Joyce Zhou - April 1

These past three weeks have been one of the strangest times in the world. This virus has been the only pandemic declared since 2009, but perhaps impacted us far more than the swine flu. As of today, over 200,000 people have been affected, and of that number over 4,700 people have died. There are so many other people who are negatively affected - elderly who risk their lives leaving their homes and so many more whose jobs are at risk due to enforced quarantine. Those who are unable to work remotely have their entire lively-hoods at stake, as a recent prediction states that the corona virus economic freeze could cost 47 million jobs and send the unemployment rate past 32%.

Disneyland has closed three times since its opening - once after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, once after the terror attacks of 2001, and now in response to the outbreak of the corona virus. Entire cities have been quarantined, even New York City, whose streets remains unnaturally silent as this virus spreads.

Times Square: March 12, 2020

Even sports haven't been spared, what with March Madness, the NBA, and many other sports cancelled. Fans have been prohibited from personally watching the games in stadiums, even if the sports do continue.

Tokyo Dome in Tokyo, Japan, February 29, 2020.

Generally crowded areas have barely any people at all, even in the Beijing airport, one of the busiest in the world.

Beijing's Daxing International Airport

Even the legislative policies stemming from this virus are unprecedented, with millions of Americans ordered to remain in their homes. This quarantine has affected so many lives and it's so strange to think that such a thing could occur now, when our medical technology is far superior than any point in history. But even this is not enough to combat the extreme rise in cases. A fast spread of this virus could be detrimental, as shown by the graph below, but we can only hope that it'll never get to that point.



Even our university has been affected, with all of us, and many other schools, participating in classes remotely. Selfishly, a huge personal reason for why I hate the corona virus is because of it's role in the (most likely) cancellation of my college graduation. My last semester at Duke was cut so short with no closure at the most inconvenient time - during spring break, when many of my friends were travelling and away from campus.



I think for my pieces I would like to do some sort of comparison study, of before and directly after the spread of the carnivorous. I would like to incorporate the above photos somehow in my drawings, while also including all of the stuff I'd written about above in my piece. It still seems so unreal, the total affect of the virus. It never hit me how bad this virus had become until I looked at news reports and seen all of these pictures. I went running outside today and no one was outside, with barely any cars on the main street. It's completely shocking and I'd like to focus on this aspect in my drawings.

Links:
https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/01/health/us-coronavirus-updates-wednesday/index.html
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/30/coronavirus-job-losses-could-total-47-million-unemployment-rate-of-32percent-fed-says.html
https://nypost.com/2020/03/12/coronavirus-in-ny-a-timeline-of-how-the-disease-spread-through-the-metro-area/ (displayed in Figure 1)
https://healthblog.uofmhealth.org/wellness-prevention/flattening-curve-for-covid-19-what-does-it-mean-and-how-can-you-help (displayed in Figure 3)
https://nypost.com/2020/03/05/public-spaces-empty-as-covid-19-coronavirus-infections-spread/ (displayed in Figure 2,4,5)