By Andrew Yoshioka

SAN JOSE, CALIF.—On Jan. 25, 2020, the first case of COVID-19 in the United States was a Washington citizen which kickstarted the pandemic that we have been trapped in for two years now. This information is from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s COVID-19 timeline.

According to that timeline, the citizen, who had not had their name publicly disclosed, arrived back from Wuhan, China a few days prior to Jan. 15. By then, at least four people had died from the pandemic, and Wuhan was in lockdown only a few days after. After that came a massive chain of events that eventually led to the entire world’s shutdown.

The first death in the United States happened in Kansas that February, and as of Feb. 2, 2022 there have been 76,637,086 confirmed COVID-19 cases and 915,292 COVID-19 related deaths in the United States. These are only a fraction of the worldwide statistics: there have been 382,300,665 confirmed COVID-19 cases and 5,706,695 deaths. (This information is from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s COVID Data Tracker.)

The Pandemic had also affected those within our school district as well. The entire district was within distance learning for the last school year. While some teachers still went onto campus, and events like senior graduation and tutoring in small groups were still held, most students were staying at home all 180 days of the school year. It has led to an extreme disconnect between students and work, which is seen even as students have  returned to on-campus teaching. Despite classes returning to “normal”, students are still proceeding a lot slower through courses and having a harder time with motivation and are overall receiving lower grades. Senior Joseph Keyes says “It sucks that it feels like nothing’s changing after all this time. We’ve been in the pandemic for months and we’re still wearing these masks.”

Students here at Silver Creek have grown back to their normal selves, however students were still affected heavily by the pandemic. The world still has to wear masks, and acts such as drinking water from a water bottle are now not allowed in the classroom. Social distancing especially is diminishing many activities on campus, such as limiting club activities. Senior Jenny Ku mentions “It has been harder for us to hold meetings due to newer COVID-19 restraints.” It’s been a rough year for Silver Creek High School students, and all that could be done is hoping for the best.