COVID-19 has brought many people to find themselves or to lose themselves.With schools shut down and being virtual for the 2020-2021 school year, it has been difficult to get back into the routine of in-person learning five days a week. With all the restrictions because of COVID-19, it has been hard to live life normally, and some say this is the new normal.

While many people were hopeful that the 2021 school year would be COVID free, the delta variant dashed those dreams. Many people were hoping for a normal school year, and while this year is not totally normal, Pattonville is still hosting many events, like Homecoming, football games, and more.

Kids and teens are more likely to spread this new delta variant of the virus than adults, but adults seem to take more precaution and worry more about the deadly virus than kids and teens do.

The strategies that continue to slow the spread of the virus include wearing masks at all times, covering the nose and mouth, trying one’s best to stay 6 feet apart, plexiglass barriers during lunch and in the classrooms, and to always stay home if one is feeling sick.

There are mixed feelings about the regulations, but without the rules, COVID-19 would spread much more quickly in school between students, ultimately sending students back into quarantine.

While most students do follow the rules, there are two groups of students. Students who are okay with the rules, and students who are unhappy and do not want to follow the rules. People who understand that these rules are implemented for everyone’s safety wear their masks properly, stay away from big groups of people, social distance when possible, and overall understand the dangers of COVID and how to do their part in society.

“I guess they prevent people from spreading germs,” said Shardae Johnson, when asked her thoughts on the regulations placed at school.

As for the people who don’t like the regulations, they don’t wear their mask properly or don’t wear a mask at all. Oftentimes, during school hours, they tend to get in trouble just because of the masks.

Michael McComb said, “I don’t like them. They make life harder,” when referring to the rules placed by local health officials.“How are we supposed to work an outside job with a mask on?”

The vaccine for COVID-19 was produced last year and released to the public on December 11th, 2020. A large number of people got the vaccine, while there are others who are against it, or hesitant about the vaccine.

The vaccine is effective and does in fact help lessen the chances of you getting covid, if you were to get covid it would lessen the severity of the virus. Cases of covid have started going down since the vaccine has been produced. “For individuals 65 plus, we saw significant declines in VE (vaccine effectiveness) against infection during Delta for the mRNA products,” Link-Gelles told a meeting of CDC vaccine advisers.

The other half of people who refuse to get the vaccine have many people wondering why they think it’s unsafe.

Jordan Kedl-Thomas doesn’t think that the vaccine is safe. “This isn’t me saying not to get it, because not all vaccines are safe and we still get them, but it doesn’t give you 100% safety from the virus.”

There are students who don’t know how to feel about the vaccine, like Alexander Pace. “I think it’s safe because all the statistics show that it’s safe and it’s FDA approved,” he said. But, “whenever I got the vaccine I was super sick for like three days. I couldn’t move or get out of bed. I literally couldn’t. I couldn’t sleep either.”

Overall, the life we have with COVID-19 around isn’t the easiest to live with. Over the next fews years of our lives, society hopes the virus will no longer be a problem.

Over the years, with all the other diseases that have wiped many people and made populations decrease, they have mostly been produced with a vaccine ultimately helping get rid of the virus or deadly disease.

There are many mixed feelings or mixed thoughts on the topic. Many people don’t like talking about it, while others have lots to say.