“…it would make sense to end quarantine if we required masks and/or required vaccinations. However, since we do not, the latter seems like the next option.”

  Quarantines, which for the past couple years has been used as a solution to COVID-19, still currently remains one of the fiercest political battles in the news. Yet, no resolute claim on this topic has been agreed on by both sides. Many question who is right, and thus, quarantining turned into an us-versus-them mentality. Politics aside, the focus on COVID-19 as a health issue should hold the spotlight. We should be asking ourselves more questions like where is it focused, who is at most at risk, should we stay worried, and most of all, should we continue to quarantine?

   Nationally, there is no clear-cut answer. In the United States alone, there has been a total of over 39 million COVID-19 cases, accompanied by another 600 thousand deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University. In compliment to this, however, data from Cable News Network demonstrates that roughly 40% of these cases are from Florida, Texas, California, Georgia, and North Carolina.

   It’s safely concluded that cases are slowing down in areas that have a higher population of fully vaccinated people.

   Despite new variants, herd immunity is becoming increasingly effective in areas where it occurs.

   However, too many people remain vulnerable to the virus and thus increase the regional risk for infection and sickness. Cases are driving back to the number of cases seen in winter of 2020. Just like the cold, too, it may get even worse with an increase of people being inside for the cold.

   Even if we got teenage and adult groups vaccinated entirely, children under 12 years of age are increasingly susceptible to getting the sickness. Between August 20 and 26, 330 children were admitted to hospitals nationally per-day, an increase from previous variants.

   Complications begin to twist the situation even further, though. Some question the legitimacy of COVID vaccines for children, and some outright do not believe the vaccine serves any positive significance in the first place. Health has been thrown out the window and in-groups are the ones controlling their own ideas. Yet, when politics is taken picture again, data evidently shows the effectiveness of these vaccines.

   This note leads the questioning of the effectiveness of quarantining.

   It would make sense to end quarantining if we required masks and/or required vaccinations. However, since we do not, the latter seems like the next option.

   With a lack of quarantines and an exclusion of masks and vaccines, students and their families are left with little to defend with. Online schools have taken more normality among some of these families, and for those it works for, then that path might be the best. Otherwise, it’s not that great of a choice.

   If the school no longer enacts required quarantines, it might be smartest to require vaccines instead.