies that interact with the public on a daily basis, and in schools.

We need to start converting non-medical facilities into temporary relief areas. One facility that could be converted is parts of schools. Many schools have been vacated due to the outbreak. We could use some of the school to continue any processes running in them currently, and take the rest of the space as a temporary hospital.

All of this may not be a perfect solution to the coronavirus pandemic, but it’s a start. In theory, these are the most logical steps to take to help our world.

In practice, we have no idea, and there’s only one way to find out.

Whether you agree with my opinions on how to solve this issue or not, I think we can all agree that we need to make changes fast before the world changes and leaves us behind.

The author is a 14-year-old resident of Riverdale.

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Gage Delgado,

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