The COVID-19 virus has wreaked havoc on global markets and education systems, but it also threw into turmoil the spring break plans of U-High students and their families. The pandemic has affected 170 countries, notably the United States, Italy and China, which have each reported more than 80,000 cases. Accordingly, most families canceled their spring vacations abroad and domestically. 

Senior Eli Hinerfeld and his family were forced to cancel their vacation to Portugal, and then a replacement trip to Tennessee. 

“While the virus’ effects on things have been saddening, it is important to put this into perspective with the real problems that people are going through with the virus,” Eli said. “The cancellation of my vacation plans don’t seem that important.” 

Another consequence of the travel restrictions was the cancellation of events for school-sponsored clubs and teams. One example is the two robotics tournaments that were canceled because of COVID-19 — the Peoria robotics regional from March 18-21 and the world tournament in Detroit. 

“This is a massive blow for the team, as going to worlds is the peak robotics experience, and because we won the rookie all-star award to get there, the current members of the team might not get a shot to go next year,” robotics team member Ethan Fuller said. “The odds of making it to the worlds are very slim, and we can never win the rookie award again, so worlds not occurring this year was very rough on our entire team’s morale when we first heard the news.” 

Ethan said that despite the blow to team morale, he and his teammates are still proud of the fact that such a small team made it to the world championship, and are optimistic for the future. 

Students whose events or trips have been cancelled were forced to find activities to fill up the long spring break. Senior Juliana Cui and her family were going to take a cruise around the Hawaiian islands to celebrate the end of her college application, but decided that a cruise was not the best idea. 

“Instead, I have been catching up on TV shows and movies that I’ve been wanting to watch for a while now,” Juliana said. “Also learning how to cook and bake.”