1st Place, Pro-Con Opinion Columns
2022-23, Division 1, News Writing
By Addy Vargo & Riley Vining
The Bucs’ Blade
Grand Haven HS
People should continue wear masks in school until COVID-19 is under control
Take a gander down the halls. The students walking down them wear disposable masks, blue and pink alike, or cloth ones, be it in black or colorful designs. The Health Department’s mask mandate expired on January second, but a Board of Edu- cation meeting in August de- termined that the district’s mandate would last.
A second Board of Education meeting on February seventh determined that masks would no longer be required, only recommended.
The ICUs are normally full of organ transplant, ma- jor trauma and respiratory failure patients. Until that’s the case again, we ought to be using whatever preven- tative measures we have to fight COVID.
Until the commercials begging people to get vac- cinated don’t echo on the screens of gas pumps, wear your mask.
“Whenever we reach seven consecutive days of moderate to low levels, then we would switch to optional mask-wearing,” said principal Tracy Wilson. “We’ve never come close to that.”
We should be more focused on getting rid of COVID than catering to people’s personal beliefs.
Unless you’re a teenage superhero, face coverings are hardly your friend. As COVID-19 does its best to teach the Greek alphabet, the effectiveness of preventative measures comes into question.
The ICU hardly cares who infected who, their reality is made of temporary units and not as many beds as there are patients. A study by Harvard Medicine and Yale, published in September 2021 proved that surgical masks, if worn correctly, reduce the spread of COVID and are an effective alternative to getting vaccinated.
With the spread comes the inevitable despair of the loss of learning, because, let’s be real, learning from home while the class still trucks on in-person sucks. The catch-up once you’re allowed to return is terrible. Without the mask mandate, the required quarantining time doubles, regardless of vaccination status.
With the staffing shortage only getting worse and an ever-increasing amount of strain it puts on the clean- ing crew, students, administration, and what staff can be here, the absences suggested by the lack of a mask mandate are hardly tolerable.
As reported by the CDC, outbreaks in K-12 public schools in Arizona during a surge of the Delta variant were three and a half times less likely in schools with mask mandates.
Preventative measures are not fun. They were never meant to be. Their purpose is to end the pandemic, to open up public places, get people outside and clear out ICUs. They’re meant to be the end of the line.
People should not be required to wear masks during school hours
In the winter, we wear coats because it’s cold. When we’re hiking, we wear boots to protect our feet. In the summer, we wear sunglasses to shade our eyes.
However, when the frigid winter warms to spring, the thorny ground subsides to soft turf and the beating sun falls under the horizon, it’s safe to shed these protective layers and return to normal.
The way it should be.
But no one makes you wear coats indoors, boots on the sand and sunglasses at night.
However, others contradict this and wear masks even when the percent of people who have at least one shot is 76 percent through- out the US.
A Johns Hopkins re- search study shows double vaccinated and boosted individual reduces their transmission rate, their contraction rate, and even the severity of their symptoms. Throughout the US double vaccinated individuals have risen over 64 percent.
I got the vaccine and in the months after it, I have attended parties, gone to stores, even traveled, all maskless. Not once have I gotten COVID-19 that I’m aware of.
I have done everything the government has said to keep myself safe. Yet, I have to continue to wear an awk- ward, hot, musty mask. It is now my choice to take off my mask.
A mask that muffles my speech and slurs my words, which is difficult for me because I value speech and diction.
Ask anyone. I’m loud and I over pronounce every word I speak. With a mask on, it is challenging to execute this. Everything ends up garbled.
It is like a part of my personality is shackled and covered. At first, I understood it was for the safety of everyone. But now, with the vaccines and the falling mortality rate, it was not fair of the administration to force this policy.
We are smart and educated individuals. It is our choice whether we wear a mask or not. Many students don’t care enough to properly wear a mask. It is not right to force students to that clearly diverge from their personal beliefs.
Now some people want to reinforce the mandate in the future.
It’s unfair to enforce this policy on students, faculty and anyone else within the building. This is just an exercise in redundancy that firmly goes against the values of the student body. We now have the ability to shed our protective layer.
It is no longer cold, we’re no longer on rough ground, we’re no longer assaulted by the harsh sun.
As a voice for my peers, I call for the continuation of our increased freedoms. Our rights cannot be taken away.
Masks are being forced upon our faces like a muzzle.
NW-10. Pro-Con Opinion Columns
Each entry must:
- have two (2) columns, each written by a different author, that express opposing viewpoints on one topic.
- show the two columns as a package, allowing readers to view both at the same time. Columns appearing in print should be published adjacent to each other on the same or opposing pages; columns appearing online should link prominently to each other or appear on the same webpage.
- have both columns submitted together in the same entry form
- have a standing head that indicates the pro/con nature of the package
- carry bylines or other writer identification to indicate the personal opinion nature of the content
FOR ONLINE ENTRIES, submit the URL to one column in the URL field and the other in the Additional Information field.
A school may submit a second entry in this category, and the pieces may be written by the same columnists or combination including one of the same columnists. Submit a PDF of the print page(s) on which the entry was published or the URL to the entry on an online news site.
JUDGING CRITERIA
- Topics relevant to interests and/or welfare of school or students
- Two pieces, while offering opposing views, are consistent in style and tone
- Both pieces win reader interest with compelling leads
- Present evidence/interpretation in logical sequence
- State issue; uses effective examples, facts and comparisons to clarify
- Deal with specific issue; avoids preaching, rhetoric and clichés
- Show sufficient thought and knowledge of subject, developed with personal style
- Sentences, paragraphs of varied length; written clearly, concisely and vividly
- Proper diction/grammar