By Nicholas, 17, London, UK
In the last few days of 2019, the excitement for the new decade was immense. The previous decade had gone by so fast and it is still hard to think where all those years went. Now, as I’m writing this in April 2020, we are in the middle, or maybe even the beginning of the COVID-19 crisis. What has become very clear in the first four months of this decade is that we took the last one for granted. Yes, there were most definitely things in the previous decade which were and still are problematic, such as the rise of the social media addiction and global warming. However, there was not a worldwide pandemic which has swept countries of its feet, caused national lockdowns, caused businesses to go into administration, people to lose their jobs, consumers to panic buy in supermarkets and healthcare services to be severely overwhelmed.
Corona Virus has effects on everyone our age. Not being able to see your friends, not being able to learn at school and not being able to do things you love and enjoy. It has left and continues to leave many unanswered questions; Will we have our summer holidays? Will we see our Grandparents again? However, although we are unable to answer many questions that we once took for granted, the worldwide effects of this pandemic and more worrying. Not having our summer holidays would be a shame but in the scheme of things, we should actually be worrying about when, how and if countries across the globe will bounce back from this.
But undoubtedly, this pandemic has left a page unturned. We will not have a full summer-term at boarding school again because next year we go on study leave for most of it. This saddens me as the summer-term is renowned for many school events, cricket and the beautiful weather and this is something that I will never experience again due to this pandemic. However, life must go on and I am sure that within all the negatives of this pandemic, there is light at the end of the tunnel and we as people, a generation and a community will come out of it stronger than ever.