You can’t find a test kit. Schools can’t teach remotely. Graftonites are still catching Covid.

Just in case you missed the sign declaring that no COVID-19 home test kits were available at CVS this week, there were additional signs inside.

The same was true elsewhere across the area — at out-of-town drugstores, at Target. Even the Worcester WalMart, closed down over several days for cleaning for the second time during the pandemic due to multiple employees reporting in sick with the virus, later had shelves emptied of the coveted test kits.

“We are definitely in a very extreme surge, the highest surge we’ve seen yet,” Colleen Bolen of the Worcester Health Alliance told the Grafton Board of Health Monday night.

How high? 

Grafton saw 276 cases between December 31, 2021 and January 7, bringing the town’s total case number since March 2020 to 2,362. Previous high totals were in the 20s — and there have been many many weeks when the town saw no cases at all.

 “Getting boosted and vaccinated is the best line of defense,” Bolen said. While the vaccine doesn’t stop you from getting the illness, it makes it less severe.”

That “less severe” may actually be contributing to the most recent Covid spike. The Omicron variant, which may infect even those who have had the Covid booster, is a milder form that may be asymptomatic, have symptoms resembling a cold, bring a day’s illness, or — for those unvaccinated — cause considerably more discomfort.

The Omicron variant took over hospitals in late December. UMass Memorial Medical Center in Worcester is not only about 115 percent over capacity, it’s also running low on uninfected staff, forcing the hospital to bring in the National Guard.

Appointments at testing sites are almost as hard to find as a home test kit on a store shelf. Grafton schools have been able to offer tests to students and staff and, in the process, have had to remind parents that an illness that looks like a cold should be closely watched.

“In past years, parents (me included) would send their children to school with cold symptoms,” Superintendent of Schools Jay Cummings wrote in an update to parents. “Right now, we ask that you keep students home when they are exhibiting symptoms until you are able to test.”

Between December 23, 2021 and January 5, the Grafton schools have seen 177 cases of Covid. The previous high this current school year was 25 cases between November 6 and November 12, 2021.

“We are seeing a pattern of students being exposed to someone at home who has tested positive for COVID and then being sent to school while exposure in the home is ongoing,” Cummings wrote. “While vaccinated and asymptomatic, that student is then exposing other students and staff. The student eventually tests positive because the in-home positive person is not isolating and in the meantime, other students and staff have been exposed for multiple days. If it is possible for the children to stay home, please keep them home and test them after five days.”

While many parents have asked about returning to remote instruction, Cummings said the state is “not allowing for districts to provide remote instruction.” 

Something went wrong!

Help support Grafton’s only independent source of news with a donation!