Coronavirus is a serious issue for high school students and has negatively affected many people at St. Pius X.

Students have been quarantined multiple times throughout the school year due to contact tracing, which is when anyone within 6 feet of the positive case for at least 15 minutes must quarantine for 14 days. 

Getting quarantined at St. Pius almost feels normal now because it happens so frequently. Senior Meg David said, “Getting sent home has been very tough but at the same time, I am used to getting the exposure emails.”

It is very unlucky to be quarantined due to contact tracing, and it has happened to countless students. Some have been quarantined over five times, including David and seniors Maggie Maloof and Christian Eaglen.

It’s difficult to go back and forth from being quarantined to being sent back to school to being quarantined again. 

“There have been times where I come back to school for one day and get quarantined again,” David said.

Being quarantined can greatly affect your daily schedule causing you to become lazier, miss out on extracurricular activities, and fall behind with your assignments. 

It makes it more difficult for a student to remain active if they have to sit down and look at a computer screen for seven hours a day. You are also not allowed to participate in any extracurricular activities for two weeks. 

When I was quarantined during my football season, it was impossible not to become lazy. Having to sit in front of a camera all day was not fun at all and hard to pay attention.

When asking Maloof her daily schedule, she said, “Being quarantined entails a lot of sitting around. There’s not much I can do without sports and I don’t leave my room the entire school day.”

When being forced to learn over a zoom meeting, it’s easy to fall behind on assignments and instructions. In some classes, it is very difficult to understand everything the teacher says. 

Getting quarantined multiple times really affects a student’s social life and the ability to do their best in school.