Students weigh in as stay-at-home expires
Included in the reopening are malls, and Stonebriar Centre has set up curbside services that align with Gov. Abbott’s new order. While the mall still prohibits on-premise food consumption, its restaurants and food services may adhere to the curbside pickup and delivery system.
April 30, 2020
Malls, theaters, restaurants, and retail stores will begin opening Friday at a 25 percent occupancy level per the expiration of Texas’ stay-at-home order on Thursday, affecting students and their families.
“I think it’s necessary for the stay at home order to be lifted just for the sake of everyone or the majority being able to go back to their jobs and earn money for their families,” junior Kayla Baker said. “With the virus still going around, it will cause concern as numbers will probably go up again, but we all need to do our part as much as possible to stay clean, wash our hands, and not touch our faces. This will affect me as I’ve been staying at home for the past couple months besides going to the store or picking up food, whereas now I will be able to go back to work and see my friends occasionally.”
Junior Thais Fernandez believes the order should be longer and more restrictive.
“I think that the stay-at-home order should be extended,” Fernandez said. “Also, I believe that America should have been put on complete lockdown. Many other countries have done that, and the USA, having the most coronavirus cases, has not. So I believe that it should be extended. I think I’m still going to stay home for the majority of this phase because the virus is not just going to leave if we all go out of our house and return to normality. So I will be staying home.”
Caught in the middle, senior Giorgia Mastrolorenzo sees the benefits of reopening, but thinks it’s premature to do so now.
“I have a mixed bag of feelings on lifting the stay at home order,” senior Giorgia Mastrolorenzo said. “I recognize they have to open in phases, it just seems too early. We haven’t hit the peak yet and opening up these next weeks means cases will go up and it’s back to square one.”
Mastrolorenzo is wary of the fact that once businesses begin to reopen, more and more people will go out, causing an increase in the amount of COVID-19 cases.
“In terms of how I will be living in response, the last few days I have been getting more comfortable with going on walks or interacting from afar with my friends,” Mastrolorenzo said. “However, now that people are going to be validated in emerging more readily to common areas there is going to be a higher rate of transmission. I will be going out less and reverting to how it was at the beginning of quarantine.”
