Most students in college stress about grades and social life, however during a global pandemic, they are risking their lives to go to school.
As of Nov. 23, 406 students have tested positive for COVID-19 at WCU since the start of testing on July 1 as reported by the university’ss COVID-19 Data Dashboard. However, this information does not account for students who did not report their test results that were taken off campus.
As of Nov. 23, North Carolina has had 339,194 people who have tested positive for COVID-19 and 5,039 deaths reported by the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services.
On the national level, there have been more than 12 million cases reported and more than 255,000 deaths according to the CDC COVID-19 Tracker.
People who have not been affected much by the disease forget that these are not just numbers in a spreadsheet that are being tallied up but in fact neighbors, partners, parents, siblings, and friends.
This is called “psychic numbing” according to Paul Slovic, a psychologist at the University of Oregon, as reported in Vox. Psychic numbing is the reason why some people cannot interpret how important something is. This is because the greater the number, the more likely someone is to be less sympathetic about an issue. The more individualistic the issue is, the more likely people will care.
This is related to COVID-19 because at the beginning of the pandemic most people had a large fear of what this virus was when only a few thousand people had tested positive for it. Now with millions infected, the concern of COVID-19 has decreased significantly.
Though life has changed drastically in 2020, students are being told that in-person learning is now safe even though classes were abruptly shut down last semester with a relatively small case count compared to what the numbers are currently. Students at WCU have had a hard time transitioning because online learning is not the norm for most students.
However, no matter the number of people who test positive for COVID-19 in the United States, there will still be people who believe this virus is a hoax. Some people believed that this “election infection” would go away after Nov. 3, however, two weeks have passed since election night and the virus has not slowed down. In fact, it is rapidly growing.
Students have been impacted by COVID-19 in many ways, however, some students care that this virus is deadly while others do not. Even though it is mandatory to wear a mask in WCU buildings, students still group together outside without face masks. Wearing masks “is not enforced on campus,” said Brenna Dunn, freshman at WCU. Dunn also said, “I feel very unsafe in my dorm because people walk around without masks on.”
“I don’t know if it’s because of the virus, but I can tell there is a difference with my lungs,” said Jacob Fletcher, WCU student who has tested positive for COVID-19. Fletcher was not worried about the virus and said, “It was basically like a two-week vacation.”
The difference of opinions about this virus is causing a divide between people who follow CDC recommended steps to prevent the virus from spreading and people who do not see this virus as a threat.
“People need to wear their masks because it is ridiculous how many people don’t and complain about it because they supposedly can’t breathe,” said Noelle Braswell, sophomore at WCU.
“It’s tragic,” said Dunn. “I don’t think we should be in school right now. I don’t think one death is worth it.”
As of now, Western has plans to continue a mix of in-person and online learning for the spring 2021 semester.
To learn more about how students have been affected by COVID-19, watch the video below to see how many people WCU students know that have tested positive for COVID-19.
