The Shoemaker Bugle

•Why Trick-or-Treating Should Not Be Canceled, By Erika Hernandez 

With this year’s pandemic, many events and holidays have been canceled. But Halloween is right around the corner, and people have mixed feelings. Many people argue that it should be canceled, or at least the trick-or-treating part. Well, I say trick-or-treating should not be canceled. 

If people were to go out and trick-or-treat, everyone will be wearing costumes which may have their own mask. If not, then people should just wear their regular mask, including children, teenagers, and parents.

When it comes to residents, if they want to give out candy they should leave their porch light on. However, those who don’t want to participate should simply just leave it off, just like during any other Halloween. If residents are giving candy out themselves they should also wear a mask. Just because they’re in their own home doesn’t mean they shouldn’t wear a mask when meeting strangers.

Everyone will be walking around neighborhoods like usual, so you wouldn’t really cross paths with other groups. Halloween could still happen as long as we all keep following the rules of just wearing a mask and distancing ourselves from people we don’t know.

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•Why Trick Or Treating Should Be Canceled, by Hermaione Sanchez

Halloween is a special time of the year when people of all ages dress up and go house to house asking for candy. By the end of the night, everyone is in a sugar coma and peoples faces are stained from the makeup. But is all that worth risking your health for?

I’m sure by now, the word Coronavirus is nothing new to you. The world-wide-known virus has been affecting our daily lives since March 2020. Since then, masks and social distancing have been required almost everywhere and people have been quarantining to prevent spread and infection. The latest controversy, however, has been whether trick-or-treating should occur or not.

Social distancing involves staying at least 6 feet away from people and trying not to go out unless it is necessary. On the other hand, trick-or-treating requires knocking door-to-door, either with a group or while alone, and making contact with a resident, asking for candy. You can see how dangerous this is during a pandemic because you’re making contact with a person and accepting food from them. Even if it is packaged, touching the same thing as another person, is potentially dangerous. “It should be cancelled cuz Covid will be easier to spread,” says @Triplesixfather (Brayan Gonzalez) on Instagram. Especially for the person giving out candy who would see many people in one night, raising their risk of getting infected.

Someone’s home is their personal, safe space, and knocking on their door asking for candy in the middle of a pandemic is invading that. It is clear by now that this virus should be taken seriously, and we should do our best to stop the spread.  Angel Landeros, a 23 year old son, husband and brother says, “People will risk their life over missing one year of trick-or-treating… yet someone’s grandmother may miss all the years they could have lived if that one person that went trick-or-treating and was infected would have skipped Halloween.” There are many people who are at high risk, those people are parents, siblings, friends, and loved ones. They are at risk of death, and candy shouldn’t be worth that.

Finally, people on Instagram were asked what their thoughts were on trick-or-treating, and here is what they had to say:

“Because you’re going to houses asking for candy, meanwhile you don’t know where the owners have been” 

@babbynisse (Denisse Sanchez), a Senior at John Glenn High

“Best choice would be to stay at home and not have any contact with people we don’t know”

@svmii9 (Samantha De Avila), a student at  John Glenn High

“Trick or treating should be cancelled because we can’t see germs on candy”

@jayme._.ferrer (Jayme Ferrer), a student at Savannah High

“…you can get COVID and you don’t know what the candy can have in it” 

@714.natalie (Natalie), an Anaheim resident

“Trick or treating can cause an increase in COVID cases”

@yo.jarey (Jarey Lopez), a senior at John Glenn High.