End of an era?

Reopening full capacity could be a cure or a curse

By: Cassandra McCoy

Our minds are in a state of seclusion. It’s been over a year; a year of lockdown, human trauma and despair, rising numbers of hospitalized patients for this apparently deadly sickness. A year of face coverage and fretting over hand sanitizer. It’s been an entire year of complete havoc; havoc that we have gotten used to.

Some students recently went back to school with the new hybrid schedule that has been conjured up. It’s different for all schools, but only some kids went back while others stayed home.

Whether this was an experiment on how school would work or not, was it really necessary? Is it truly necessary if we are completely opening up in June?

It has been stated that officials plan to completely reopen full capacity in the beginning of June, with the exception of the mask mandate still being intact.

Now, when this is broken down, all that is seen is pure irony. Masks have been a new addition to our everyday lives, something that no one (in the U.S., at least) can forget to leave the house without. They’ve become popular, and trendy in fashion. They became popular in a half capacity city, though.

The vaccine has allowed the city to open to full capacity, but not everyone is getting vaccinated. For instance, some pregnant mothers can’t get innoculated as it could harm their unborn child, and they wouldn’t want to take something their baby cannot have.

If we had to wear masks half capacity and they either did or didn’t work against the virus, who’s to say opening full capacity wouldn’t do the same, if not worse.

In past cases opening up anything usually ended remotely bad and definitely on the news. It is understandable the excitement to be back up to full capacity and having faith in the vaccination, but it’s like teasing a dog with peanut butter as we still have to be precautious and wear our face coverings, which many have gotten fed up with after this year.

It is inevitable to feel that things should have been handled differently last year, and maybe we would be back to normal life now. At this point and time, a whole year later, it feels very much like this just is the new normal.

Cassandra McCoy // EOTT