Opinion by MaryMcKay

We’ve all been there, waking up with a sore throat or a stomach ache before school. Do you stay home or power through the day? There are questions to ask yourself in order to determine this: do you have a test, certain classes you need to or can’t miss, is it too cold or hot, can you handle it,  mentally? 

However, when weighing the pros and cons, it is important to consider others. When you come into school and pass around germs, it could affect the people around you, not only your classmates and teachers but all the people surrounding them.

For starters, there are people all around us with autoimmune disorders, which make catching germs really easy yet very hard to fight off. Autoimmune disorders happen when the immune system attacks the body’s tissue. Examples include Rheumatoid Arthritis, Type 1 Diabetes and Multiple Sclerosis. Also, for people with the disorders, a minor cold can last much longer than it would last on others. 

Furthermore, I get sick quickly. I hate the feeling of getting sick during school. I work right after school every day. Whether I’m nannying or serving, canceling at the last minute is less than ideal. 

I serve food to the elderly community. Last month, a cold went through the home, and several residents are still facing repercussions. One passed away, one had to move to a higher care home, leaving their significant other behind, and many got pneumonia and are still recovering. 

Often, a cold can become much worse among older adults. The cold weakens the immune system, making other diseases and infections easy to enter the body. Some of these include pneumonia, walking pneumonia, influenza and COVID-19, which take a much larger toll on senior citizens. Working with older adults has made me even more aware of how tiny germs can have serious consequences. 

I have been there. I wake up sick but have a test I don’t want to miss. I go anyway, but now that I have seen how little it takes to infect a community, I can not morally justify coming to school sick.

If this does not influence you to stay home when you are sick, I encourage you to wear a mask, thoroughly wash your hands and be mindful of the people around you. Remember that the short-term discomfort of missing school is nothing compared to the impact it could have on someone else.