By Emmy Trivette, Editor-in-Chief

Here’s a familiar phrase in the newfound age of social distancing: I. Am. So. Bored.

While most of the world’s population is gnawing on their last bag of Doritos, praying that their six-pack of 2-ply lasts and sadly abiding by the six-feet-apart rule, there might be some news that should help you smile while you’re probably inside on a really nice day. 

Unfortunately, we first need to address the pain that the coronavirus has brought into our world. There have been more than 82,000 deaths and 1.4 million cases. Because a third of the global population is in quarantine, including much of the U.S., everyone is spiraling into economic recessions. It’s a hard concept to process. 

Right now, we have seen more pain and suffering collectively in the world than our entire population has seen in this century – and this is only the beginning of the coronavirus.

Experts say we most likely won’t be back to normal until 2021. While states decide whether or not to open schools in May or wait until August, there is even conjecture that students may not have a normal school day back until next April, when a functioning vaccine is developed. What this means for primary and secondary schools is changes within teaching formats, extracurricular scheduling and testing.  

Just within a month of the quarantine, several universities announced they would be making SAT and ACT submissions optional for Class of 2021 college applications. First Flight held its regularly scheduled SAT administration on March 14, but coronavirus fears led to that testing date being canceled elsewhere in the state and across the country. The May SAT also has been wiped out along with other state exams.

This leads to a critical question for the future of primary and secondary education: Could this be the start of reducing the amount of standardized testing in North Carolina and across the country?

While this dark cloud looms above our heads, the coronavirus is giving our society many large shoves in various fields of the modern world. It could shove the country in the direction of creating a more functional and uniform nationwide education system – a system that is more accepting of those who aren’t test-takers, those who yearn for a career outside of the core curriculum, and a system that adapts to the needs of the student, rather than the statistics. 

And a firm shove in the education system is one of many shoves needed. Among the various others is in the environmental field – literally.

While there haven’t been dolphins and swans swimming in the canals of Venice as popularly reported on social media, Italy’s complete lockdown did lead to a clearing in the canals, and scientists have found pollution levels rapidly decreasing in Italy. Not only has the isolation served well for the environment in Italy, it has also found its way to the pollution crisis in China.  

According to NASA and the European Space Agency, since the second week of the outbreak, satellites have collected data which indicates a sudden decrease in China’s pollution. With the sudden parking of cars, trains, buses and other motor transportation, the nitrogen dioxide levels have nearly evaporated in this region, among others facing lockdowns in both Eastern and Western parts of the world.

So could social distancing actually help the world realize the drastic action needed to slow, and eventually cease, climate change? 

Maybe, hopefully. But with hundreds of thousands of healthcare workers putting themselves in jeopardy during 24- to 72-hour shifts, the most important lesson this crisis might teach us is that our healthcare system is in dire need of reform.

Now, whenever hospitals are mentioned in relation to COVID-19, words like cramped, dangerous and unsafe are used. And it’s not at all the fault of the tireless medical workers; it’s the fault of those in charge. Their lack of organization, which has now cost Americans their health and economic well-being, should be considered post-quarantine.  

While certain single-payer health care systems couldn’t prevent this new virus, they would have offered more support in the time that we have now to stop COVID-19 in its tracks. By absolving the many-layered insurance companies which now make up our system, one single system would have found the government taking a more organized approach to medically subduing the coronavirus in the United States.

Our nation’s citizens should do well to remember all of this once we’re free to regroup again.  

And keep all this in mind while self-quarantining: There are hundreds of thousands of nurses and doctors in hospitals right now risking their lives to do their jobs and prevent this beginning of a pandemic from becoming just that – a beginning to a part of history that could have a horrible ending. 

But instead of drowning yourself in the gloom and doom that has become our “normal,” just remind yourself that there may be some light at the end of this long, dark tunnel.

Senior Emmy Trivette can be reached at trivetteem0626@daretolearn.org.