It’s a blisteringly hot afternoon in Newman Stadium during a track meet, and today, you decided to run the one mile race. You’re exhausted beyond belief, but there are still two hundred meters left in the race. The first three and a half laps of the race were tough, but you can get through more. You round the bend of the back end of the track and see the glorious finish line. You glance at your watch. A personal best is within sight. All will be right with the world in a few moments if you push now.

If you’re in a final stretch like this, you don’t walk or step off the track. You race as hard as you can. 

Such is the situation we find ourselves in this spring. America is close to pandemic’s finish line, but the race is not yet over.  

A poll done by HealthDay magazine in January of this year suggests that half of Americans still do not wear a mask when out in public. Yet 83% of us recognize that wearing a mask can save lives and can stop the spread of viruses like COVID-19. 

Masks are the most basic necessity to combat this virus. For most people, wearing a mask does not cause any health issues. It’s a piece of cloth or paper — it doesn’t restrict your individual liberties or rights as an American. Not wearing one in public doesn’t make you look like a rebel or strong. It makes you look ignorant. The worst thing about it is you have to talk louder to be heard. If that’s the worst thing about a life-saving piece of cloth, I’d say it’s not that bad. 

Wearing a mask is more important than ever, as there’s a new kind of COVID variant hitting different countries, such as the United Kingdom. These new variants are to be taken seriously just as the original strain of COVID-19 was. According to the CDC, the new variants can “spread more easily from person to person” and often have worse symptoms than regular COVID. 

But these variants are only in the UK, not the US. So no need to be worried, right? Wrong. The current director of the CDC, Dr. Rachelle Walensky, is worried about the course of COVID in the US.

“If we choose to invest in prevention right now,” said Walensky in an article from CNN, “we will ultimately come out of this pandemic faster and with fewer lives lost.”

If the director of the CDC, a medical professional and expert in infectious disease treatment, is worried about COVID, why aren’t we?

It’s no secret that North Allegheny could do better with their masking and COVID prevention strategies. While I agree that all of the plans for COVID safety have been in the best interest of the students and show genuine care, their implementation has not been entirely effective.

For example, the district states that they “continue to follow Pennsylvania’s masking order,” and while I have never seen a student walk into NASH without a mask on, I see students wearing masks incorrectly in every single hallway. In my experience, nobody appears to stop these students, either.  

According to a study done by the scientific journal Cell in July of 2020, this improper wearing of a mask is just as unsafe as not wearing a mask. The study found that the cells that line the human nose are significantly more likely to get infected and carry the virus. 

COVID isn’t going anywhere for a short while. But we can reduce that short while into a couple of months as long as we follow CDC guidelines. That means wearing your mask in your sports team locker room, and that means putting it on when you are done with your lunch, when you go outside in gym class, and leaving it on in the bathroom (unfortunately, COVID has been found in people’s feces before). 

Just like the last lap of a track race, America has to push through this pandemic by doing the right thing right now. 

Don’t give up hope. We are almost there. Finish this last 200 of your one mile race with everything you have.