My opinion on the corona virus
Saoirse Supple
1st year
Abbey Community College
Boyle, Co. Roscommon
I’m just a thirteen year old, in a lot of places my opinions don’t matter but my little voice wants
to be heard as adults can sometimes be a bit delusional sometimes, therefore I'm writing this to
give my opinions on the virus that has the media going mad, yes, you guessed it I'm talking
about the corona virus.
I live in a little town in Roscommon and I never thought that the virus that started all the way in
China was going to affect myself, my family, my home or even my country. The virus was alien
to me, something from stories or history books, not something in my life, I really didn’t think
people were going to let it go this far, but , it did.
When the virus came to Europe and started taking over Italy, it was surreal. It is a really weird
thing seeing so many people dying from a disease that one person started, all the bodies just
piled up and taken away, their families left heartbroken, one thing that shook me into reality, a
few weeks ago was a woman from Italy outside a hospital, devastated as her husband had died
of the virus and she couldn’t say goodbye to him or even see him, she was suffering from the
virus but wouldn’t be let into the hospital because she didn’t have enough symptoms or wasn’t
terribly at risk but because she had the virus her family couldn’t comfort her while she was
anguished and then the voiceover said she was just one of thousands in Italy whereas now
things have gotten much, much worse.
Soon enough, the virus was in Ireland, it was shocking but even more shocking when a lady died
but she was already suffering from problems, but still! This is when I started getting worried
about what would happen if this virus got even more out of control and we let that happen.
The virus became all we ever talk about, it still is. So, of course rumors came around our school
that people had the virus and that the school would soon close because some schools closed in
Dublin.
I was in Science class preparing for if the school did close, little did we know that would be our
last day at, school because then we heard the principal’s voice coming from the intercom and
with that the school let out a roar. So, at the end of the day I took all our books from my locker
and carried them in my arms all the way home.
The next day, I logged into Microsoft Teams and was stressing out with all the work the
teachers left us, normally we don’t get a lot to do as there is people in our class who are always
distracting and annoying the teacher so they can’t leave us much but now they leave the work
and leave the chat, this is also a problem for some subjects as the teacher is not there for us to
ask questions to, and my parents both have to work and didn’t do the same subjects I did
therefore, it’s harder to learn.
Two weeks have passed since then, I am now used to going to school online but things have
gone way too far with the virus, it has entered nursing homes, a HSE worker passed away, many
people have died and even more people are infected. I found this scary because the population
of my town is mostly elderly and for a tiny town we have three nursing homes although in a
way this is good because if the virus got into one it would only effect one third of the people in
nursing homes but at the same we don’t want it anywhere.
My mother left for work this morning, she is a nurse, she is awfully scared she will get it. Her
department is mostly closed down and she was on holidays so when she arrives at work this
morning she doesn’t know where she will be sent since a lot of people have gotten their way
out of doing something that involves the virus, she doesn’t know if she’ll be put on nights again,
she doesn’t know anything but she is still going in there because all she wants to do is help
people but still I'm sort of worried for her.
My story on the virus hasn’t been very tragic so far although, if we keep spreading the virus at
the pace we are now it could get worse and I don’t want that, nobody does. So, I’ve listed a few
ways how we can stop the spread of the virus since some adult don’t to the basics like washing
their hands.
-Wash your hands.
-Work from home (if possible).
-Stay at home.
-Use alcohol hand gel.
-Put on your mask properly (if needed).
-Keep away from elders or people at risk (if possible)
-Only go out for needed reasons (e.g. grocery shopping)
-Stay in 2km of your house for exercise.
-Use protective equipment (if your job requires/you're at risk).
-If you think you have the virus just self-isolate.
-Maintain social distancing.
-Avoid touching your face.
-Practice respiratory hygiene.
-Take information from valid sources (e.g. HSE)
-Don’t stockpile.
-Clean things before use (e.g. phone, shopping trolley).
Please follow this list, for your good and everyone else’s, don’t be selfish. This has been a very
bad year between bushfires and floods we just have to carry on. The world will be very different
after this in bad ways but also in good like community spirit, help for elderly, pollution down,
we're grateful for our HSE workers, clean hands are back in fashion and Venice cleaned up their
act bringing the fish back. So, there really is a good side to every story.
And, there you have it, my take on the corona virus. Thanks for listening!
Saoirse Supple.
Wait, I just got sent this from a friend, it says that we must repeat the year, this is extremely
annoying as our school is making us do quite a lot of work and I tried hard this year, like every
other year, I'm a try-hard, I wouldn’t mind if I was still in primary school or in transition year but
no, I'm a first year. I’m just going to pray that this is fake news because even though what my
friend sent me had the government’s logo atop it you shouldn’t take information something
that is not a reliable source.