Column: Premature endings, COVID-19 frauds?
Content note: This is an opinion article and should be taken as such. The contents of this article are the opinions of the writer and are not the beliefs of the staff, student body or institution.
My high school senior year met its premature end on March 16 due to the COVID-19 epidemic. I diligently did my online school work weeks ahead of time so that I could work full-time, but my restaurant closed on April 2 also due to the pandemic.
I was forced to shelter-in-place for a month and was granted a healthy amount of unemployment until I was able to find another job months later.
Near the end of the school year, I was given the option to either keep my grades prior to being released from school or to use the grade I had worked for following the release.
I was frustrated that the work I had done didn’t even matter, but I had to understand that no one could have had the foreknowledge to have anticipated this.
Although I was irate that I had paid senior dues for events that would never happen, I was most disappointed about my graduation. The date had been changed throughout the epidemic, but a week prior to the ceremony, the Richmond County Board of Education decided to cancel the event altogether.
My school decided on hosting a drive-thru graduation in the front parking lot. My parents had picked me up from work and drove through the line while I walked alongside the car, seeing the familiar faces of my teachers standing six feet away. My principal handed me the diploma, and I was happy to say that I was done with high school.
On July 30, I was at work when I was told that a close friend of mine had gotten tested for the virus and had come back positive although completely asymptomatic. The rest of our friend group, including myself, went to get tested that day. I had to suffer a day and a half of lost pay.
The whole friend group came back negative, which seemed pretty impossible considering the fact that none of us wore masks or social distance ourselves. Another friend of mine scheduled an appointment to get tested on a separate occasion and didn’t show up yet still got results that she was positive for the virus.
