Students continue to wear masks

COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations due to the virus have fallen across the country. Many officials have lifted the mask mandate in schools and indoor places. Carmel Clay schools have just announced that their mask mandate will be lifted starting next Tuesday. Yet NC is silent on whether the school mask mandate will be lifted or not.

What I find intriguing is that nearly every indoor place is mask-optional around the area. Bars, restaurants, facilities and entertainment venues are all mask-optional. I watched the Superbowl last Sunday and nearly every person was maskless. Over 70,000 people packed into SoFi stadium and nearly every single one of them had their mask off. Yet here we are in February of 2022 still requiring students to wear masks.

Young kids have one of the lowest transmission rates for COVID-19. Kids are also less likely to get seriously ill from the disease. What I find very odd is that the vaccine and booster should prevent the virus altogether and yet we still have to mask up. If students still feel the need to wear the mask it should be up to them.

What I have found throughout the first two months of the 2022 school year is that many students at NC hardly ever wear their mask properly. What good does the mask mandate do if students are barely even wearing their mask? Additionally, many teachers do not strictly enforce the mandate. I understand, I also would not want to keep reminding students to keep their mask up all day. Especially when they don’t listen.

What I also found interesting is during the lunch period, students have their masks off while they eat their food. Not only are they closer together at lunch tables, but chewing and getting saliva everywhere. I guess you cannot catch COVID-19 during the lunch periods. 

It is astonishing that certain rules apply to some areas of the school but not others. 

I understand that COVID-19 is prominent, but certain precautions are already put in place to prevent the spread of the virus. Students should be allowed to have the freedom to choose to wear a mask. It is nearly March of 2022, almost two years after the pandemic started and I do not even know what half of my peers’ faces look like without a mask on. 

I would just love some sense of normalcy as I end my senior year of high school and I am sure many others feel the same.