Just last March, our lives came to an improbable halt as the number of cases of a newfound disease surged drastically, compromising the safety and health of people everywhere. Jobs were lost, the economy staggered and peoples’ ways of life became all the more isolated, cautious and strategized as businesses closed and schools shut down. Many students would end up losing monumental moments in their secondary educational careers and the course of many people’s education would change drastically.
Like many of my peers, I heard about the two-week school shut down on a fateful Friday afternoon in March. Many of us students hadn’t fully grasped the grave implications of this unprecedented situation, thinking that this was a moment to celebrate an extra vacation for the school year. Little did we know that this two-week break from school would turn into nine months (and counting) away from school and from a sense of normalcy.
This unfamiliar virus became the centerpiece of international discussion and inquiry; the world was mutually learning more and more about the virus as information gradually became accessible. The information that the general public acquired affected the way they dealt with and treated the virus and precautions. A study published Tuesday in Nature found that people under age 20 are half as likely to get COVID-19 as the rest of the population and are less likely to fall extremely ill; however, more young adults under the age of 30 are testing positive for COVID-19 and that is heavily due to young people not practicing physical distancing.
People’s alarming feeling of having nothing to lose plays a significant role as to why the U.S. is one of the leading countries with the highest amount of coronavirus cases (12.9 million and counting). The prospect of getting teenagers to stay inside is already an uphill battle, as people at this age have a more blithe attitude towards life wanting to gather and socialize, but the lack of enforcement of safety precautions by the current administration enabled many to continue living like this.
President Donald Trump has expressed his blatant disregard for the validity of the virus and the damage it will continue to do as well as his refusal to enforce health policies that will subsidize the ongoing surge in cases. Unfortunately in the U.S., the idea of wearing a mask has turned into a political statement rather than a health precaution. Pew Research Center conducted a poll that found Democrats more likely to say they wear masks than Republicans.
Teenagers are in that transitional phase from childhood to young adulthood which includes forming their own political opinion, so where they land on the political spectrum will affect the way they respond to the coronavirus as they will most likely follow where the political leaders stand on the matter of coronavirus precautions. This idea that wearing a mask works for a political agenda has been further perpetuated in the media which is what consummates most of an average teenager’s time.
From big politicians to social media influencers not abiding by COVID-19 safety guidelines, young people tend to be influenced by the examples set by the society around them. This isn’t to say that all teenagers aren’t taking the coronavirus as the serious situation that it is. A Harris poll, for example, says that Generation Z has exceedingly been in support of all of the public health measure being put in place, with 83% saying they were following recommended safety precautions, 79% saying they were strictly following mask-wearing guidelines and 80% saying they wanted more people their age to follow those same recommendations.
Being that Generation Z is one of the most well-informed generations, these statistics don’t come as a surprise, but they can easily fall short without the consistent practice of public health safety measures. As this period in the pandemic drags on, however, teenagers become less diligent with practicing social distancing and wearing masks as the desperation to return to normal will be all the more fervent—which is why it must be understood that the more dedicated we are to social distancing, the sooner we get to life as it was.
Article by Kristal Maimo of John F. Kennedy High School
Graphic by Xiomara Quoque of Montgomery College