Everyone drives and drives but not for free as you need to buy gas to drive a car; however, now driving more than necessary can end up putting a deep hole in your wallet.  This has affected so many people already and will continue to unless something is done.  

“It’s affected everyone a little differently in my opinion and has definitely been hard to try getting to work.”  Los Fresnos Resident Belinda Martinez stated.  

Back in 2020 the world was shook with bad news after bad news, but nothing could compare to the global pandemic known as Covid-19.  Now while Covid is not the deadliest disease known to man it is extremely contagious and that alone has shaken the foundation of how we live.  It did cause some things that were uncomfortable but looking at the bigger picture it changed things as vital as gas.  

At the beginning of Covid no one was driving and gas was low, but everything changed once people were allowed to go to work in person again.  Gas shot up in cost because now everyone was driving and due to the demand the workers couldn’t keep up.  This is partially due to the amount of order but it’s also due to Covid that there are less workers to move oil since no one was buying oil so they couldn’t pay enough workers.  Unfortunately this decision to fire these workers caused immense backlash now since gas has almost doubled in price.  

“If I’m not making a certain goal for the night, I don’t have enough for gas tomorrow and then I have to eat into my own general family budget to put gas in my car for this job.”  DoorDash Driver Brandon Lillie stated.  

The spike in prices is different everywhere and affects everyone a little differently but one thing is constant and that is the fact that people are losing more money than before.  Why this is so important is because so many people were barely making ends meet and now due to high prices it’s a lot harder since now they barely manage money at all. 

“If I didn’t live with mom and our family I’m pretty sure I would’ve already been on the streets since my job is so far away I spend a lot on gas,” Walmart worker Alex Marthinez stated.  “Because of that I’ve even considered working two jobs but luckily it’s not that bad yet.”  

In places like the valley where some people live miles away from their job it truly affects them since prices used to be around 1.68 or a high 2.40 in some places, but now you look around and prices range from 3 to 4 dollars which is double the price it used to be.  That means a trip to and from someplace in the past is now the price of just the to part of that, so now you have to pay that and another one of those to get back to the from.   

This was all in 2020 and beginning 2021 however now nearing the end of 2021 a new player has entered the stage being the omicron variant of Covid.  This new variant is still unknown to us and as such less people are now going out due to fear and we might soon be put into another lockdown or curfew.  There is already a drop in price of gas since the price of a barrel of crude oil has dropped by 10 dollars making a barrel 68 dollars apparently.  

Now due to omicron the prices are indeed dropping and are steadily making the prices of oil stable again.  Will this be a long term fix most likely not, and unfortunately we don’t even know if it will be a short term fix due to how little information we have.  Omicron is still new and due to that we can’t determine how to react to it or what to do now that it has arrived, so for now gas will remain unsteady in terms of the price.