It’s tragic but it’s true:
Not everyone is taking the Coronavirus very seriously right now.
You’ve likely seen the videos of spring breakers in Florida, partying on the beach in large groups and hitting up every bar that remains open.
Or you’ve probably heard the ignorant statements made in public by such famous names as Vanessa Hudgens and Donald Trump.
But Leah Messer is most decidedly not among this group.
The long-time Teen Mom star has made it clear to her social media followers that they won’t be seeing her out or about any time soon — for a very good and very personal reason.
“The Coronavirus may not affect some but it does my family. Ali has a compromised immune system because of her disease,” Messer wrote on Facebook when the COVID-19 pandemic first swept America.
As has been sadly well-documented, Messer’s 11-year old daughter was diagnosed with muscular dystrophy shortly after birth.
This means she’s vulnerable to various diseases and, to put it bluntly, is simply weaker than the average child.
At some point, Ali may need in-home care and she sometimes uses a wheelchair to get around and so also sometimes undergoes breathing tests.
As a result?
Due to the outbreak of a virus that can turn deadly for anyone with this kind of pre-condition?
“We will choose to stay low key and are requesting that everyone FaceTime or call us,” Messer added on Facebook, advising others to do the same and adding:
“We will be home watching movies and playing board games. Everyone take the CDC standard precautions and stay well.”
And that’s the thing:
Even if you are young and healthy… even if you could contract the Coronavirus and barely experience any symptoms… you can easily go out in public, pass it along to someone else, who passes it along to someone else, who passes it along to someone else…
… and that person may be like Alii.
And that person may die.
This is what may folks who continue to ignore social distancing pleas either fail to understand — or fail to care about.
Unfortunately, Leah’s close friend, Kailyn Lowry, sounded like one of those folks earlier in the week.
“My 10 year old shouldn’t be coming home from school worried about the f-cking coronavirus. I hate it here.” Lowry recently tweeted, earning some well-deserved backlash, especially when she also wrote:
“People didn’t react this way about the Swine Flu.”
For the umpteenth time, everyone:
This is not the Swine Flu.
It it far more contagious, it has a much higher fatality rate, there is no vaccine for it and there is an extreme lack of testing for it… which means we don’t even know how many people have actually been inflicted with the disease.
Truly, anyone out there could have it and millions of people are probably walking around with it.
And this is why we all need to follow Messer’s example: Just. Stay. Away. From. People.
Now, is Leah Messer in a cult? That’s a topic worth debating.
But should you listen to all the health experts and practice social distancing and see as few people as possible for the next several weeks?
Yes. This is not a topic for debate.