I believe there is always a positive to look for in situations, just like in the striking pandemic that took us all by surprise.

Though there are certainly some downfalls, there are great uprisings like how the environment is cleaner than ever and school shootings are at a record low. 

Through the years there have been environmental warning signs of global warming and water pollution. People began to fight to save our earth. Surprisingly, what saved the earth’s air and water quality was the pandemic. “Compared with this time last year, levels of air pollution in New York has reduced by nearly 50% because of measures taken to control the virus”,  PMC, PubMed Central,  a National Library of Medicine. “It was estimated that nearly 50% reduction of N2O and CO occurred due to the shutdown of heavy industries in China”

Something that has been affecting the U.S. for a long time is the deadly shootings at schools. There are records from these big events in recent years, however lately the records have been getting a little drier.

School shootings for reference in 2019 were at 25 incidents, however now as of 2020, there are only 10. They have reduced over half since COVID-19 started. 5 of them happened just in January when the U.S. was still open and unaware. Leaving only 5 school shootings during the 2020 pandemic. “At the moment, we’ve got this pause, this break that we’re in, and that has the potential to really stop this cycle,” stated James Densely, a criminologist. The vicious cycle of school shootings could be coming to an end.

With all the negative effects we have faced during this long pandemic, it seems so hard to find the light in a dark situation. However, as I proved here, there are good things to come out of this that will hopefully stay in the long run. So don’t give up and keep fighting the virus while looking toward a positive future.