[Written for UCSB's Journalism Writing course in April of 2020.]
A group of Sacramento high school and college students has found a unique way to adapt to California’s COVID-19 stay-at-home mandate. In Rancho Murieta, a community of 5,500 people in eastern Sacramento County, sisters Jill and Lexi Pland and their next-door neighbors Sophie and Arcadia Jacquez have created a system of “driveway coffee”: a makeshift social hour tailored to state social distancing requirements.
By setting up lawn chairs 15 feet apart on their respective driveways, the Plands and Jacquezes have been able to enjoy each other’s company and take in some fresh air while chatting over their morning coffee. Since California’s stay-at-home mandate began on March 20, the girls have met several mornings per week, lounging and laughing until they head back inside to attend online classes.
Lexi Pland, a freshman at Boise State University, came up with the idea of “driveway coffee” in response to the anxiety and loneliness which quickly arose from being stuck at home. “We just hang out and talk for a couple hours, which gets the mind off of it all,” she said. “It feels like normalcy.”
The bond between the Pland and Jacquez sisters is a special one: their parents moved in next door to each other in 1998, and the girls, now ranging in age from 17 to 22, have since grown up together. They have experienced every era of childhood, adolescence, and young adulthood together; the era of social distancing is no exception.
“Driveway coffee” reveals the strength of this lifelong friendship; it also displays the girls’ steadfast accountability and integrity. It would be all too easy to break physical separation mandates, and many of their peers frequently do. In fact, the girls expressed intense disappointment at the recklessness and disregard of young people around them.
“I have been seeing a bunch of people in my community, even my friends, who are not social distancing and are...acting like life is normal,” Sophie Jacquez, a senior in high school, said. “It is very frustrating because I haven’t seen my grandparents or cousins in months. Although I wish I could hug them, a phone call will have to do.”
Jill Pland, a junior in high school, agrees. “I’ve been doing my part for so long,” she said. “Other people are just throwing that away because they’re being selfish.” Pland and Jacquez touch on a critical issue of the present moment: the reluctance or refusal of many young people to take COVID-19 precautions seriously.
“They think they’re invincible, which they’re not,” Lexi Pland added. And she’s right: more and more young people are finding themselves personally affected by this pandemic. In fact, California has recorded nearly 2,000 coronavirus cases in individuals age 17 and younger, according to the California Department of Public Health. Further, the state has seen more than twice as many confirmed cases among people ages 18 to 49 as it has among people 65 and older.
Worse still, California saw its highest count yet of single-day coronavirus deaths just two weeks ago. The era of social distancing is nowhere near over, it seems, and young people play a vital role in stopping the spread of COVID-19.
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