By KAYLA DEMICCO
Co-Executive Editor
As most people know, the one year anniversary of the COVID-19 pandemic being declared in mid-March is coming up soon. By the end of March 2020, a majority of, if not all, non-essential businesses were shut down indefinitely after not fulfilling the “closed down for two weeks” deal.
What people on social media refer to as “Lockdown Part 1” is the months during April through June/July was a rough time for people who are social, extroverted and love going out. It was also rough for those who rely on those non-essential businesses for income. At that point in time, the fear of coming in contact with COVID-19 was high while the possibility was not as bad as it is now.
On Feb. 22, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announced he is going to allow billiard halls and movie theaters to open up on March 5. Then starting March 15, for weddings and catered events, “Venues are restricted to 50 capacity, with no more than 150 people per event,” according to the official press release on the New York State website.
As someone who works in a retail establishment in a mall and has had first hand experience in seeing how people are with social distancing and mask wearing in public, people are not going to want to wear masks for 2 to 3 hours straight. On the other hand, I also encounter at least one or two people per shift that tell me that they are going out for the first time in months.
While New York is one of the states that have more restrictions than other states in the country, I feel that if we let our guard down this soon, we are at risk to fall like the others. For example, there are people who still travel to states down south where mask mandates are not a thing and do not report it to the Department of Health and skip the quarantine period.
The huge thing that makes things the reopening of things complicated, is that so many states all across the country are on different pages in terms of their limitations and restrictions as well as the severity of their cases.
Let’s take Florida for example. While the Florida Department of Health advises residents and travelers to wear masks, many businesses do not enforce it. According to Local10 Miami, “Gov. Ron DeSantis said in [December 2020] that Floridians should not expect any more lockdowns or state mask mandates during the coronavirus pandemic because he doesn’t believe these work.”
This just put progress at getting cases down at a standstill and puts neighboring states at risk.
As far as I’m aware, I do not know of any U.S. state whose restrictions are as tight as New Zealand. NBC News said in an article that New Zealand is “one of the most successful developed nations in controlling the spread of the pandemic, has seen just over 2,000 cases of the coronavirus since the start of the pandemic.”
On. Feb 27, one COVID-19 case was found in Auckland, which caused the entire city to go on a level three lockdown and the rest of the country on level two. The only businesses that the government allows are supermarkets, dairy, butchers, fishmongers, greengrocers, gas stations, pharmacies or permitted health services.
As of Feb. 27, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported on their website that 23,698,627 Americans are fully vaccinated against COVID-19. While this is 14.6 percent of the population, it is hard to tell when enough will be made for everyone and what next group of people will be eligible to get it.
Just because more people are getting vaccinated, does not mean we can let our guard down in terms of safety. Even after receiving both doses, there is still a five percent chance of still contracting COVID-19.
On top of all that, not everyone is going to want a vaccine anyway. Between vaccinations being forbidden in certain religions, people being anti-vaccination for other reasons, or people not trusting the COVID-19 vaccine specifically, this is still a significant amount of people who are at risk of contracting COVID-19 if not safe.
Despite the vaccine being distributed, the new variants of the virus starting to spread still pose a large threat to the safety of the public. One of the variants that is largely spreading in the United States is called “B.1.1.7,” which is the one that reportedly came from the United Kingdom. The CDC has found that the variants are easier and quicker to spread as it is more contagious than COVID-19.
Even though COVID-19 might seem like it is getting under control, there are still too many irresponsible people not protecting themselves or others by not following the guidelines to prevent the spread. With the variants on the rise, keeping our guard up is more important now more than ever.
