COVID-19 has drastically changed the way we live our lives, from school, to work and even sports; everything has been affected. In an attempt to get back to “normal,”schools, among other places, are reopening fully. 

Of course I don’t find this to be a horrible idea, but there are some flaws in doing this. One major one being that less than half of the US is vaccinated. Although it seems like all of our teachers, family and friends are getting the vaccine, according to USA Today, as of April 26, only 42.3% of Americans are fully vaccinated. This means that tons of staff and students are still very vulnerable to catching the virus. 

On top of more people still needing to be vaccinated, anyone under the age of 16 is ineligible. This of course is subject to change because Pfizer recently did a study and it proved 100% efficacy on kids 12 to 15 (results can be found on Pfizer.com). But for now, the vaccine is not available for the young children who will be attending school. I find that because of this, there will definitely be more young people getting sick with COVID-19.

With only half of high school students eligible for the COVID-19 vaccine, this leaves many of them at risk of getting it. Even with the hybrid system, some schools, such as Lakeland Regional High School, have had their fair share of cases, although that has significantly slowed down. If there were still cases when the school was only half open, cases could spike if the school is to open five days a week with everyone attending in person. 

Although many New Jersey schools are going back 5-days a week, I think that opening this soon could only lead to cases rising and more deaths. Although I hope I’m wrong, perhaps schools should wait until the vaccine becomes approved for more school age children.