Student Opinion: Halloween Should Carry On
Launch the media gallery 1 playerBy: Leah Pinkston, a freshman at Leigh High School
It’s fall in the new school—the beginning of October, 2020, to be precise. Kids are finally getting settled into the daily routine of balancing homework and activities, home and school lives, and preparing for the journeys that will lead them to the rest of their lives as fully functioning adults.
All of this --of course-- sounds boring. Luckily, there's something that everyone looks forward to during the school season: Halloween! As October approaches, kids around the world are preparing to prepare themselves for the infamous “Spooky” season.
Halloween is celebrated at all ages. From kids to teenagers, and adults to old farts, Halloween has been celebrated at one time or another for all generations. It is the single day where everyone can indulge in eating as much candy as possible without having to worry about the opinions of others. Sounds fun, right?
Despite all of this, the celebration of Halloween is a topic of debate this year. With the arrival of COVID-19, concerns regarding health and the ability to properly go through with a sanitized trick-or-treating are on the rise.
Schools, businesses, celebrations and more have already been shut down due to health concerns regarding the virus, and many fear that this beloved holiday will follow suit. And in all honesty, I don’t blame them for being worried; however, I do think that regulations prioritizing children’s safety should be made to keep the ball rolling on 2020’s spooky season.
To start, I think that masks should be mandated in haunted houses, pumpkin patches, and even corn mazes. This is because it could help solve the problem of being in close contact with one another, and kids would still be able to hang out with their friends. Hand sanitizer could also be set out.
I also think that we could figure out a way to sanitize packaged candies, or have more people hand out the candies themselves --with gloves-- rather than set a bowl out for kids to rummage through. This spreads germs, and even though they don't live very long on inanimate objects, it's still a risk.
Unfortunately, in my town, that would probably alter how people would go through with trick-or-treating and the trunk-or-treat, but it'd all be in the best interest of youth craving some normalcy as the holiday season begins.
In my opinion, Halloween should be able to carry on despite Covid, and there are thousands of other ways to keep the ball rolling. We just need to be smart, and perhaps a bit creative, about it.
