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COVID: WHERE IS WESTMINSTER NOW?
COVID: A Look at its Impact
Staff Writer Jack Nelson
Since COVID began in 2020, rules and regulations around it have become much more relaxed, and life seems to mostly have returned to normal. A study from the John Hopkins Center for Adolescent health reveals how the greatest impact felt by teens is not seeing their peers. PJ McCauley, a junior at Westminster, shares, “I think it hit a lot of teenagers hard. COVID hit in a very important time in a teenagers life, where you are transitioning into high school, and you wanna go out with friends, and you wanna learn to drive, and all this stuff, and COVID kinda hindered that.” Relationships were nearly impossible to keep up with during the quarantine for everyone, however academically it affected people differently. PJ relates, “I actually felt like I learned better in a quarantined environment,” however Cole Hillin, freshman, reveals he “lost hold of [his] grades for a long time.” Both agree that COVID and quarantine certainly impacted mental health negatively. Cole attributes this to losing touch with friends and losing control of grades, while PJ believes that because of isolation, “a lot of people went through a regression in thinking about who they are, really. It brought people to a point where they were like, ‘okay, who am I?’ It gave people the time to think.” COVID is still around however, yet it is not as much of a concern. When they were asked whether COVID still concerned them, PJ answers “not on the same scale whatsoever. Obviously, if a medical professional is like, ‘hey, you need to do this, you need to quarantine, you need to wear a mask,’ whatever, I’m gonna follow that, because I trust them, but since they’re loading off on the quarantine stuff, I’m not as worried as I was.” Cole, meanwhile, articulates this: “I am still sort of worried about it. I think it’s okay to walk around without masks now, but I’m afraid of catching it like I’m afraid of catching the fl u.” Cole is “semi worried about its aftermath,” and believes “it’s gonna become just like the fl u, like vaccines will be more widely normalized, and catching COVID will be like catching the fl u or something.” PJ, meanwhile, answers, “talking about COVID in 2022 is something that is not as frequent as it should be, and it’s also a very paranoid subject for people, because they start to realize it really hasn’t gone away, we’ve just learned more about it. And a lot of people just wanna forget about it and pretend it never happened, and not look at the consequences of a literal pandemic.” The high school experience, a once in a lifetime opportunity for students, has been seriously affected by COVID, but faculty and staff at Westminster also experienced major changes due to the pandemic. They have something students don’t, though: a longer life lived and a fi rsthand experience of the difference before, during, and after COVID.
Heidi Thies, Upper School English teacher, relays how COVID impacted the many facets of her life.
“Professionally, my job as a teacher became quite diffi cult. I had to pivot and change plans, expectations, and methods of teaching. Being in person with masks and dividers, these hindrances made strong relationships with students diffi cult.”
On a more personal note, she tells us that “Socially, I felt very disconnected from people and became even more introverted than I already was. Finally, I did lose a friend to COVID and am still very sad about losing him.”
When it comes to whether or not she is still concerned about COVID, she shares a similar opinion with Cole.
She reveals, “I am not too concerned about COVID today because most people have built up a defense against it. It will probably be seen as something like the fl u in the future.”
Finally, in regards to its aftermath, Thies is most troubled by its effect on her students.
“I am concerned with how it has affected students. So many assignments were leveled down during COVID that students seem to not be as ready to rise up to meet new challenges, expectations, and levels of rigor as readily as they once were,” said Thies.
In addition to this, it has affected her everyday life. “I still have a moment of anxiety before entering a building because I think that I need to put a mask on. The aftereffects of COVID will continue to haunt us all.”
COVID seems to be a less common and less serious threat to these students, but COVID is not an isolated event. It had a domino effect on many things, and its aftermath is something to consider.
