This virus has rocked everyone’s world; the COVID-19 outbreak of 2020 will be something everyone remembers 100 years from now as a major historical event. Almost everyone’s life has changed drastically over the past month, with non-essential workers being laid off, students resuming classes at home and governments threatening jail time for leaving home for nonessential purposes.

I have personally been perplexed for the past few weeks watching the evolution of responses to the crisis; five weeks ago, store shelves were emptied of toilet paper and nonperishables in preparation for a quarantine few thought would actually happen. Six weeks ago, Chancellor Woodson announced a week extension to our spring break, which evolved into classes being moved online until further notice, with no expected end until at least August. The first case of COVID-19 hit US soil just four months ago, and public officials and businesses had significantly less time to decide how to respond once the virus was established as a credible threat in the United States.

I could not find a similar event in modern US history where cancellations and schedules were issued on such a short notice. I also could not find a disease which spread as quickly or as silently as the novel coronavirus. Infected patients can go 14 days without showing symptoms, and experts think that for each infected patient, roughly two new infections are created on average. These facts — along with the uncertainty associated with a newly discovered virus and it’s high death rate among the elderly and immunocompromised — to a snowball of mandatory and voluntary shutdowns and restrictions in the spirit of caution. 

Two months ago, no clearly defined protocol existed for officials to follow. So officials responded mostly by gradually implementing shutdowns; we constantly heard how important flattening the curve was in order to keep the disease below medical system capacity.

Officials responded harshly with many restrictions, with the intent to slow the disease as much as their offices would allow them to do. It would be too much of a political liability for officials to respond more lightly to the virus, even if our state would have been better off with a less extreme response.

The goal was to slow the spread of the disease, and it worked in North Carolina. On Wednesday, April 15, Gov. Roy Cooper presented a plan to gradually repeal restrictions put in place in response to a decline in the number of new cases. Suffering directly from the disease has been thwarted for a majority of North Carolinians, with just over 6,700 confirmed infections as of April 20 in a state of 10.5 million. Just .06% of the population is infected, with even fewer who have complications, fewer still suffer a fatality. I have been termed grotesque and inhumane for mentioning this seemingly positive news, as some might argue that if a single fatality were prevented as a result of these restrictions, they were worth it. But is that true? In my view, the side effects of the COVID-19 hurts more than the virus for most people. 

The more substantial threat for most North Carolinians is the looming mental health crisis, the loss of retirement savings for thousands, mass layoffs in nonessential industries, educational backslide for already struggling students, malnourishment for impoverished students who depended on school lunches and the domestic abuse women are suffering from across the state. I know someone suffering from the effects of all these, but I do not personally know a patient with COVID-19 yet. The Charlotte Mecklenburg Police Department reported substantial increases in the number of calls for service for domestic violence and disputes. Figures for suicides which indirectly result from layoffs and financial strain are not published yet, but the financial crisis between 2008 and 2010 can be linked to nearly 10,000 suicides, and analysts speculate that the impending recession may be worse than 2008 for most Americans. 

There are indirect consequences as a result of North Carolina’s COVID-19 response. It’s a matter of opinion to say how officials should have responded and unfair to blame them for how they hastily responded. My argument is that the response forward should be aimed at making our state better off as a whole, not simply eliminating COVID-19.