Life Under Isolation

A month ago, the SMCCCD closed all of its campuses in order to prevent the spread of COVID-19, and I had just come back from a weeklong absence as a result of being ill.

The new adjustment was not at all easy at first, but it took me a week or two to get used to life under quarantine because I used to complete almost all of my classes for my Psychology major online. At first, I cried with sadness on my face and I realized that changes will have to be made as soon as possible because I acknowledge that I am harming my mental health, but it took two weeks after the quarantine orders imposed by officials in the San Francisco Bay Area and Gov. Gavin Newsom for me to finally get my mental health to get better.

As a matter of fact, my life under isolation began shortly after I went to a Super Tuesday event, and I started to question if I was ill with COVID-19 or not. I was not tested, but I had a runny nose, sore throat on the day before I got ill, fever, and grew tired as I tried to watch the results of Super Tuesday on my iPad on March 3. After getting better, I decided to order food and avoid going to stores and restaurants as a precaution in the days before the lockdown had been imposed. However, my mental health took a toll towards the end of March because I noticed being sad and crying while I was isolated at home, but my parents were supportive of me in putting my mental health back where it was at the end of February.

In order for me to curb my woes with my mental health, I decided to restrict the use of social media to the afternoon and evening hours and listen to music and watch movies and TV shows, and it has worked so far. My approach to isolation due to quarantine orders has worked so far because I want to remain positive at a time when people are dying and suffering as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. At the same time, I send condolences for families who have already lost a loved one to COVID-19 and prayers for someone who is battling the disease with the hope of beating the disease at the end of the day.

However, I am optimistic that the day when people can get out of isolation where they wear face masks and social distancing will be in practice as a precaution to combat the fight against COVID-19, and these days will come once we flatten the curve of cases of COVID-19 in the United States and in the State of California. Inevitably, society will change and in the months and years after the COVID-19 pandemic, I predict that a new tech boom for employment will be surging as a result of the rise of video conferencing apps such as Zoom, FaceTime, and Skype, food delivery apps could skyrocket, and online shopping will become the new norm as the COVID-19-fueled recession could lead to new store and mall closures that have been taking place prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.