By: Grace Blumer-Lamotte

COVID-19 better known as COVID or Corona, is a virus. According to Hopkins Medicine, COVID-19 is the disease caused by SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that emerged in December 2019. The way coronavirus is spread as of now, researchers know that the spread is through droplets and virus particles released into the air when an infected person breathes, talks, laughs, sings, coughs, or sneezes. 

The cases in Minnesota have increased due to the widely known delta variant. According to StarTribune, there are increased demands for hospitalization including a surge of newly reported infections, exceeding the state’s capacity for logging cases. 

The symptoms of COVID-19 are flu like symptoms. That includes fevers or chills, a cough, shortness of breath or difficulty breathing, fatigue, muscle or body aches, headache, new loss of taste or smell, sore throat, congestion or runny nose, nausea or vomiting, and diarrhea. If you have any of these symptoms the CDC strongly encourages those to get tested. To learn more about COVID-19 tests, visit this website: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/symptoms-testing/testing.html.

According to Mayo Clinic, one of the ways you can help prevent the spread of COVID is wearing a mask properly. This means wearing it above your nose and having it cover both your nose and mouth.

Maintaining social distancing, getting a flu shot, if you haven’t already, washing your hands frequently, and cleaning/disinfecting surfaces are also ways to help prevent spreading COVID.

Another way to help prevent the spread is getting the COVID-19 vaccine. If you are interested in getting the vaccine, you may find this website helpful: https://www.vaccines.gov/.

I interviewed a freshman and asked them these questions: How has COVID-19 affected you personally? How has it affected your household? What precautions are you taking to prevent it? How do you feel about the vaccine?

*Note, the following are simply the freshman’s responses to my questions. They were not verified for facts.

The freshman responded saying, “It stops me from visiting my friends. I also can’t go into public spaces without a mask. It is difficult for me to focus in school because I am thinking about a huge pandemic that is spreading throughout the world rather than my learning.” 

The freshman responded to the second question saying, “It affects my daily life inside my house. It affects me by making me clean literally anything inside my house. You have to be super sanitary. Any visitors I have inside my house, also have to go through the same thing. It is just a huge pain.”

The freshman responded to the third question saying, “Hand sanitizer, mask, the alcohol wipes, eat healthy, avoid areas with a large amount of people, and try not to touch everything.”

The freshman responded to the fourth question saying, “The vaccine is actually really helpful because it helps protect you from getting the virus. And I support it because over 60% of the people in the world would be infected by it if they didn’t have the vaccine.”