By: Reina Estrada
Wearing masks has become the new normal for students at Neuwirth even with COVID cases continuing to decline
Covid has had a damaging impact on everyone. Students have had to go to school needing to constantly wear masks. Before students could come back to school, students had to endure a year-long quarantine, watching the virus spread quickly and death-rates rising; with people becoming terrified about their own health and their family member's health. This has created constant stress and anxiety within our community, along with scandals about the mRNA being more dangerous than the virus causing even more fear and distrust. As a result, people everywhere have adopted masking as the way to stay safe and healthy.
However, now that COVID seems to be dying off because of the vaccines, masks aren’t really a necessity for schools anymore.Nevertheless most students still want to keep their masks on. As a matter of fact, in a survey given to Neuwirth students in November, nearly half of the students responded that they still wear their mask all the time, even though it is not required. So, why do we keep our masks on?
Let’s go back to 2020, when the pandemic started. It was March 2020 when we became locked up inside of our homes for almost 2 years. School had started and everyone was frightened to go back in person because of COVID still lingering around in the air and constant COVID testing students had to do when they were in school. Now that students are coming back from winter break, there has been a two week mandate to keep masks on until the end of January to keep the students protected from themselves and each other.
Now in 2023, vaccines seem to have been working since now everyone’s required to get them. COVID is dying and starting to disappear. Despite this recent requirement to wear masks again for a few weeks after break, the question still remains: Are masks becoming unnecessary?
We still see students still wearing them, so why? Is it a personal issue or are they still scared of COVID? Our school Neuwirth isn't strict with masks as much anymore and everyone could be seen wearing a mask or not wearing a mask. We conducted a survey that was posted during advisory and the results were interesting. Most of the students are actually more comfortable wearing their masks, but don't want to risk getting their family sick. Among students who responded, safety was not the number one concern for wearing masks. Even so, that still doesn’t answer why a majority of Neuwirth students are still wearing masks?
It's understandable now wanting to keep wearing masks forever because we’ve become so used to it and many still worry about their family’s safety after being in a school with roughly 600 other students. As one anonymous student states, “I think there is people who just got comfortable with mask and are uncomfortable without a mask.” The students have become so accustomed to having their mask on at all times that it’s strange to take it off even if masks aren’t a huge priority anymore. Students have been wearing masks since 2020 and now with the sudden change, it could affect the students lifestyle or daily routine. And with the sudden hit of a popular app, “TikTok” the students could be pressured to look a certain way and trends called “Mask Fishing” which is students removing their mask and being judged by their appearance and the comments rating the person. This created a lot of backlash and massive insecurity to spiral within the youth.
There were more comments about masks being normalized within our society as students state, “I feel safe with my mask”; “I got used to it”; “It's a normal thing now”; and “I feel more comfortable wearing my mask at school, it's not because of any safety issue.” With the repetition of the words “normal” and “comfortable”, it shows what our students really feel about the mask rule. Some students concern themselves with being just comfortable with masks and others are influenced by the judgment of others. In an article by CNBC, Moscovitch, professor of psychology at the University of Waterloo, has found in recent studies that the reason why people get awkward when taking off the mask is because of their struggle of social anxiety. As the article states, “Moscovitch’s recent research found that mask protocols during the pandemic actually increase struggles with social anxiety.” This illustrates that because of the pandemic and staying in your house for long periods of time, social skills have been negatively affected since people are naturally social by nature.
Masks should be optional again after January 27 at Neuwirth. When students were tested on January 11, the first day back from break, the positivity rate was only 1%, which indicates that the chance of getting COVID at school is exceptionally low. The lingering question is whether or not students will choose to ditch the masks this time around. After all, it's hard to get over habits quickly and safety doesn’t seem to be the driving reason behind mask use at school. Maybe this is just the way it is now - and maybe that’s okay.