My Family's Experience With Covid-19

 About a little over a month ago, I found out my whole family and my boyfriend back home had gotten Covid-19. I hadn't seen them in a while and wanted to come home sometime soon until I found out that they had it, and I obviously didn't want to get it so I didn't get to see my family for about two or three weeks just to make sure that it was completely gone so I didn't get it and bring it back to school with me. I asked them how Covid made them feel and they described to me that the worst part was that their chest constantly felt heavy and they had headaches consecutively throughout the day. When I went home I still didn't get to see my boyfriend because he actually tested positive again after two weeks of quarantine, which we thought was a little strange because he felt completely fine. Although he felt better after the fourth week of quarantine, he described having Covid as the worst two to three weeks of his life. Some of his symptoms included high fever which caused him to sweat a lot, he had no taste or smell so he rarely had an appetite which caused him to be weak and shaky. He also had a very bad cough and excruciating headaches. My parents didn't have as bad of symptoms, they said it kind of just felt like the flu but not as exhausting. Therefore, I found it interesting how it affected everyone differently. This is my boyfriends Covid test result the second time getting tested.

My Look on Covid-19 at UK

     Over the past few weeks I have concluded that Covid-19 is spreading like wildfire here at the University of Kentucky. I say that because I found out recently that many of my friends that go to school here had gotten Covid and gave it to their roommates and other friends. There are many reasons to why this is happening but I am going to focus on college parties. The residence halls and the university have restricted policies that we must follow which decreases the exposure of Covid to students living on campus resulting in less cases. On the other hand, it's different for the students who live in their own apartment or house off campus because they don't have the same restrictions, if any, as students who live on campus. Therefore, if they decide to have a get together of however many people they want while not following social guidelines, Covid is highly exposed to the students who attend which can result in Covid spreading to other students on campus who don't attend the parties. This problem does worry me because I don't want us students to get sent home. Although all of my classes are online already, I enjoy being in Lexington and the environment of the UK campus. Other than that issue, I have noticed that a majority of the students have been taking the correct precautions to stay safe by always wearing their mask and social distancing, so if a solution can be found for those students to take this virus more seriously and be aware of the rise in cases, I think we'll be able to continue our education on campus.

Chipotle During Covid-19 (Lexington, Kentucky)

How Covid-19 Impacted My Diet

 Covid very much affected me and my family's relationship with food in a positive way. Since restaurants have closed down, my mom cooked homemade meals that were obviously way healthier than fast food so i would conclude that my family and I's diet improved. Covid did make accessibility to the grocery store difficult, so my mom subscribed to Home Chef for the time being and they sent a box a week which contained about three to five meals and they were always delicious. However, when restaurants begin opening back up, I did eat a lot of takeout food because of how much I missed it during quarantine. 

University of Kentucky's Budget Cut for this Year Due to Covid-19

https://www.uky.edu/coronavirus/updates/planning-uncertain-budget 

Who Am I Supposed to Believe?

 If i'm being completely honest I do not voluntarily read up on Covid unless it relates to my schooling or work. When i do want to find out more information I usually look on either New York Times since I now have a subscription or on UK's website. As of right now, I do not really trust anything I hear about covid because I have seen so many things about false positive tests, exaggerated positive test numbers, and how they have counted deaths unrelated to Covid as "Covid deaths." For example, I saw a tweet that Robert Tayman posted that said "Nurses at a hospital doing Covid testing became suspicious when all their tests were coming back positive. they sent 2 tests with unused swabs and they came back positive. Nurses used fake names, sent 10 unused swabs to be tested and all came back positive. We are being played!" This tweet was deleted, but screenshots quickly made their way to facebook, where they were shared thousands of times. None of my family members or friends think that New York Times or UK's website is faulty information, therefore not causing any conflict, but there are definitely some questionable websites out there with unreliable sources. I believe that the way Covid has been politicized will be more dangerous in the long run compared to just the pandemic itself because if it hadn't been politicized the way it was and we had just let this virus run its course, obviously still taking precautions, then there wouldn't be so much conspiracy and political issues brought into it.

This is an example of why I do not trust anything I hear about Covid from officials.

My Five Minute Graduation

 This is what my senior graduation looked like. Not a single person in the audience but my parents, the principals, and a camera man. I had to remove my mask before walking across and put it back on when I reached the end of the of the stage, I also picked up a fake diploma for the graduation video and returned it after because ours have yet to be made due to printing company's closing because of Covid. It only lasted about five minutes compared to a usual three hour graduation ceremony so that, I didn't mind.

Did Covid-19 Change The World Forever?

About a year ago, this is not what I expected my first year of college to be like. Are we going to have sports games, or tailgates, or other fun school wide events? For 13 years I looked forward to college and had very high expectations for my first year as a freshman but then we get hit with a global pandemic right before we were supposed to graduate high school. Everywhere I look I see masks, "wash your hands", "six feet apart", or "do not enter if you are feeling ill" and i just ask myself "is the world ever going to go back to normal?" "are people still going to continue to keep a distance and wear masks for the of their lives?" But right now, everything is up in the air and no one really knows whats going to happen next. I believe that the world is going to be changed forever because of Covid-19. Coronavirus will never go away but I believe that the world will become less restricting and treat this like any other sickness. 

My Safe Home Away From Home

 I believe that the University of Kentucky will not have to go online before the end of the semester. After being on campus for three weeks i have noticed that this school seems to take more per-caution than other universities. Obviously UK has signs promoting social distancing and mask wearing but they also made everyone that would be living on campus get tested so that students that had Covid-19 could quarantine before knowing they had it and accidentally spread it to other students, which was a very smart decision. Personally i don't know any other schools that made testing mandatory for students before starting school in the fall. Although all of my classes are online, some of my friends have told me how safe the in person classes seem because they have to sit so far away from everyone. I've also noticed that every student on campus has a mask on 99% of the time, even outside. We were also all given wellness kits that had all of the sanitary things we would need and even a UK mask when we arrived to campus which was pretty cool because i haven't seen any other university do that either. Recently, my residency hall has extended the restricted visitation policy for two more weeks, which to me was a smart move because it is less exposure to the students living in this hall.

The beginning of Covid-19

 My name is Stazia Donathan. I am from Wilder, Kentucky and I am 18 years old. I am Caucasian and considered middle class. A little more about me is that my parents have been divorced for six years now, I have two older brothers, and the cutest nephew that is about to turn seven months. When it comes to terms about Covid-19 in my family, it wasn't quite a burden to us but it was an eye-opening experience. We spent way more time together and my mother cooked great homemade meals for dinner every night which used to only be on rare occasions. Although those times were good, my nephew had just been born before the virus so it was very scary for us to have a new born during a pandemic. The grocery stores quickly became empty and restaurants and stores began closing. My workplace also closed, cutting off my income and not too long after that, my parents jobs closed as well. This is when Covid-19 began to get a little more scary for my family and other families too. Although toilet paper, cleaning supplies, hand sanitizer, foods, etc. were scarce my family did alright through this pandemic. We had plenty of food in our cabinets and fridge to keep us full and enough cleaning supplies left over that we already had but it was difficult not having access to our favorite restaurants or stores. It was also upsetting that I didn't get the have the graduation that I had looked forward to the past 13 years and I never got to see my class all together for the last time. We didn't have the senior bike ride, senior walk, or an official last day to say goodbye to our teachers or classmates because we were not aware that we would not be returning back to school. I was probably the only family member that has come the closest to Covid-19 because in May, me and my boyfriend went to his family's beach house in Daytona, Florida. We were aware that the virus was spiking but as individuals, we maintained the social guidelines. I say that I was the closest to Covid-19 because when we arrived to Florida, almost no one was following social guidelines. People were still going out to eat normally, shopping without a mask, and not staying six feet apart from one another, it was almost as if there wasn't a world wide pandemic occurring. It was very strange but we still managed to have a fun time while staying safe and we didn't not get the virus so all was good.