You tell me if I’m nervous about returning to normal life when I went to workout four times a week over the summer without wearing a mask. I do understand the importance of wearing a mask, and I do wear one, but I cannot wait until the day when I do not have to wear a mask again.
To be completely honest, since the beginning of the pandemic, I have not been very nervous about it. COVID-19 is a harmful virus that has infected more than 31 million Americans to go along with more than 564 thousand deaths in the U.S. as of April 21, 2020. The U.S. has seen negative effects of the virus since March 2020; however, I have felt that if I get infected, I will simply be sick for maybe a week or two and then return to normal life. I am a young, active and healthy individual, and I don’t want to let some virus stop me from living my life.
When I say that I am not nervous about returning to normal life, I don’t mean attending some party with hundreds of people crammed into an area not large enough for everyone but simply going back to what my life looked like before March 2020.
The first step to normal life is reopening schools. This year in school for me has not been extremely difficult, but I have seen the negative effects of online school. My younger brother, now a sophomore in Fairfax County Public Schools, has seen large drop offs in his grades this past year with little to no motivation each morning to get out of bed. For myself, I miss the full classrooms and the energy every student brings on a normal school day.
I am not worried about sitting in a classroom with 20 plus students and the low chance that I will get sick mostly because I trust my classmates and that they try their best to stay healthy.
Similarly to going back to school, another aspect of normal life that I miss is going to watch sports live in stadiums. I have always been an avid sports fan, attending many baseball games a year cheering on the Washington Nationals. Unfortunately, fans missed out on the entire 2020 season, but for the 2021 season, the Nationals and other teams across the MLB are allowing fans back in their stadiums. I attended the Nationals opening game on April 6, and at no point throughout the game did I feel nervous to be around other people.
We all had masks on, and we were socially distanced. I did not worry about the chance of being infected as I was extremely excited to be back watching a live baseball game in a stadium with other fans.
For the past year, I have felt that if a person is extremely worried about being infected then he shouldn’t go out to places where he has an increased risk of contracting the virus. I think that places such as grocery stores should take some extra precautions as they are necessities, but places like restaurants I feel like should begin to open up and let individuals who are comfortable with the risks involved with a return to normal life.
With just a few weeks left until I graduate from high school, I hope for an ease of restrictions with a more normal summer and a full college experience in the fall.