17. OPINION (INTERNATIONAL ISSUE)

-

 England Returning to Lockdown in Coming Days

Story via: NPR News

    Boris Johnson, England’s Prime Minister, stated on Saturday that the country will be entering a second Coronavirus lockdown that will start on Thursday and will run until early December. The lockdown includes the closing of all pubs and restaurants, non-essential retail shops, and the prohibiting of the mixing of different households indoors. The lockdown will also cause international travel to be banned with the exception of work. All schools and universities will stay open.

    This will be England’s second lockdown due to COVID-19 and comes as a bit of a shock after Johnson had previously said he refuses to implement a second lockdown because it would be a disaster for the country. However, Boris now says, “The virus is spreading even faster than the reasonable worst-case scenario of our scientific advisors, whose models… now suggest unless we act, we could see deaths in this country running at several thousand a day.” After this summer, England’s cases fell to less than 600 a day. In August, the disease rebounded, and the government says there are now roughly 50,000 new cases a day.

    This story honestly came as quite a shock to me. I remember hearing about how England, like many other European countries, had quickly gotten their cases under control and how things were starting to get better. It is surprising to see how fast everything changed and how things rapidly got more drastic all the way to the need for a second lockdown. I can only imagine what the citizens of the country are thinking now and how they are feeling. Just when things seemed like they were possibly getting back to normal, everything got turned back around.

    One of my first thoughts while reading this story was about the international students we have on the Southern Arkansas University campus who are from England. Since our semester is ending in November this year, and the lockdown is supposed to last until early December, it makes me sad for those who might not be able to get back home for most if not all of the break. I am not sure how many international students go home over the Christmas break, but I can imagine it is good to at least have that option open to go home. Now, that option may be taken away from them, which is a truly scary thing to go through.

           

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

20. VISUAL JOURNALISM

-
Image
  2020 Passion Conference Passion Website:  https://passionconferences.com/      Passion is a movement that had its first ever meeting in 1997. The name stems from its founding place, Passion 268 church. This church in Atlanta, Georgia is pastored by Louis Giglio and he is also the head of the Passion Conferences. I have had the opportunity to go to Passion two years in a row and both years it has been a life changing experience for me.      Passion is the meeting of thousands of college age believers who get to hear from famous Christian music artists as well as many great speakers of the Christian faith. The conferences are usually held over the span of 3 days and lasts throughout New Year’s Eve and Day. Sadly, Passion 2021 was canceled due to COVID-19, so I decided to relive some of my memories from last year by doing my last assignment about it.      Passion 2020 had some of my favorite evangelists come and speak. For exampl...
Read more

15. ENTERTAINMENT OR POP CULTURE

-
  Charlie Brown holiday specials only to be streamed on Apple TV this year                 The famous Charlie Brown holiday specials – It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving, and A Charlie Brown Christmas – will only be streamed through Apple TV through the rest of 2020. Apple announced the news on Monday, explaining that this was part of an “expanded partnership with WildBrain” which is Peanuts Worldwide and Lee Mendelson Film Productions. 'It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown' won't air on ABC this year, moves to Apple TV+ https://t.co/NnaPUbgMuS — Enquirer (@Enquirer) October 20, 2020             Apple apparently already had plans to create new Charlie Brown content. However, even though Apple is streaming these specials free for anyone, many fans of the Peanuts enterprise our very disappointed. For so many people, watching these holiday spec...
Read more

4. HOMETOWN HARD NEWS

-
  Monroe woman launches virtual ASL learning program to bridge gap between hearing, deaf communities By KNOE News https://www.knoe.com/2020/09/07/monroe-woman-launches-virtual-asl-learning-program-to-bridge-gap-between-hearing-deaf-communities/ Feel Seen Website             University of Louisiana at Monroe graduate, Tracee Albert, has launched a new website to help others learn American Sign Language and help the deaf community "feel seen". Tracee grew up learning ASL as her first language because both of her parents are deaf. Albert says that she hopes her new virtual learning program, "Feel Seen", will help bridge the gap between the hearing and deaf communities.             Albert says that many people would tell her they want to learn ASL, but she did not have time to teach them because of school and work. She then decided to make an online learning program that allows anyone to have access at all times. A...
Read more