Nearly everybody in the school knows someone who has contracted COVID-19 or has been a close contact. All students are responsible for their own safety, so it is more important now than ever that everyone follow the pandemic protocols to minimize the case count. However, despite the administration’s various efforts to improve the situation, some of PHS’s protocols prove to be faulty because they ignore the reality that 1,600 students occupy the same building.

PHS defines a close contact as a person who spends at least 15 minutes, cumulatively, less than six feet away from a person who has tested positive for COVID-19. A PHS student comes into contact with hundreds of people a day, so when someone tests positive for COVID-19, it is nearly impossible to find all close contacts. Recently, PHS implemented fixed seating charts to make it easier to determine which students sat nearest to those who tested positive. While this is an effective way to keep track of in-class close contacts, there are several external factors that simply cannot be accounted for. Clubs often meet indoors without tracking attendance, making it difficult to know which people have interacted. In-class activities involve movement and interactions with other people, so a classmate sitting three feet away from an infected person may have had a similar exposure as a classmate sitting ten feet away from the same person. This concept applies to the congregation of people in the main intersection and the cafeteria. As the most popular transition area of the school, the main intersection is packed during the breaks between classes. Similarly, because of the increasing popularity of school lunch (partially due to meals being free), the cafeteria is crowded every day; the line of hungry students often travels up the stairwell and onto the first floor. These groups of students are far from socially distanced and only increase the number of potential close contacts. But there are solutions to these spacing problems.

PHS staff members could oversee the main intersection to ensure social distancing, and lunch could be served in extra locations, as is currently being done in the PAC, to reduce congestion in the cafeteria. Though these solutions are imperfect, they would be tangible improvements on the current situation.

Another flaw of the enforced COVID-19 protocols is that students even have their masks off indoors, especially when eating. While PHS encourages students to sit outside for lunch, many of them choose to stay inside instead. Students often forget to social distance when sitting with their friends, but it is still important to keep a certain distance away because of increased exposure to pathogens. Measures like putting masks on in between bites are also often ignored. For instance, at club meetings, people will have their masks off for extended periods, even when not eating. This issue will only become more urgent throughout the year as the weather gets colder and students sit inside more, so it is crucial that students be supervised and be reminded to social distance indoors or simply eat outdoors whenever possible.

With the PHS student body exceeding 1,600, staying protected from COVID-19 is hard. While some of the protocols are creative and effective, others do not take into account the large student population. As of now, fewer students are contracting COVID-19 because of preventive measures including vaccinations, but this is not enough. By constantly tweaking and improving PHS’s health protocols, we can prioritize the safety of students, teachers, and staff, doing our part in helping end the pandemic.