Since the end of October, the United States has seen a rise in COVID-19 cases unlike any rise seen during the pandemic. Recently, the current number of cases reached 201,073 in the U.S. In March, schools across the country opted for remote learning to end their 2019-2020 school year. Students were encouraged to stay home and only interact with the public when necessary. With a rise in cases amongst the latest COVID-19 numbers, there are students at NHS who believe another lockdown may be beneficial.

Junior Daisy Buller experienced a lockdown at the beginning of the pandemic, similar to many other Americans. Buller chose to stay home aside from essential travel to the grocery store or work. Based on her personal experience, Buller believes lockdowns would help fight against the recent increase in cases.

“I did isolate at the beginning of the pandemic. Not as soon as [in person] school was canceled, but when the mandated lockdown started my family did quarantine,” Buller said. “I have not gotten sick yet, so I found that lockdown was effective.”

With students going through remote learning during the majority of the second quarter of school, Buller said she feels as though she is already in another lockdown. This feeling is based on the fact that she does not leave the house very often. Buller has not experienced a close interaction with the virus and no one in her family has tested positive. Despite those facts, she would be willing to go into lockdown again.

“Yes, I would be willing to isolate again. It would be essentially the same as what I am doing right now, and I think that if it was for the greater good it would definitely be the right thing to do,” Buller said.

On the other hand, junior Owen Mick disagrees with the effectiveness of lockdowns. Mick said not everyone would take it seriously, similar to how people did not take the March lockdown very seriously. Mick would be willing to lockdown with his family, but does not believe that it would be the best solution to the problem.

“I feel like isolation probably wouldn’t be effective because I feel like small businesses have already been hit hard enough and the mental health of people would go down drastically so I feel like isolation probably isn’t smart because of the effects it would have on our country,” Mick said. 

Mick has experienced isolation first hand when he had to isolate after coming home from a trip to Colorado over the summer. As well as when one of his baseball teammates tested positive for the virus and the team had to isolate until they all received a negative test. Mick suspects that by continuing to follow regulations we will eventually beat the virus.

“I feel like right now we are tackling it in an effective way if we just keep putting those regulations in place and people follow them,” Mick said.