Trip Cancelled

Imagine having the privilege to go to a foreign country and having the trip cancelled because where you come from there’s an epidemic that broke out just a few miles away from your hometown. Well thats what happened in DC with Chinese transfer students. Just after a few moments after the Corona virus was confirmed to be in the US a middle school cancelled an exchange program with a group of Chinese students. Due to health concerns, the program was cancelled to prevent anymore people coming from China and possibly spread the disease around the students within the DC metro area. Now many don’t think that a few students would possibly bring the virus to the United States, and health officials are confident in that belief. The middle school wrote an email to the parents stating, “While health officials believe the risk of illness transmission of the novel coronavirus from these students is very low, we felt it necessary to make this adjustment.” Perhaps the school was just trying to be safe and not put the other student’s life in danger of the disease. Although it’s very unlikely that a handful of students carry the disease with them, health officials would try to prevent any further spread of the disease even if it means cancelling the exchange program with the students.

For those who don’t know it already, the coronavirus is a virus that originated from China through an animal and has been spreading all over China and several other countries, the United States among them. The only cases we know so far is a student in Texas who was diagnosed with the virus and has been quarantined. People around the world are trying to take precautions of this virus since there are cures for it yet and can be extremely deadly, and there are no vaccines to treat it at all. On humans it will only cause mild respiratory problems, but can become serious if not treated. The symptoms go away easily, but doctors recommend you seek assistance immediately.

Right now the virus hasn’t been considered a worldwide epidemic just yet. Most of the cases are so far in China with very few people in other asian countries, including Japan, North Korea, and Taiwan. The United States has been added to the list recently. As of now, it is only a public health concern in China since it has the most people affected by the virus. Director- General of the World Health Organization Tedros Adhanom stated that “There is an emergency in China, but it has not yet become a global health emergency.” Although the virus originated from an animal, it can also be spread through humans. To prevent the virus many have been using face masks to cover their mouth from any dangerous bacteria entering their mouth as well as gloves for the same reason. Lets just hope the disease doesn’t spread any further within the United States.