Omicron hits CVHS hard
By Ali Nosseir, Ethan To and Leland Tsai
The Covid-19 Omicron variant strikes CVHS, leaving many classes empty and infections spreading across many students and staff. The percentage of absences has been significantly higher this past week than in the last few months. The absence rate on Jan. 7 was 17.5 percent, while the absence rate on Jan. 10 was 16 percent. Each day, the U.S. gets around 446,240 new cases.
Current legislation requires districts to have 180 days of in-person instruction, which leaves distance and hybrid learning as unachievable. Before winter break ended, 226 students reported their positive rapid Covid test. The district continues to offer Covid testing at the Center for the Arts.
“There is no chance of us potentially returning back to online school due to the current legislation,” said Superintendent Parvin Ahmadi.
Due to the current rise in cases, many sports practices and games have been canceled or postponed for a few weeks to accommodate the high surge within the team.
“At the moment, I don’t know if they’ll cancel more…I really hope they don’t. But since we can’t be together as a team, hopefully, everybody puts in some work while we’re out to try to stay in shape and get a little bit better every day,” said junior Mateo Jackson.
Many other extracurricular activities such as theater and choir have taken more precautions for their rehearsals, moving practices outside and having a limited number of people attending rehearsals.
Originally, the annual CVHS Winter Ball was set to take place on Jan. 22. However, because of the current rise in Covid cases connecting to the Omicron variant, the date has been postponed to late February.
“It sucks that it got pushed back because I was looking forward to it, but at least it didn’t get canceled,” said junior Chris LaChapelle.
It is unknown when the Omicron surge will die down in our district. This causes many CVHS students to ponder: Will other CVHS events be postponed or potentially canceled as well? Although events like Prom and Graduation are months away, there is no certainty that everything will go on as planned.
To be honest I thought that the school would shut down because of Omicron. Also the fact that other schools closed down didn’t help. But it’s nice to see that the Omicron rates have been getting better over the past weeks.
After winter break all my friends had covid except me and I was alone for a week. My classes were empty and some of my teachers were out sick.
To be honest I am a bit surprised that the rates did not get worse. Also I am a bit surprised that the school didn’t shut down since other schools shut down because of Omicron. But its nice to see that things are getting better.
Omicron Covid- I think it’s crazy that the school didn’t close the school down, because it was getting worse. I hope we keep ourselves safe during these horrible times.
Im glad the rates are getting better