Celebrating Safely

By George Hawking, Reporter|December 10, 2021

Celebrating+Safely
Students Thoughts

This holiday season, 60% of the 50 surveyed Upper Schoolers plan on traveling. With their plans come COVID-19 concerns.

“Get covid testing before coming back to school, stay home if feeling sick, keep washing your hands, and wear a mask properly.”

“This is going to be unpopular… but quarantining students who have traveled.”

“I think their current safeguards have been working well! If there’s an uptick in cases, testing might be applicable, but only if necessary.”

“Making sure the school/task force knows who has traveled, keeping up the procedures we are doing right now.”

“Continue to do what we are doing.”

“I think UPrep should make everyone who left the state submit a [mandorty] test.”

“Stop requiring gloves at lunch since they don’t help with anything.”

Methodology: Poll results come from 50 students across all 4 grades

COVID-19 cases in Washington have gone down from six hundred cases a week on August 1st to around 300 cases for the week of November 20th, according to the New York Times. With lower case numbers and lower perceived risk of contracting the virus, many have decided to resume holiday travel.
9th grader Rohan Hikel plans to stay in Seattle. “I’m [going to be] spending time with my family who lives here,” Hinkel said.
Hinkel noted that he wasn’t that concerned about getting COVID-19, due to his friends and family being vaccinated and following COVID-19 guidelines.
9th Grader Belen Sime plans on traveling out of state to California.
“My older [family] members are fully vaccinated,” Sime said. “I’m sanitizing my hands often and washing my hands, and because of that, I feel like I’m probably going to be safe.”
While 75% of surveyed people were confident to very confident that they weren’t going to contract COVID-19 over the holidays, they were more skeptical of other people doing the most they could to not spread the virus. There are also concerns over another wave of the virus that vaccines will not protect against.

Are you planning to travel for the holidays?
Blue: Yes, but within the state
Yellow: No
Red: Yes, outside of the state

Many students have ideas surrounding what to do after a potential spike in COVID-19 again, due to some anxiety surrounding the holidays. A common idea in the survey results was to go back to remote learning for two weeks after winter break for those who traveled.
Hinkel objected to this idea of remote learning.
“I did not learn anything and my mental health went down the gutter really quickly,” Hinkel said.
Meanwhile, Belen Sime was enthusiastic about going back to remote learning.
“Some sixth graders are not vaccinated, and many high schoolers have sixth-grade siblings. So I think we should do, like, 15 days of online [school],” Sime said.
Mr. Gonzales said that he can’t comment on remote learning, and whether or not it’s a good idea, or if it will happen.
“it would be a big change for us to consider going to remote learning without any particular reason,” Gonzales said.
At the time of printing, Omicron is mostly unknown how dangerous it is and has spread to five states, according to the New York Times. Due to the new variant, everything in this article could change.

Are your family members vaccinated?
Blue: Yes 78%
Yellow: Most are 20%
Red: All are unvaccinated 2%