Nearly 20% of the student body was at home during the first week of second semester, and that number is only growing.
COVID has been a problem for schools all over the country over the past two years. The recent Omicron variant has only brought more interference and suffering as an increasing number of students, parents, and teachers fall ill. The County Public Health Officer Dr. Scott Morrow has said that Woodside is not at risk, and will not close. School administrators, such as Woodside Principal Karen van Putten are working hard to monitor the situation.
“If you definitely have a positive [test result] or if you are symptomatic, don’t come to school,” van Putten said. “I’m concerned about the uptick, but we were also warned about the variant … We knew before going in to break that we’ll probably see an uptick.”
This advice goes to all people at Woodside. In the past week, Woodside had 163 students and 9 staff cases, the largest uptick of COVID cases that Woodside has ever seen. CDC guidelines state that it is best to stay safe and continue wearing a mask.
“It is in line with the Bay Area’s [COVID case numbers],” Van Putten said. “We’ve always had an uptick in the winter. [For students] I see a correlation between the testing and getting the results and people being cautious and not coming to school for those reasons.”
