Since the spring of 2020, people around the world were struck with disappointment as shelter-in-place orders were declared. Vacations were canceled. As the world began opening up this spring, freshman Gwen Jones went on vacation to Seaside, Florida.
“Honestly, I’m not scared of COVID but I also want to keep other people safe,” Jones said. “I kind of just wore my mask and kept my distance and if they didn’t bother me, I didn’t bother them. If they weren’t wearing their masks I would kind of give them a bigger cushion between us.”
Jones could do almost everything she wanted to do in Florida. The mask restrictions there weren’t strict or enforced.
“We could do everything we wanted to do,” Jones said. “As far as COVID, not a lot of people worried about that in Florida. Me and my family wore our masks, but everyone else in Florida kind of acted like it wasn’t a thing.”
On the other hand, freshman Karly Anderson went to Scottsdale, Arizona, where mask rules were strongly enforced.
“They didn’t allow gators or bandanas in the airport,” Anderson said. “They didn’t want them down for anything even if you were spread apart.”
Anderson mainly stayed inside with her family and sometimes went out to eat taking precautions to keep her family and everyone else safe.
“I could miss a lot of stuff if I got COVID and I was nervous of being so close on a plane that everyone uses,” Anderson said.
Taking all the precautions anyone can, freshman Morgan Kahmke plans to keep herself and others safe from COVID.
Over the summer she will be attending Minnesota St. Mary’s ice skating camp.
“Hopefully over the summer there will be more vaccinations so less people will get COVID, hopefully,” Kahmke said.