The Party's Over: Our Role During COVID-19
By Olivia Pfeiffer
This past weekend, a clip of a college guy went viral as he was quoted saying, “If I get corona, I get corona. At the end of the day, I'm not gonna let it stop me from partying.” Friends of mine have gotten together and thrown “corona” parties or seriously considered buying cheap tickets to Jamaica or Florida. In my hometown, a student at my local university tested positive for coronavirus after spending the weekend at St. Patrick’s Day darties. Time and time again, there have been reports of young people who paid for spring break who would rather risk it all then lose their money or experience. Asking a friend of mine why he kept going out despite the pandemic, he said “IDGAF, and besides if I get it it’s not like I’m going to die anyways, so it's really not that big of a deal.”
This is an official call out post to stop it.
Stop going to parties. Stop going to bars. Stop sneaking out against your parents wishes. Stop thinking you’re invincible. Stop thinking that the rules don’t apply to you. STOP.
I can’t help but feel upset and disappointed by college-educated, intelligent young adults who cannot wrap their heads around the seriousness of the situation. I understand you miss your friends (we all do), and it is absolutely awful to suddenly be stuck inside all day. Transitioning from a vibrant and active social life to online classes and no social interaction, while things you look forward to are cancelled left and right, is incredibly difficult. No one is saying this is easy.
But you are putting other people's lives at risk.
Maybe you will be fine if you get the coronavirus. Maybe you have a strong and healthy immune system, and you’ll recover after two weeks of flu-like symptoms. Or maybe you’re asymptomatic and will feel entirely fine the entire time. But what about your family and your friends? You might inadvertently give it to your friend with asthma, who then gives it to their immunocompromised parents. You might give it to your grandmother, thinking it's entirely fine to visit her because you feel “completely normal.” Social distancing saves lives, and to assume the rules don’t apply to you and choosing to put others at risk is incredibly selfish. In South Korea, “Patient 31” traveled through the country despite doctor's orders not to, coming into contact with well over a thousand people and exponentially increasing the number of cases in the country. Don’t be like Patient 31. Just because it might not directly kill you does not excuse you from the responsibility you have to your greater community. If you go as far as getting hospitalized because you couldn’t listen to directions, you are taking a bed away from someone who followed all the rules and still got sick, further endangering the lives of others.
If you’re reading this in quarantine, sitting in bed, and wondering how this may apply to you — good! It’s great that you’re following all the rules. If you are complying with government orders but see that your friends are not, now is the time to speak up and call them out. You don’t have to be malicious, but you are in a unique position to convince someone to do the right thing and stay home. If someone isn’t listening to the government, they might listen to friends, or they might comply because they feel embarrassed that they’ve been called out. Obviously, we can all do our part by staying inside to stop the spread of COVID-19. But we also have a responsibility to encourage others our age to do the same. Rather than leaning into the jokes, call your friends out and nudge them into making the better decision. We’ll get through this faster and safer if we work together and acknowledge our part to play. Besides, those frat basements aren’t going anywhere. Stay safe, and I’ll see you on the other side.
