In no way do I mean to downplay the seriousness or severity of COVID-19. Although we should be trying our best to avoid the virus, I wish to inform people that death should not be a fear of the typical North Forsyth High School student. 

It is not surprising that more people are beginning to panic. With essential supplies running low at just about every grocery store, the stock market continually plummeting, the number of infected rising, Forsyth County moving to online learning until April 27 at the earliest, most news outlets constantly reporting and giving updates, and with the virus now in Forsyth, it is easy to forget reality and begin to devolve into a frenzy.

You just cannot deny that the Coronavirus is a pretty big deal; however, I feel like people are making the situation worse. If you are a relatively healthy and young teenager, the worst the virus can do to you is just make you feel terrible for a few weeks at most. The reason why we are quarantining is to protect the weak and elderly. Yes, you should be practicing social distancing, and yes, you should be keeping clean. However, the general public is taking this way too far and acting wildly inappropriate.

I’ve heard many people claim that the majority of the media is making this situation worse, and it is hard to disagree. Although they have done an excellent job of keeping the public informed, it feels like they are just causing more unnecessary panic. At this point, we should be more worried about how much this will affect our society in the long run. Everyone “panic buying” has caused an obvious shortage of supplies. I’m sure I don’t need to go over the toilet paper crisis. 

People don’t seem to realize or care that they’re leaving nothing left for others. And typically, the ones that need it the most are the elderly that were too scared of going out in public to get the supplies before. Ian Bruns, a sophomore at NFHS, says that we should “Prepare for the worst, expect the best, but some people have pushed that out of proportion with the media not being any help.”

Yes, it’s good that we comprehend just how serious the virus is, but panicking and overstocking like it’s the end of the world isn’t going to help anyone. People are going to get sick. It’s not going to be pleasant. People just need to focus on not transmitting the virus to anyone who might be in serious danger. We need to think about other people before buying out the entire grocery store. We also need to think about other people before we go outside unnecessarily. In general, we just need to think about other people and remember that we are in this together.