Published in Uncaged in spring of 2021: Michigan cases rise, provoking schools to go back to virtual learning
by Andrea Borowy. Uncaged Reporter
She knew from the start that when we came back from spring break, that the district was going to have a major increase of COVID-19 cases.
“My prediction did turn out to be reality when we got shut down after a couple days when we came back from our spring break,” freshman Taylor Lockhart said..” I feel that our school handled the situation of the increase in positive COVID cases well by switching over to online learning to help lower those numbers.”
Over the course of spring break, 8,574 new coronavirus cases were reported on Sunday, April 18. According to WDIV-TV Detroit, coronavirus testing has been steady around 35,000 tests per day on average.
The hospitalizations of those with coronavirus increased over the past few weeks.
Many point to the increase in coronavirus cases as a result of traveling and spring break. Many families traveled to places like Florida, Georgia and other warm climates.
Some spring breakers chose to travel on planes.
While planes have carried coronavirus, the main source of contact was the airports. Detroit Metropolitan Airport announced, “The Federal law is requiring everyone to wear a face mask and the only exceptions to not wearing a mask are if it is children under the age of 2, people with disabilities who can’t wear a mask, and people who wearing a mask could risk their health.”
The experience over spring break served as an educational process to be looked to in the future.
“I feel that with the increasing COVID cases after spring break, the government should be taking more precautions to ensure that more infections don’t spread further,” freshman Melanie Satkowiak said.
“If anything, I feel that the rising cases are showing that we aren’t quite ready to be opening everything back up, and that we should still be taking precautions when going out in public and traveling so that we can eventually get ourselves back to some sort of normalcy.”
With the increase in coronavirus cases, some schools have gone back virtual, like Stockbridge. Before going on spring break, Stockbridge Junior/Senior High School had 11 coronavirus cases, then after spring break, the count jumped to 32 confirmed cases, a 21 new case count in one week.
This article is being published as-is from the original, which was published in the May 2021 edition of Uncaged, the student-run independent student news of Stockbridge High School. For more information about Stockbridge’s award-winning student newspaper, go to https://uncagednews.com
Uncaged articles are sponsored by The Stockbridge Area Educational Foundation. https://www.panthernet.net/our-district/saef/
