Maryland is back under siege from the pandemic. The seasons are changing, and temperatures are steadily lowering; the same cannot be said for the confirmed cases of Covid-19 in Harford County. 

   As of November 13, there were 4,333 confirmed cases of this virus in the county. With the cases per day relating to those which we last saw in May. 

     The cause of this influx in infections could be anything. Contract tracing shows it’s likely due to residents traveling outside of the state, and some say the weather. What it is not being caused by is students going to school. 

    Kennard-Dale High School is under ten miles away from North Harford. These students have been in school since Labor Day, with an option for students to go to school full time or use  a hybrid schedule. The school is located in York County, which on November 13 had nearly 3,000 more cases of covid-19 than Harford. Therefore, since they are in school and Harford County is not, the difference is caused by students in school, right? Well, maybe but, York County has nearly double the population of Harford county, which must be taken into consideration when looking at the numbers.

     Caution has proven to be wise in the age of Covid. Yet, caution can only be identified if it is a logical and effective alteration from normality. 

Normalcy has been redefined all over the globe, so the change from ordinary to carefulness makes sense. With that, another question arises, how overly ordinary is being careful? For York County, it is wearing a mask, and offering students a choice in returning to school.

   For Harford County, it is wearing a mask, and giving students laptops so they can partake in virtual school. 

    Students in Harford County have partaken in conditioning competitions where they can see the results on a PowerPoint, the Kennard-Dale girls tennis team just brought home a trophy. One similarity between the two is that neither of them had spectators (or Covid cases).

    Notably, Harford County has developed the ground-breaking facility “Learning Centers,” York County of course just calls its own facilities “school.” 

    There are serious and crucial differences in policy on how to handle this pandemic that must be discussed, analyzed, and altered. Nobody may know the answer, but there must be a discussion, because if it wasn’t clear who is winning this Covid-19 style of the Hunger Games, the numbers show the virtual trophy does not go to Harford County.