On March 13, 2020, I was 14 years old. On that day, I was ecstatic that we had no more school for the year. I could play video games whenever I wanted to, sleep for however long I wanted to and the best part was that my summer vacation was basically extended. Sure, COVID was looming in the back of my mind, but it didn’t seem like a threat to me at all. In fact, I had thought to myself that this would pass, and we’d go back to school next year.  

Sadly, this did not happen. 

Instead of COVID getting better, it only got worse. Hospitals began to flood with sick patients and unhappy families. People were beginning to wonder if things would ever get better. At that point in time, I knew things would only get worse. 

At the beginning of the pandemic, I walked into Meijer and was shocked at what I saw. It was like there wasn’t even a pandemic happening. People were unmasked and not even six feet apart. I wondered why people weren’t taking this seriously. Isn’t this a deadly disease? Don’t people know that this can affect their loved ones? Or maybe they just didn’t care. It couldn’t be that, I thought to myself. 

Our future looked dark and grim until, finally, the vaccine came out. It was the glimmer of hope that people needed to feel safe again. This is it, I thought, now things will change and this dreadful pandemic will go away. 

I was wrong. 

People began to think that since they had the vaccine they were invincible and that they couldn’t get COVID. This was far from the truth. I mean sure, I did feel safer when I got the vaccine and was even excited to start hanging out with my friends again, but it didn’t mean I was going to forget all my precautions. If people slowed down and gradually started moving into larger gatherings then I think things would be better today. It frustrates me that some people don’t realize this. I see people wanting to get back to how things were without taking the steps to actually do that. It makes no sense to me.

Later on throughout the pandemic, I felt very confused on what I needed to do to keep myself and others around me safe. So, I read the CDC guidelines, which made things more confusing. They kept on changing, which made it less and less reliable for me. I understand that these are confusing times and no one, not even the CDC, is sure of what’s going on; however, if you change the guidelines without informing the people it could cause unwanted misunderstanding. 

Now, it’s 2022, and not a lot has changed. Covid-19 cases are still rising, schools are still closing because of cases and no one really knows if, or when, this pandemic will ever end. Though it isn’t all bad. We have learned from these past two years. We’ve learned that masks are important, that the vaccine does help prevent sickness from the virus, that cases can go down if we quarantine and that we’re in this together. I hope in the near future we can change for a better tomorrow.