The outbreak of the coronavirus has had a lasting impact on everyone. Depending on the person, this can be a school closure or being laid off from a job. However regardless of who you are, everyone has one impact in common— the lessons learned from this devastating outbreak.

One of the most valuable lessons learned is probably the importance of public health. The most common cause of the virus spreading is because people aren’t practicing basic sanitation such as washing their hands and covering their mouth and face when they sneeze or cough. In fact, the World Health Organization states that the coronavirus “spreads primarily through droplets generated when an infected person coughs or sneezes, or through droplets of saliva or discharge from the nose.”

As a result of the outbreak, people have probably learned that the best way to prevent themselves from getting sick in the future is to practice better sanitation and we will probably see more people being more mindful of how they could possibly spread germs.

A second crucial lesson is to always have the public educated about what is going on. There have been many reported cases of the government hiding virus test results from the public. An example of this can be seen in Wuhan, China when the outbreak was severe there. According to National Public Radio, “for nearly four weeks, the municipal government officials in Wuhan worked to hide the severity of the disease.”

The false information that the government provided did not show the whole truth of the spread of the virus, which led many people to believe the virus was not as serious as it actually was. Additionally, there was so much fake news going around social media that people were not sure what to believe.

A final lesson that can be learned is to always take action from the start. When the coronavirus was severe in China, President Donald Trump did not react to it until it was too late. The Washington Post states that Trump once said regarding the coronavirus, “It’s going to disappear. One day — it’s like a miracle — it will disappear.” Trump did not take the deadly outbreak seriously. Instead of making fun of it, he should have been preparing just in case the virus would come to the United States.

If Trump would have taken action sooner, he could have started to prepare for mass testing by having more testing kits available. With more preparation, more people could get tested for the virus which would possibly keep the virus from spreading. In case of another outbreak, whoever is in charge of the country should always be prepared so this won’t happen again.

These lessons are only a few of the many things that can be learned from this devastating outbreak. With this knowledge in mind, people will know what to do in case a virus like the coronavirus happens to disrupt our daily lives again. Piper Guyton (9) agrees and says “by knowing what we did wrong, we will be more prepared in the future.”