Tateum Park, contributor
I never realized how much this pandemic took away from me. I was part of the graduating class of 2020 in my senior year of high school and it didn’t dawn on me that I was missing out on some important aspects of my life. I lost out on my prom and my high school and college graduation. I graduated with two degrees, my high school diploma and my associates degree, but there was no ceremony commemorating my accomplishments.
Many people have grappled with receiving the vaccine and booster shots with concerns about how it affects our bodies and what long-term effects it may present. With the shifting protocols from the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention), Minneapolis and St. Paul have now joined other major urban centers in the U.S. such as Boston and Philadelphia in requiring vaccines or negative test results when entering places that serve food and drinks.
When there was first talk of a vaccine for COVID-19, many had questions. A sickness that has only been around for about a year already has a vaccine when other diseases do not? It was a crazy idea. Now businesses, schools, workplaces, and now restaurants are starting to require proof of vaccines or negative test results. These restrictions are going into place despite the arguments from some that COVID-19 is really just a more contagious version of the Flu.
I personally believe that these restaurants and businesses will lose a lot of their customers. Especially restaurants and bars that have servers. I do not believe this new mandate is going to make people want to get the vaccine, but instead drive people away from it. There are too many businesses that need workers, and these businesses will struggle even more finding help because their employees will have to be vaccinated. I have a strong feeling that these next few months are going to be extremely difficult for businesses and workers should expect pay cuts, or even to be fired from their jobs.
In quarantine, businesses were not open, stores closed early, and people were simply not allowed to leave home. I was fortunate enough to still have a job and work through the pandemic, along with my home state not shutting down. Many other people had to suffer with being bottled up in their homes for months. Think back to when masks were starting to be required in public places. There were many people who did not agree with those requirements and there were a lot of back and forth issues.
Human interaction is very important for our mental health. I remember when my old job told us they were going to require masks. I was devastated. I love talking and interacting with people at my place of work and that made it more of a struggle. I had customers who were Deaf or Hard of Hearing, and they relied on reading lips. When businesses required masks to come into the store, it created more jobs for the use of curbside pickup, but as those areas of business went up, their need for workers inside went down. More grocery stores are putting in self-checkouts, which takes away cashiering jobs. How long will it be until there are little or few servers but instead more DoorDash, Uber Eats, and Grubhub workers? We are going to start losing face-to-face interactions with one another if these businesses, states and cities start to require proof of vaccinations.