Spring break in Aruba? Canceled. Mean Girls on Broadway? Canceled. Best friend’s birthday celebration? Canceled.

  As panic spreads faster than the coronavirus itself, life has come to a halt entirely.

   Students are now forced to remain home for online classroom instruction. College classes have ceased for the remaining semester, some like Penn State making the decision to have graduation ceremonies online. Companies have stopped operations, forcing their employees to work from home.

  After imposing an 8:00 curfew, New Jersey governor, Phil Murphy, has closed all nonessential retail establishments, including movie theaters and gyms, saying this is “no time for business as usual.”

  With unprecedented fear, people now feel incapable of living their lives as nearly everything in the United States has now been canceled.

  Ironically, it was only a few weeks ago that Americans watched as daily life in China and Italy froze entirely, as the countries banned any travel or movement within the coronavirus “red zones.”

  Italy is currently in a total lockdown where everything but grocery stores are now closed. All European countries have halted any international travel, France going as far as to ticket pedestrians on the street if they do not have a viable reason for being outside.

  Is this the future for the United States? The United States is one of the only countries that has not yet closed its borders to travelers, but has implemented travel restrictions to specific outbreak areas of the globe.

   Still, it’s almost like living in a ghost town. Simply walking down the street, there is not a sole in sight. The neighborhood once full of life, now nearly silent with cars stationary in every driveway, collecting dust.

  “We need to give the response to the virus our full attention,” Jennifer Nuzzo, an associate professor at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, told The New York Times. “But we’re following every rabbit that pops out of its hole, as opposed to trying to prioritize responses that have the most impact,” she said.

  The reason that fear has infiltrated the globe? There is no precedent. No one knows when life will stop being a long list of cancelations.

  What if graduation is canceled? Prom? Senior trip? Everything that once seemed so definite is now followed by a question mark.

  All Americans can do now is wait. Psychologist Maggie Mulqueen wrote for NBC, “Is there a need to stay aware and prepare for the spread of coronavirus? Absolutely,” she said. “Should we educate ourselves? Definitely. But anxiety does not inherently make us better prepared.”

  With the first day of spring in sight, hope runs as rampant as fear that the coronavirus will soon be a distant memory once the weather warms.