Imagine yourself partaking in a society in which it is prohibited to leave the house and group with your friends, or in a society where communication has been severely reduced, with some aspects of the media completely shut down? Imagine living somewhere where people fear for their education, and some for their lives? Imagine all of this, but with being bombarded with conspiracies from all sides telling you who and who not to trust.
This sounds an awful lot like a totalitarian regime with nefarious intentions, doesn't it?
Unfortunately, it's the reality most of the world has to accept at the moment. After all, it's for our own good... Right?
The majority of us will remember these times as a nuisance which hadn't allowed us to have a coffee out with our buddies, but some of us won't have that luck. The current situation the world is in is quite delicate, and some sacrifices will have to be made, but they will cost all of us. This is not a "you" or "me problem", it's a "we problem".
Take your ordinary, everyday student, for example:
Surely students can be considered a risk group?
Employed students don't make up a very significant percentage that can largely influence an economy, which is why they're more eligible for unemployment. To a student who funds their studies, losing a job could mean the (maybe permanent) end of their education. Some countries, like the US & the UK, are giving partial refunds for the current semester. Some countries aren't able to do this... what happens then? Who will help them?
Apart from that, I'd like to add that I'm pretty certain every student daydreams about studying from home at one point. Most of us have fantasized about how great E-learning would be. Boy, were we wrong... E-learning has proven to be rather annoying in comparison with lectures/exams with mandatory physical presence. If you ask a student how they fare with E-learning, they'll usually tell you one of three: that they think they're in "vacation-mode" and find it difficult to concentrate on university, that hey are limited by their technology and it doesn't work for them at all, or that they're facing more work than they ever have before the preventive measures.
It is still too early to say if these measures are being widely respected, or if they're effective in the first place. Most of us, unfortunately not all, are aware of the reason for these measures, and we agree with them. The problem lies not within the measures, but within the reaction to the aftermath of the measures and the virus. Are governments responding appropriately to the aftermath of the measures they imposed? Have the correct organizations responded within time? Some countries don't follow the mainstream when it comes to setting the measures, and the results haven't been all that different, whereas life surely has.
So many questions. This is a time of uncertainty. What do you think?
Mirad Avdic, 20
Bosnia, Zavidovići