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Wright State University students had an unorthodox year thanks to the coronavirus pandemic. But Tom Hanks is here to help out and he decided to give seniors quite the surprise.
Hanks popped up for a surprise commencement speech and address to the graduating class of 2020.
“Part of your lives will forever be identified as ‘before,’ in the same way other generations tell time like ‘that was before the war, or ‘that was before the internet,’ or ‘that was before Beyoncé.’ The word ‘before’ is going to carry great weight with you,” he said, via People.com.
“You’ve gone from student to graduate with more that is expected of you than to just be an American. You’ve had to be responsible Americans. You’ve had to be good Americans. Good Americans that have made sacrifices that have saved lives.
“You’ll reference these past weeks for how many other weeks there are to come as ‘during the pandemic.’ During the COVID-19, during the lockdown, the quarantine, the shelter-in-place.’ But your ‘after’ is not going to look the same as your during and your ‘before.’
“You will be enlightened in ways your degree never held in promise. You will have made it through a time of great sacrifice and great need. No one will be more fresh to the task of restarting our normalcy than you — our chosen ones.”
The coronavirus mainly comes from animals and a majority of those who were infected early either worked at or frequently visited the Huanan seafood wholesale market in Wuhan, according to The Guardian. The virus is similar to Severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars) and Middle Eastern respiratory syndrome (Mers).
The Wuhan coronavirus is transmitted from person to person through “droplet transmission.” That means an infected person can pass the virus by sneezing or coughing on another person as well as by direct contact.
While a majority of the cases have been detected in the United States and China — with more than 68,700 deaths in the United States and more than 1 million confirmed cases — it has now reached many countries around the world. It has also been confirmed in Italy, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, and many other eastern countries.
