We are a community. It’s time to start acting like one.

Michelle Nguyen / Contributor / The USD Vista

As I struggle to cling onto normality amidst these long days of panic, I can’t help but think of my grandma who has been a constant in my life since birth. At the beginning of March, she passed away with the entire family by her side: five sons, two daughters and countless in-laws, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and friends. Our experience at the ICU was deeply personal: the nurses and doctors treated us like family who needed medical and emotional care. However, if she had passed away just one week later, my grandma’s care would have been compromised by the sea of COVID-19 cases flooding our healthcare system and crumbling society as we know it. 

It’s a distressing feeling that I have right now: a sense of relief that my grandma passed away when she did. I am confident that the healthcare system, in present conditions, would not have given my grandma the humane care she deserved. Thousands of healthcare workers have fallen ill. Patients are being treated in improvised wards by workers donned with makeshift personal protective equipment (PPE). Ventilators are now being used by physicians for two to three patients at a time. Ten million individuals have filed for unemployment within the last two weeks. And the apex of this pandemic has yet to hit. 

Still, the professionals who continue to work for our lives are not to blame. We, the people, continue to overwhelm hospitals with our unchanging behavior. If we follow the rising rate of infection in the United States, member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force, Dr. Anthony Fauci, estimates that there will be a total of 100,000 COVID-19 deaths. As disturbing as it may sound, this towering number is merely a goal. Neurosurgeon Dr. Sanjay Gupta emphasizes this message by saying 200,000 is an “optimistic” prediction unless the entire country maintains strict social distancing. Yet, nine states have not issued stay-at-home orders and innumerable individuals continue to break the ones already in order. The current rate of societal action is too meager for our goals. 

Together with government funding, PPE equipment, and accessible testing, community belonging is another scarcity that surfaced from this pandemic. In between hoarding toilet paper and attacking the Asian American population, people are still going out to picnic with family and play board games with friends. Such gatherings seem harmless but all meetings outside of the direct household violate social distancing protocol. Young people are using their seemingly resilient immune system as an excuse to ignore orders in place. I know of a student who casually left to eat with her cousins because “no one in their family is sick.” 

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), however, warns us of this flawed thinking. Among everyone infected by this coronavirus, approximately 25% of them are asymptomatic. Carriers of all types are still wandering the streets, unknowingly infecting the vulnerable. Regardless of age, health, and race, no one is an exception to the ruthless COVID-19. 

Our inadequate response to COVID-19 reveals a message that threatens today’s hyper- individualistic society: you are smaller than you think. Each of us belongs to a larger society that, now more than ever, hinges on how we act. We live with elderly, immunocompromised, and working individuals. Exposure to the virus on a trail or at the store may lead to the contamination of someone’s door knob, uninvitingly bringing COVID-19 into the home. 

I went out for a walk the other day hoping for some peace but could not get past the first block. On top of an ever-present fear of contracting coronavirus, I felt guilt. Leaving my uncle at home, even for a walk, was disrespectful. My uncle has Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease. Twice a day, he uses a nebulizer to administer medication directly to his lungs. Now, leaving the house for restocking medication, much less a walk, is no longer an option for him. Public spaces are reserved for people like my uncle who must leave the house for essential goods, medications, or work. Each time we go out for seemingly harmless activities, we chip away at the already limited freedom of those working and immunocompromised. 

I am grateful that my grandma did not have to live confused and vulnerable to this coronavirus. But the grandmas of our shared community depend on effective social distancing practices. Not to mention the many financially-strained individuals who do not have the support of tenants, workplaces, and government grants to stop working. Each person with the capacity to stay home must do so for the well-being of society as a whole. 

Social distancing is critical. However, it must remain entirely physical. It’s understandably hard to maintain relationships in separation, but we cannot let distance obscure our communal intentions and behaviors. The way we adjust to prioritize community wellbeing over individual motives will determine how our nation emerges from this pandemic: resilient and unified, or small-hearted as ever.