Two weekends ago, a friend and I decided to go to a pumpkin patch outside of Lexington. When we arrived no one was wearing a mask mostly because it was outside. We took our masks off and enjoyed the fresh air like everyone else. It was nice to actually see people's faces for the first time in months. It was a really great sight to see and maybe a glimpse of what the near future may hold.
IT'S C A T U R D A Y!!!!!!
This weekend I went to the Kentucky VS Ole Miss football game on October 3rd with my roommate, Jaden Johnson. While at the game, we were required to wear a mask at all times unless eating or drinking. People were supervising and getting onto fans who weren't wearing them correctly. Also, seating was 6 feet from other families. When standing in line for concession, there were stickers on the ground that stated to "Physical Distance" from the person in front or behind you. Overall, the Wildcats did a great job with obidening by the state regulations regarding COVID-19. We were lucky enough to get one picture without a mask, whoops.
My senior year of high school I had a college math class that was moved to online because of COVID. I ended up actually failing by the end of the year. I believe college being online is a huge disadvantage to students who CHOSE to live on campus and take classes ON CAMPUS. I believe if you risk going to school and being out, it shouldn't be a problem. This should be considered a hardship clause for students. I myself had COVID and school was the last thing on my mind. I felt terrible and was only worried about making it through and making sure my mom wasn't exposed. It is fair this way because everyone is equally exposed. I think we should go back to in-person classes for students and professors who are comfortable enough.
If worse came to worst and all of the resident in Fayette County were required to get a COVID vaccine, I would distribute it based on districts/school districts. I would just go in order starting from everyone whoever lives in District 1 all the way until you get to the last district. That's only if we had enough for everyone to go around. If we only had enough vaccines for one third of the population, those vaccines would go to healthcare/emergency providers, K-12 students, and residents over the age 65. The population of Fayette County is 326, 954 in 2020. One third of that number is 108,984 resident. Around 58,800 of that population is kids between the ages of 5 and 15. 35,000 resident in this county are over the age of 65. That gives you around 20,000 resident left which is around the same amount of healthcare/emergency providers. Students will be required to have the vaccine before they can start the school year which will insure it is going to be implemented.
I found myself during the past 6 months being on social media A LOT. More than I already was before. All I did in the beginning was lay in bed and scroll through Instagram or Twitter. Before quarantine started and I was still in school, my classmates kept telling me about this app called TikTok. They told me it was like Musical.ly which is a social media platform that every middle schooler used back in my day were you could make short videos. One day, I got extremely bored and decided to download it. I made an account and was scrolling through the "For You Page" aka the home page and all the TikToks were about quarantine and COVID. I found out that there were several people that actually got famous over this stretch of time. Examples are like Noah Beck, Addison Rae, and The D'amelio Sisters. They all started trend that happened during national quarantine. Here are some links to some TikToks that were about quarantine that blew up from theses creators.
https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMJPv7YR9/
https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMJPv93EE/
https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMJPvmpSQ/
Outside the US, I have seen where people from Italy were trying to warned the United States about how bad it was and to take precautions fast. ABC News reported a video made by the people from Italy to help Americans from being damaged like they were.
Wednesday Sept 8th, I had a covid test done at the location across from The 90 just for safety reasons since a few days ago I had felt a little off. I thought it was just the stress of being in college and my course load I had going on.
Today, I went home so that I could see my mom and my friends after I had been gone for three weeks because of college. But at 5:44 p.m. I received a phone call from a Lexington number. I was on my way to Cracker Barrel for dinner with my mom.
"Hi is this KayDee?"
"Yes it is"
"Can you confirm your last name and date of birth please?"
"Pratt. Zero six eighteen two thousand and two."
"Okay thank you KayDee. I'm calling from UK Health Corps to ask you a couple questions and get some information. Do you have a couple of minutes to talk?"
"Oh okay, um yeah?"
"So first I want to start out with that on September 8th you took a covid test at The 90 location correct?)
"Yes I did."
"So we do have the results and you have tested positive for corona."
My face turned white and my jaw dropped. I immediately turned to my mom in the car with my eyes wide open. She looked at me with a worried face because she couldn't hear the conversation I was having on the phone, but she knew by the look on my face that it wasn't good.
"Um oh okay"
"I'm going to go over a lot fo stuff with you so you just stop me at any time with questions or anything. Okay?"
"Okay"
"Okay! So what made you get a test in the first place? Were you around someone who tested positive? Did you have symptoms? Or were you just curious?"
"I was really just curious and the testing site is right across from my dorm so I thought I would get tested just to be safe."
"Okay. You are required to quarantine for ten days, so would your two options are at home or in an isolation dorm. Which would you rather do?"
"Um I don't really know. I never really thought about it. Can you tell me more about the isolation dorms?"
"Yeah of course! Monday-Friday you get breakfast, lunch, and dinner and on the weekend you get brunch and dinner. You are more than welcome to get DoorDash, Uber Eats, or GrubHub if you don't want dining hall food."
"I think I'm going to stay at my house."
"Is there any possible way you can go home today?"
"Well I'm already here so yes haha"
"*laughs* Okay good"
This conversation goes on for 20 minutes. He asked me my demographics for the health departments. He asked me questions about symptoms that I had. He asked me who all I've been in contact with and their information. but the simple, short story is... I contracted COVID and found out on September 11th, 2020. This is Night One at home of my quarantine process.
Every time I turn on the TV or look at my phone, there's always a headline that has to do with COVID. It;s been like that for six months. Isn't it crazy how long it's been since we could go without masks or stand next to a stranger at a close, uncomfortable distance. "When will it ever go back to being normal" "Will it ever go back to being normal again?" It the same two questions in my mind that are on repeat every day it seems like.
When looking for information about this pandemic, I usually go to the local news channel like Lex18. Mostly because of how easily I can gain information from their site. They have an app I can download on my phone which makes it accessible. They keep up with national news, as well as, local news. I trust sites like Lexington18, the CDC, and John Hopkins Medical Center updates. These are all sites that are to help keep you updated with COVID cases, nothing politically like most news station. Places I wouldn't go to find information is pretty much any national social media outlook. These are usually bias and political depending on which site you are on. I'm not a huge fan of politics, but I do try to seek what is fake news and what is real.
Most of my surrounding friends and family think the same way about this pandemic. We usually use local information outputs because of the possibilities of news being altered. We don't usually keep up with it because it doesn't have a personal affect on any of us. Also, we are trying to stay as positive as possible, but it is very hard when the only thing on social media is about the pandemic.
Hopefully over the next couple of months this pandemic will begin to decrease in severity and life will go back to normal as it was before all this craziness. All I know is #MaskedUp for right now.
Ever since I started my first semester of college, I think I've acquired the symptoms of anxiety. At first I thought I was going to have to explain to my roommate that I was having COVID symptoms like headaches, nausea, and cold sweats, but my mom explained to me that I most likely was just stressing or having anxiety about school. I went to see a doctor about it, and they gave me a prescription to help me calm down when I felt like I was having an episode. It was quite ironic that this were to happen to me since a couple of months ago I was telling a friend I was lucky that I didn't suffer from any kind of mental illness. I should've knocked on wood after saying that.
My classed have continued to get harder as the weeks go by, but I will be able to get it together one day soon. I hope...
Hopefully I can still continue daily college life without any other obstacles that are worst like the pandemic going on around me. Wish me luck! Below I have attached a live-action shot of one of many breakdowns, you're welcome.
Going on Week 3 or something like that -- I don't know I don't have a sense of time anymore -- I have came to the conclusion that this pandemic has made college a lot harder to the major of new students. Based on what I have heard and seen, I have only known a couple of students contract this virus. I currently have one in-person class which is my ICT 200 class, one hybrid class aka MA 109, and three fully online classes (Che 109, COM 252, and this class GE0 261). While I can't keep track of the difference between people who are Zooming from a quarantine dorm/room or their personal dorm/room, I'm sure there are a couple students who are taking on this virus. In my ICT 200 class, we have has a couple of people had to quarantine after seeing them from the first day. Even though the cases of COVID are still climbing, I believe we will continue to have on-campus classes.
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| Everyone say "Hi" to my professor and my classmates, sorry classmates and professor. |
As of September 7th, there was only 26 newly reported cases of COVID over a 7 day period. The average newly cases according to UK's COVID-19 Data Dashboard is 35 cases which means it down by 7.4% than past weeks. Also, 82 students are in isolation facilities (25 of them from FSL and 57 students living on campus). 169 isolation beds are available which means only 34% is being used for COVID positive students. If results continue to be stable like I predict, then we should remain on campus for the remaining of the semester.
Hey everyone! My name is KayDee Pratt. I’m a Caucasian girl at a very diverse university. I am quite young compared to my classmates; I turned 18 in June. I currently attend the University of Kentucky, and this is my first year as a true college student. My major is Biology on the pre-medical track. My future plans are to attend medical school and become a trauma surgeon. I’m from Corbin, Kentucky which is an hour and a half south of Lexington. It is a very small town that is very different from this big city. I went to high school at Whitley County High School. While I was in high school, I took college classes, so I’m not completely clueless on what college is like.
When COVID hit my state, my life changed a lot more than what I had anticipated. In some ways bad, but in other ways good. The rest of my senior year had been cut short and was fully online. Prom and Graduation were both out of the picture. Spring sports were cancelled. It was pretty devastating to watch a virus take away a once-in-a-lifetime moment for me.
Even though it hurt my high school experience, for my family, it was a boost. I come from a divorced family and I live with my mother. Our house only has one income for me and her. When COVID hit the USA hard, this caused department stores to close which means the public had to order everything other than groceries online. My mom works at FedEx as a Customer Service Agent. She would have to work overtime at work to get packages delivered and questions answered. Financially, this was great for our family since I was about to leave for college in a couple months.
Even though this virus pretty much shut everything down, I was still able to have some fun. I’ve been to the beaches in Florida three times since COVID which is probably the closest I’ve ever been to the virus. I have luckily never had it even though I was in such a high risk place multiple times. I was very cautious of my health while I was on vacation. COVID has changed the way we lived over the past few months, but hopefully it’s not permanent.
Two weekends ago, a friend and I decided to go to a pumpkin patch outside of Lexington. When we arrived no one was wearing a mask mostly bec...
