By: Jonathan Xu
During the summer of 2020, many people have been waiting to get out of their homes and out into the open from being cooped up in their homes for three months. This caused restaurants, beaches, and other places of interest to become cluttered with people.
All of this activity caused many community outbreaks throughout the country. In places like Louisiana, 12% of infections were from bars and restaurants alone. Tens of thousands of cases have been emerging from these public places, which has been causing concern for public health officials. The main reason why this is so alarming is because of the employees.
Employees of any building meets hundreds, if not thousands of different customers a day, and have an extremely high chance of becoming infected with the coronavirus if they, or others around them, do not follow the correct safety procedures to prevent the spread of the virus. When the employees return home, they could infect their families before they are even aware that there is anything wrong with themselves.
This situation has happened frequently in the past few weeks, as household transmissions have soared in the previous weeks throughout the country. Despite these alarming times, there are still many people who are seemingly unaware of the current situation, and who never follow any of the safety precautions set by the state (country).
Many psychological studies have shown that people who wear masks do it as “an act of altruism and a way of helping each other out,” says David Abrams, a professor of social and behavioral sciences at NYU School of Global Public Health. Those who do not wear masks do it because they believe it is an action of solidarity.
Due to many of these factors, the coronavirus is able to continue to spread throughout the communities, where there should be no signs of the virus. If everybody would cooperate, help each other out, and consider this at humanity’s point of view, and do the best to stop* this pandemic, it would become a very small issue after only a month or two.
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(Now is not the time to express your solidarity, and by not wearing masks, the only thing you are doing is putting others around you in danger. During this time, it is crucial that we stand together, as a country. )