Covid Cases Increase

Graphic from WBUR.com

January 12, 2022

Veritas Editors Shannon Gustin, Nicole Cedrone, Cameron Babcock and Hailey Christianson contributed to this report

After the winter break, and the start of the new year, COVID case numbers in the Rockland school district have risen rapidly among students and staff. On January 9, Dr. Cron released statistics of the COVID cases in our commuitiy. In total, 94 students and 34 staff members among all the schools were infected at that time.  At the high school, 34 students were infected and 6 staff members tested positive. 

COVID has affected many people in our community. Sophomore Cameron Babcock said, “Many classmates of mine have contracted the virus.”  He went on to say, “This is the worst the virus has been at school, as it has taken classmates out of school because they have the virus, and even more because of the contacts.”

Almost every student at Rockland High School has had a firsthand experience with COVID-19, whether they had it, someone in their family had it, or someone they know had it. Shannon Gustin, a freshman shared, “From my experience about 10 to 15 friends and family members have been infected by this virus.” 

Even though the virus is widespread, it hasn’t affected others.  Hailey Christanson, a junior, said,  “None of my family or friends or anyone I know at the moment has been infected with COVID.” 

 Students have different opinions on whether or not we should have gone from in-person school to remote school after the holidays. Freshman Nicole Cedrone says, “With the increase in cases and students and teachers being absent I feel as though the school should shut down and go remote for 2-4 weeks. WIth hitting record high cases, safety has to be the most important thing. If the school shuts down now we are preventing the rise in cases and ensuring the safety of others. Safety has to be the priority.” 

Christanson had an opposing opinion of remote schooling, saying,  “I would say the school department has done a fair job. Going back to remote should not even be in question considering that the new [Omicron] variant is less deadly and it’s almost like a cold.  Most teachers are vaccinated, as well as a lot of students, meaning we should be over even having to think about going remote.” 

Even if our school board wanted to go remote, they wouldn’t be able to easily. According to an article on Boston.com, Governor Charlie Baker said, “We count in-person days as school…they can use snow days until they run out of snow days, but they do need to provide their kids with 180 days of in-person education this year.”  This would mean if the schools decided to go remote they would have to add in-person days at the end of the school year. 

In conclusion, many students have been affected by the spike of COVID cases after the break, and with numbers rising many students had different opinions on whether we should go remote or not. But in the end, if the schools decided to go remote they would need to add more days to the school year. 

At this point, in-person school is the path Rockland Public Schools will stay on. As long as everyone stays safe and takes the needed precautions, the surge in cases will flatten. But until then, we hope everyone is safe and healthy.