Instagramming the Coronavirus

As published in the Philadelphia Public School Notebook on March 10, 2020.

We’ve all had the same conversation in the last week. You mention a new Coronavirus case to your friend or colleague, one that’s closer to Philadelphia than the one before. You’re quickly reassured that Covid-19 is hardly worse than the flu, and after swapping some parroted headlines, the discussion ends as it did the last time: both of you a little more uneasy, and a little more unsure of what comes next.

So what does come next?

I decided to call Wuhan to find out. Actually, I emailed Wuhan, Instagrammed Rome, and WeChatted Guangzhou. In this era of free Internet communication, we don’t need to wait for our President to tell us that Coronavirus will “start working out.” We do not even need to wait for media authorities to report the story. As a 16-year-old Philadelphia high school student born in the Internet age, I’m not convinced we need to wait for anyone.

The way I saw it, I could anticipate what Covid-19 might bring to Philadelphia by understanding what effect it has already had on ordinary people in those areas impacted. More than ever before, we have the tools to find out.

With no Chinese language skills of my own, I reached out to anyone who did: family members, visiting students, and friends of friends. Within hours, I was introduced to a PhD student quarantined in Wuhan, a doctor in Guangzhou, and a survivor of the 2005 Bird Flu epidemic in Tianjin. On Instagram, I messaged users who had left comments about the virus in their own countries. Within minutes, I was speaking with students in Shanghai and Rome who were eager to share their own stories. And then I listened.

I have heard about 40 plus day quarantines in Wuhan, without ever once going outside. I have listened to stories of Wuhan apartment buildings where the lobby door has been literally locked shut. From the doctor in Guangzhou, I learned of one hundred doctors quarantined after interacting with a single patient. Most recently, I was told that over 50,000 high school seniors in Beijing proceeded with their college entrance exams—at home. Students in Beijing, Shanghai, and Rome tell me their schools are all closed, with no set reopening dates. As the student in Wuhan told me, the worst part is not knowing when things will go back to normal.

These direct Internet communications are more than group therapy or entertainment. In fact, they may be improving official responses to the crisis. I was told that in the earliest phases of the epidemic, Chinese people took to Weibo (the so-called Twittter of China) to seek aid. In response, the government responded by formalizing a web-based system for requesting help. I learned that this is not the first time that grassroots efforts have mobilized against a virus: during the 2003 SARS epidemic, Hong Kong residents created “SoSick.org” to inform the general public.

Mostly, I heard about inconvenience, not tragedy. In conversation, I could hear the whole of an experience—not just the headlines. As apartments were cut off from the outside world, tenants banded together to share food and help the elderly. With time to spare in home-quarantines, relationships strengthened via social media as friends bonded over their shared experience. Despite literal physical separation, a remarkable sense of unity emerged as each country banded together to fight a common enemy.

As a student trying to understand what may be coming to Philadelphia and my school in the coming weeks, I found that Internet technology enabled honest personal communications.

Do we still need governmental officials and media intermediaries? Of course. But, the Internet has made the world a smaller place. Let’s use it to learn from those already facing Covid-19.