According to an article published by the Daily Herald on April 20, 13 students at John Hersey High School had confirmed cases of COVID-19, which caused 155 additional students to go into a mandated quarantine as a result of being in close contact with the positive cases. 

This is due to the various rules put in place when a majority of students came back in the building on March 19; students must sit in assigned seats in every classroom for the purpose of COVID-19 contact tracing, and anyone who has been within six feet of a positive case for longer than 15 minutes within a 48-hour period, either with or without a mask, is a close contact. 

The transmission of the virus was said to have happened outside of school, and unless vaccinated, anyone who qualifies as a close contact with a positive case needs to quarantine. 

Hersey sophomore Ava Arvanitis, is one of the 155 students who has had to join their classes via Zoom. 

Arvanitis said that her mom received a call around five p.m. on April 14, saying that she was in a class with a student who tested positive. After receiving the call, she was told to quarantine at home for a minimum of 10 days. 

Arvanitis is back in-person as of April 23, but was affected by the shift back to remote learning. 

“I was kind of annoyed because I really benefit from going in person, my grades do better, I just focus better, so to take time off, I didn’t miss online learning,” Arvanitis said. 

She is not alone in her feelings of frustration towards this, saying that it has not only been affecting her friends, but also others around her, and has noticed more than usual, that around five to seven kids were in class remotely. 

“It’s weird just because when I’m at school, me [and] everybody else around me is following the safety precautions,” Arvanitis said. “So it’s kind of like when I get called out, and the kid doesn’t sit that close to me, why am I getting called out when I’m following the safety precautions.”