Due to the Omicron variant, the Thayer R-II School District has dealt with its fair share of COVID-19 cases in the past two weeks.
Superintendent Tonya Woods says it’s been hard, as most of her students have either tested positive or been exposed to the virus.
Thanks to winter weather two weeks ago, the school was forced to shut down, and Sup. Woods says that’s what made the difference in cases.
“You had told me last Wednesday, people were dropping like flies,” Woods said. “It was either kids going home from a home exposure, or they were coming up positive. The weather could not have been more beneficial to us and how it hit us Thursday and Friday.”
Kids testing positive isn’t the only issue the school is dealing with.
A majority of the region is dealing with a shortage of rapid testing kits, and Thayer R-II is not different.
On Tuesday, the school ran out of rapid testing kits, forcing the school to use PCR testing, which can have two to three day wait times for results.
Sup. Woods says how fast Omicron can be transmitted, the wait time for PCR testing is unacceptable.
“The only test right now that I can get from the state are the ones that can have a three to five-day turnaround testing window,” Woods said. “With this variant, it comes so quickly that a three-day turnaround is not going to help us out.”
As of Friday afternoon, Sup. Woods said the school was still out of kits and will likely be until the middle or end of February.