People walking unmasked through the Van Buren Swapmeet in Riverside, Calif. Photo by Leah Quinteros.
By Leah Quintero, Staff Reporter.
The first time I saw a large group of people not wearing masks during the pandemic was when I went to Disneyland in July 2021.
I could feel the anxiety it invoked within myself. I can remember unconsciously tightening my mask or looking around at my younger siblings and older sister, who was expecting a child at the time, to make sure they still had theirs on properly and securely. I would have to stop a few feet away from the unmasked individuals in front of my family in an effort to stay safe in one of the most crowded amusement parks in the state.
The park sent an email after we bought our tickets saying, “Face masks are required of all guests in certain indoor settings including Disney shuttles.” It was the same message posted on its website today.
The shuttle ride to the park was the one and only time I saw people adhering to those requirements. And with individuals and employees not enforcing these safety measures, it felt like a time before the pandemic. Except it wasn’t because it was still in full force.
While people were celebrating that we were essentially “beating” COVID-19 now that a solid 40% of Californians were fully vaccinated, cases began to rise after they had been steadily decreasing since February 2021.
Now with 74% of Californians vaccinated, we see a similar celebration, a similar sort of laxness as the mask mandate has been officially lifted in both indoor and outdoor settings, and that same anxiety has begun to return.
Just like everyone else, I too am hoping to return to normal. I want to be able to take my six-month-old niece out in public and not fear that she might get sick from this contagious disease. I want to be able to visit my older relatives, without fearing for their well-being.
But is removing the mask mandate now, after we had two back-to-back outbreaks, really such a good idea? Is it really a good idea to try and go back to “normal” so quickly when the younger population is still unprotected?
Looking at another country, the Republic of Korea, which has begun relaxing its COVID-19 social distancing protocols and is now dealing with its biggest strain, I think no.
Before January of 2022, the Republic of Korea only had 3,000-5,000 confirmed daily cases. An amount that has changed because now they have recorded over 300,000 daily cases as of March 24, 2022.
California was in a similar situation back in June when our safety protocols were relaxed resulting in an increase of cases that had us returning to social distancing measures and mask mandates once again.
It’s been a vicious cycle since the beginning.
Recently, we’re back again with this one moment of calamity where it feels like our reality would inevitably stay in this pandemic phase as it has been over the past two years.
Seeing the mandates be lifted again, and this time on campus has contributed to this overwhelming anxiety I have been experiencing. In a lot of my classrooms, we don’t have air filters or they’re too small preventing us from being able to social distance. I’m on campus four days a week, and it’s especially worrying being in close contact with other students.
And yes, the cases are low, but they are not the lowest we have seen. They are definitely an improvement, however, these cases can rise just as quickly as they fall.
When you take into account that cases barely started dropping steadily no more than a month ago, how can we possibly feel comfortable enough to shed this new protective skin that has comforted us for more than 730 days?
Some of us cannot. Personally, I cannot feel comfortable until there is an extremely low number of daily cases or a vaccine is approved for the younger population, I don’t think I ever will.