Due to COVID-19 many small and local restaurants, stores, social events, and yearly activities have either not received much business or have been cancelled. Only recently have events opened up and shops started flourishing again. Turlock has created events that would be able to meet the state’s guidelines for businesses and events amid the coronavirus pandemic but would also be enjoyable at the same time.

To help the local restaurants with gaining more business, Downtown Turlock hosts an event called “Street Vibe” which allows people to dine outside and support the different eateries. At the fairgrounds, Turlock made the “Drive-In” event for people to hang out with friends and watch a movie retro style, but they also follow certain rules to prevent anyone from catching the virus. A yearly activity that was opened up a few weeks ago was the Turlock Pumpkin Patch and Corn Maze, and it has become popular quickly amongst the community.

The people of Turlock have their own opinions on the new events opening up. One student that attends John H. Pitman High School, Alisha Dhillon, was asked: How do you feel about the new events being created or opening up? Do you think they could be improved or fixed, why or why not?

She replied, “I feel like right now it’s kinda iffy and I feel like we need to have stricter rules for the time being. But after I feel as if the rates go down and the cases then we can open things up so that’s where I agree. But I also feel like people aren’t even social distancing or using masks so maybe for right now lock it down more and then IF things get better, then open things up slowly because that’s where I feel like other countries are being smart about this stuff.”

To gain another perspective on this question, Alyssa O’Neil, a student who attends John H. Pitman High School was asked the very same question. 

She responded with, “Oh, well I think that as long as there are safe social distancing precautions and people obey them I’m all for it, it’s really nice having things open up but we all have to do our part to be safe.”

 People believe that we should still be able to follow the rules when it comes to COVID-19 and reopening social events and businesses. The idea to create new events that work with the situations happening right now was clever but there are also different details that need to be worked out. There may be a few people who won’t follow the guidelines to these events and that is something to think about.