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Think about the people closest to you. Tell us about how the coronavirus has affected them, and their life.

With this journal topic, I instantly think of my mother. To give context, she is Chinese and immigrated to the US in the 90's, and now works as a software developer. During the pandemic, she is definitely the most stressed out about it, which has been hard for me to understand. Throughout my time at home, there have always been restrictions: not allowed to see anyone outside of the house, wipe everything down with Clorox wipes, grocery shop with gloves on, and the list continues. She works from home and walks outside a lot, but rarely talks to other people outside of our family. I think her stress is fueled by the Chinese news that she reads, where they talk about more things to prevent infection. It's understandable why she is afraid of getting COVID, but I think most of the time she takes it a little too far. Even when I came home from school after getting tested, she was still convinced that somehow I was infected and stayed away from me. I worry about the impact this stress will have on her health, but no matter how many times I talk to her to lower her anxiety, it doesn't seem to work. The rest of my family seems to be less worried about the pandemic, but in our house, we adhere to her guidelines. I believe that COVID restrictions are completely necessary, but there is also a balance to where you still enjoy life and mitigate stress. With the optimistic news of a vaccine down the line, I hope that this will decrease my mother's stress.