As days become longer and warmer, more and more people are looking forward to enjoying the nice weather outside with their friends. For some, this was not possible due to the pandemic. However, Pfizer/BioNTech recently announced that 12-15 year olds were given the green light to receive the vaccine that was previously only available to 16 year olds and older.

Sophomore Jessica Laighton is glad with the news that her age group is now allowed to get the vaccine and will get it as soon as she can to protect others as well as herself.

“I wanted to make sure I got my vaccine as soon as possible just because I want to make sure I’m staying safe, as well as protecting others,” Laighton said. “I knew it was the right thing to do to keep me and others safe, like there were many times I wanted to hang out with my best friend, but she lives with her grandma and I knew I could not live with myself if I ever got COVID-19 and spread it on to someone. I guess it just really put the whole situation into perspective. I hope they enforce wearing masks if not vaccinated and keep socially distancing.”

To be safe, eighth grader Aashi Oswal says that she will monitor how things are going for the 12-15 year olds who get the vaccine first.

“I definitely will take it, but probably a few months down the line,” Aashi said. “I just want to see if anyone reacts poorly to it [medically]. If nobody develops a disorder or whatever like what happened to the six people who took [Johnson & Johnson] within a few months, I will for sure take it. I’m not really going anywhere over break, so I think that getting the vaccine in a month or two should be fine for me and those around me.”

Aashi’s mother agrees with her reasoning saying that it is a practical way to make sure the vaccine works on 12-15 year olds.

“We plan on giving her the vaccine towards the end of June or July because we don’t want anything to go wrong,” Oswal said. “I believe that everyone should get the vaccine though, because too many people have died and we need to stop those numbers from increasing.”

On the contrary, freshman Ian Garza states that he will not take the vaccine as he sees no point in taking it for himself.

“I have been in close contact with covid multiple times, and never had symptoms and only had negative tests,” Garza said. “I also know that I am a healthy teenager who is not at high risk with covid. I believe that my body may be good at fighting it off since I did not get it, and that if I do get it I would have little to no symptoms,”

Garza also claims that while he will not partake in taking the vaccine, he believes that if someone wants to take it, they absolutely should.

“I just hope that everyone is able to have a choice on taking the vaccines or not, and that they are not able to force people to take it,” he said. “If you want to take it, then take it, but if you do not want to then you should not be able to be forced into it. I hope there are no side effects of the vaccine and that it is 100% safe, but I feel like the safe thing to do is to wait and see, as I do not believe it is something I personally need in the first place.”