Over the past week at Braintree High, many of my classmates have started to get symptoms of what appeared to be coronavirus. After they got tested, however, most of these results came back negative. What they were suffering from wasn’t the infamous virus that has plagued the lives of students and staff for the past year: it was the common cold.

Last year, during the winter, cases of coronavirus were high, but the flu and cold weren’t anywhere to be found. Why was this? The use of masks and social distancing measures kept it so that there were no major outbreaks of the cold, especially in such a germ haven that is a public high school. For me and other students, this was a god-send; enough time was being taken out of our classes because of COVID, so not having to worry about getting tested and suffering from the flu or cold was a major upside to the 2020-2021 school year.

Now, however, schools across the nation are starting to get rid of the mask mandate; at Braintree High, the administration has promised that following a certain vaccination rate, the student body would no longer be required to wear masks. I am asking on behalf of all students that this be pushed beyond the flu season, even if this threshold is achieved. Right now, especially as coronavirus cases are on the rise, many of us cannot handle recoiling or catching a strand of the flu or cold, fearing that it is coronavirus and being taken out of school and falling behind not only in our classes but our health. 

While unintended, wearing masks has prevented students from getting what is the yearly plague. In our current situation, where there are not only new stands of the coronavirus being discovered but also in the midst of a flu season, we simply cannot risk taking off the masks. As we have seen many students have started to take mask wearing less seriously (wearing them improperly or not at all), the cold has began to eat BHS alive; for only a few more months, as we wait for more people to get vaccinated and for this flu season to pass, students need to persist in wearing their masks.