With the start of 2020 came blank slates, new visions and renewed goals to better ourselves, reach higher and achieve more.  Some of us began dieting and exercise plans while others vowed to quit smoking or perhaps take more time for leisurely activities.  Whatever the goal, the new year seemed to offer a sense of renewal and inspiration.

2020 also brought with it the horizon of a Presidential election and continued unrest in the middle east, but none of us could have foreseen the Chinese-born pandemic that has rushed in with them.  Sure, we’ve survived severe flu seasons but this, the Coronavirus or COVID-19, is like nothing most of us have ever seen.  Even with its fairly low fatality rate, the highly contagious virus is wreaking havoc on not only our health but also our economy, with the stock market at its lowest since 1992 and businesses forced to close their doors while thousands suddenly find themselves with no income, socially distancing themselves from others.  Scientists scurry to develop a vaccine while people all across the nation panic with fear, rushing out to hoard everything from food to guns and ammunition until store shelves are completely bare in an apocalypic episode like The Walking Dead.

I am blessed to be in the great state of West Virginia, the last state standing without a confirmed case until deep into March, but we are not naive enough to think that we are immune.  It is more likely that there just haven’t been enough test kits available to us.  There are some here who believe that COVID-19 made its way through our state in December and January, when an unnamed, nasty virus with some of the same symptoms plagued us with two to three week illnesses, one like we’ve never had before.  Who can say since the Coronavirus wasn’t yet known to much of the U.S.?

Regardless of its circumstances and the mass hysteria that it brings, the virus has definitely educated us about what can happen when anxiety meets fear.  It is no wonder the government feels it necessary to withhold so much of its sensitive information from us.  Here’s hoping that COVID-19 makes a swift exit from our country, our media and our lives so we can all rest easy again.