March 13, 2020 is a day nobody will forget. That’s the day all of our lives here in America changed. For many students, it was supposed to be the last day of spring break. Over 16 states temporarily closed schools. Media production was stopped. The United States had 2,033 reported cases of the Coronavirus, and 47 deaths from it. Former President, Donald Trump, had declared a national emergency. 

I will never forget where I was when my school closed. I was with two of my friends at one of our houses, playing Mario Party in the basement. We were on Spring break, and we all got the news that we were getting an extra week of break, but little did we know, that was going to just be an abrupt ending to the school year.  

Many people took the virus much more seriously than they do now, people were buying things such as toilet paper in mass, spraying down their groceries when they got home, and not leaving unless absolutely necessary. 

Things are much different now though. People will willingly go to parties, not wear masks, or take almost any safety precautions, which, in a sense, may be causing more madness than the country’s initial breakdown. When things first began shutting down there was a bit of a frenzy, people were buying things as if there was an apocalypse going on. Oddly, toilet paper was completely out of stock. But not abiding by social distancing suggestions and requirements is elongating the pandemic which theoretically could be over if a vaccines were distributed and social distancing rules were followed. 

March 13 came and passed this year, while people are still processing the events of last march. It is hard to believe that this global pandemic is still going on after a year, and by the looks of it, probably won’t be over anytime soon. There are some differences that could be perceived as better though. For instance, this year we are back in school the week after Spring break rather than unknowingly having the rest of the year off. 

As of March 4, 2021, America has over 28.8 million reported cases, and over 518 thousand reported deaths due to the virus. We currently have a weekly average of 64,409 reported cases. This is an insane number compared to a weekly average of 24 reported cases on March 4, 2020.  

A lot of things have changed since last March. Some for the better, and others for the worse. Hopefully this entire mess will be over next year and we’ll be able to be back to our regularly scheduled programming.