Some Students Don’t Condone Reckless Nightlife

NORMAL, Ill.- Bars have been packed since Governor JB Pritzker moved McLean County to region two restrictions.

A video of a packed Daddios, in Downtown Bloomington has been circulating.

College-aged people are the hardest-hit age group for COVID-19 in McLean County. Student Government Association member Djimon Lewis says he continues to stay safe. Although, Lewis would love to go out and have social life he says he believes human life supersedes nightlife. 

“I was kind of catching my grove at ISU, but I knew that those numbers that come up everyday, the death rate, the infection rate, those are real people,” said Lewis. “That made me take it seriously, especially as someone who has a family member in her 90s. No one should have to lose a relative over camera or not being able to go to the funeral.”  Lewis still find ways to hang out with people, one on one or socially distant. He says there are ways around it and it is just adapting to it instead of fighting it. The community is in a second, larger wave of COVID. The first was in September when all the college student came back to campus for the Fall 2020 semester.

 Students will be returning home for Winter Break and that poses a risk for students’ family members. Lewis says he has a 90-year-old family member who he is constantly thinking about when it comes to following guidelines. 

“On the other hand I do see, in the case of our university…bringing student back. We are social animals, you can’t put people in that environment and expect them not to do the things they use to do,” said Lewis. “The government has to set the tone.”

Lewis says he hopes his peers will be safer this break than they were in the summer.

“We can be more responsible because we are truly dependent on each other lives. If we don’t take that seriously and if we put business revenue and property over peoples’ lives then we should let that be known. People should just say that. We still need to protect each other,” said Lewis.