Students have faced almost uncountable trials resulting from COVID-19, including mask-wearing, social distancing, missing school, canceled events, etc. An easy way to fix this going into the next school year, 2021-2022, is to require COVID-19 vaccines among all the students at STH. This would create a sort of bubble of herd immunity within the community at Saint Thomas. In fact, the risk of catching the virus would be so low that I believe that all COVID-19 protocols that were in place during 2020-2021 would no longer be necessary. All the students would be able to return to their normal activities, with a very minuscule risk of catching COVID-19 or bringing it home to loved ones.

Vaccination among all students is not currently possible because the Pfizer vaccine is only available to teens ages 16 and older, which excludes all of the incoming freshmen, current freshmen, and some of the current sophomores. However, according to Forbes, this is soon going to change, because the FDA plans to lower this minimum age during the month of May, enabling everybody 12 and older to receive the Pfizer vaccine.

If Saint Thomas does not adopt a policy of mandatory vaccination, many students will not get vaccinated, making it quite possible that several of the irritating policies from this year will carry over to next year, which nobody wants. If the community at Saint Thomas bands together and looks out for its eagle brothers by getting vaccinated, I believe that the 2021-2022 school year may prove to be the best one in a while.