After an online poll of 52 University of North Georgia students, the majority vote for the University System of Georgia to keep highly encouraging masks without enforcing them on the student body.

On Saturday, Jan. 22, Vanguard conducted a poll on Instagram for UNG students. The poll asked whether students believed the University System of Georgia should enforce masks on all campuses, stop encouraging masks on campuses, and if they believed they should continue to encourage but not enforce masks.

After 24 hours, there were 52 responses. The stats show that 6% believed that masks should be enforced on all campuses, 31% believed that masks should no longer be encouraged on campuses, and 63% believed that masks should be continued to be encouraged but not enforced on all campuses.

Jacob Dickey, a sophomore finance major, chose that USG should stop encouraging masks. He explained that he already doesn’t feel like the UNG campus is encouraging masks among the students. He added that he believes the only reason that the USG says that they encourage masks is “to make people feel safer, but it’s not doing anything to help people other than with their mental state.”

Sarah Ellington, a junior middle grades education major, chose that USG should continue to encourage masks, but without mandating them. She believes that everyone including herself is “extremely tired” of COVID-19. “I want things to get back to normal and stop dealing with all the restrictions.”

She believes everyone either needs to wear a mask or be vaccinated and since there are still many unvaccinated, there needs to be on-campus encouragement to wear masks. She says she believes that wearing a mask and having the vaccine should be a choice and not mandated, but “I wish people would make the responsible choice on their own.”

Bema Madieva, a senior majoring in biology pre-med, thinks USG should mandate masks on all campuses, “Only 65% of the population is vaccinated, and we have not reached herd immunity, and at this rate, I don’t think we will anytime soon.” She added, “Most people are selfish. They will never wear it if it’s not mandated and that’s why I think it should be.”