As we start to see a decrease in daily deaths and reported infections due to COVID and see an increase in people who are fully vaccinated, new questions arise. What will be the status of our future and what will it hold for us? Will we be able to return to the way everything was before COVID-19, or will we have to create a new sense of normality?

In a Sunday May 9 interview on ABC’s “This Week,” with George Stephanopoulos, Dr. Anthony Fauci, Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infection Diseases, said this about Covid: “We’ve got to make sure we get the overwhelming proportion of the population vaccinated. When that happens, the virus has no where to go, since there are no vulnerable people around to infect. And when there aren’t as many who are vulnerable, you are likely not to see a surge in cases like we see now.”

Fauci also said, “I hope that next Mother’s Day, we’re going to see a dramatic difference in what we are seeing now. I believe that we will be about as close to being back-to-normal as we can.”

But what is normal? This sense of normality does not necessarily mean everything will go back to the way it used to be. Although some such as Anthony Armstrong, a junior at Abington High School, believes it will.

Armstong said, “I believe that everything will go back to normal as long as everyone follows proper guidelines and don’t start to get slouchy with them instead” and junior Meghan McCann said, “I think a new sense of normal would be reminiscent of life before COVID if we can keep on top of  things.”

Another student Jesse Spinney agreed that we could return to normal “as long as more and more become fully vaccinated.”

Junior Jason Rizzitano also of the High School, said, “I believe that we will have to create a new sense of normality. I feel that COVID will last for a while, and that we will still need to be cautious about things like social distancing and wearing masks.”

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Covid and Education

Mrs. Michelle Poirier, an Art teacher at Abington High School, also mentioned social distancing and mask wearing as two things that might continue. She said that some COVID protocol might become more common, such as “wearing masks when you feel under the weather like people living other countries such as China and Japan have been doing for decades.”

Poirier said some of the habits people formed during COVID, such as “sanitizing all surfaces and work areas 24/7” could become the norm.

As the school year begins to wrap up, Poirier said, “I feel that school wise, we’re slowly getting back to what we used to have.”