Teens and Coronavirus: "We need truth and action."

We asked teens to share how Coronavirus has impacted their daily lives. Christopher Chou, a student at Leland High School in San Jose, California shares his take.

As a 15 year old, I’m just a little adolescent patiently waiting to assume whatever the president says is the truth right? Here, in one of the major centers in California for a high number of Covid-19 cases, it’s definitely been an interesting experience for me to realize how much of an impact a disease can cause the whole world.

But for us, this is not only important because this disease made us stay home, but the behind the scenes [decisions] in the governments of the US and in different countries that allowed the spread of the virus to reach such great magnitudes.

What really is infuriating for me is how the government poorly handled this whole situation. The president is still trying to soften the impact of this situation. It is horrible how we have this leader that continues to try to make a fantasy – to believe that we’re fine rather than stating the facts – and being outspoken as he usually is in any OTHER situation but this one.

We have more than 60,000 cases that are in OUR country, we NEED more action to be taken now. This is no laughing matter, some people are still out, hanging around on the beaches without a care. Underestimating the effect that it will have is unfathomable.

Our education is being affected as we speak. Some of my friends are fine and have online classes up and running, but I am still stuck because not everyone in our area has access to technology which prevents us from getting the education we need.

Knowing how dire the situation is, we need truth and action. We can’t have the president be in his own little world making the assumption that everything will be okay if we all just act like everything is normal.

From this, you are not just teaching other countries, you’re ultimately influencing how the next generation should handle issues. We, just like you, want everything back to normal. It’s understandable, but the truth hurts. It’s how you handle it that makes a difference. Show us that you can deal with it like a boss.

With a perspective, I’m Christopher Chou.

Christopher Chou is a sophomore at Leland High School in San Jose, California.