Opinion: We Shouldn’t Still Be Wearing Masks on Campus

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit in early 2020, schools and universities around the country shutdown. At the time, I was in the second semester of my grade 12 year at Moncton High School in Moncton, New Brunswick. Schools closed after Friday the 13th, and we finished the year online. From half-baked zoom classes and barely any assignments, we had a socially distanced graduation ceremony. It was basically a diploma drive-through and took a whopping five minutes to get through.

During the whole of 2020, I spent many afternoons in my friend’s yard, talking and hanging out while socially distanced and outdoors. When the 10-people bubbles started in New Brunswick, my friends and I started hanging out again without the distance. Masks were not mandatory in New Brunswick until after I started attending StFX in the fall.

In the fall of 2020, I started my first year at StFX. At that time, the school required us to wear masks everywhere, even outside. After a month, we were finally able to take our masks off outside. During my second year in 2021-2022, we could also remove our masks in residence. Now, we are only required to wear masks in educational spaces. But why are we wearing them at all?

Considering the majority of students and staff choose not to wear masks outside of educational spaces, it seems somewhat unnecessary of the school to require us to wear them in classrooms. For example, a group of friends can go to Piper’s, meal hall, and to parties together, sharing food and drinks, without being socially distanced and without wearing masks. If any of them were to catch COVID, it could easily spread among the friend group and other acquaintances outside the classroom. Considering the fact that everyone is able to socialize with whomever they so choose, it seems doubtful that masks in class are a reliable source of protection from COVID. Masks in class are by no means a saving grace of any kind. Shouldn’t students then have the option of wearing them or not? Those that choose to wear them in all spaces could continue to do so, but those that do not want to wear them could choose not to, as they also do in all other spaces.

It seems that we are now at a point where individuals should be able to choose whether they want to wear masks or not in classrooms, such as they are able to choose out in the world.