By — Sally Bermudez

Photo courtesy of Anna Shvetz

Recently, the Corona Virus has been the center of any type of media outlet for the last 2 months. After originating in China, it has spread to many densely populated places including Japan, Korea, Italy, and is now slowly starting to spread in the United States. So far, there are 160 confirmed cases with the most being in California and Washington. There have been 11 deaths total, with the most recent being March 4th, 2020 in San Francisco. After this, California, most notably their most famous city Los Angeles, has called a state of emergency.

With this recent rise of COVID-19 cases in the United States, Loudoun County Public Schools has decided to issue a statement regarding the situation and how they’re trying to prevent an outbreak as much as possible. Although there have been no suspected cases in Virginia, LCPS claims they’re monitoring the situation closely and having regular communication with the Loudon County Health Department as well as following the guidance of the CDC.

According to the LCPS official statement, “Loudoun County Public Schools cleans schools and other facilities on a daily basis, including cleaning all “high touch” surfaces (doors, door knobs, desks, push plates) to maintain a clean, safe environment.” This is one of the many examples included in the statement that talks about how they’re trying to prevent the disease to spread, but unfortunately there’s nothing in the statement that talks about what LCPS plans to do if there is in fact an outbreak in Northern Virginia.

Although the disease itself is an issue, another major problem that comes with the Corona Virus is something known as “mass hysteria.” This essentially means there’s an organized irrational fear of something that is most likely not to affect people as much as it’s said to. “I think that even though corona is a serious threat to our nation especially to younger people and then the elderly and people who are already sick,” says senior Tamsen Mckerley, “It is being sensationalized by the media and I think that I think that there’s a lot of fear mongering going on.”