Vaccination statuses raise concerns
Marcus Hsieh
With the reopening of Diamond Bar High School, the staff have taken various precautions to ensure the safety of students. However, due to the amount of students on campus in contrast to the amount of staff left to oversee them, and several students going mask-less when outdoors or out of teachers’ line of sight, a new question arises among brahmas: how many students are actually vaccinated?
Currently, the main precaution set in place is mask-wearing when indoors. Likewise, teachers have enforced assigned seating to limit student to student contact.
“I don’t think the precautions are set well enough as I have seen even teachers wearing masks wrong in classrooms against guidelines,” junior Alex Wang said. “In addition, during passing periods many students are tightly packed together and sometimes they don’t even wear masks.
Wang added that the current construction at school has limited the paths students can take to get to class, worsening to the crowded nature of DBHS’ hallways.
Aside from crowding in the hallways, students have also been permitted to take off masks while outdoors; however, this increases anxieties among more cautious students.
“In my opinion students should only have masks off when eating or drinking, but unfortunately many people don’t share the same sentiment,” junior Dawson Lam said. “The general environment is most likely the reason that we have been getting consistent cases of Covid.”
Lam comments that the main issue currently is that the intent and what is actually happening are too different. Students should be staying safe and careful while at school but instead choose to have no masks and ignore distancing and safety rules in many cases.
Another concern for many brahmas includes those who have not been vaccinated. While some unvaccinated students have avoided getting the vaccine due to a variety of reasons, ranging from allergies to personal preference, others have stated that they don’t trust the vaccine altogether.
“My immune system is strong within itself and I don’t have any underlying diseases making my survival rate over 95% anyways,” senior Cole Watson said via Messenger. “I also don’t trust how fast the vaccine was made. Vaccines that we are required to get have been through extensive testing and had all side effects observed with problems being fixed.”
In light of this, some students worry about their own health.
“I think it’s annoying and stressful that people are not getting vaccinated, especially since my parents refuse to get the shot as well,” junior William Li said. “Despite all this, at least I’m still vaccinated so it isn’t horrible but I think it would be way better if everyone did get vaccinated.”
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