Attendance in the Lee County School District dropped to 81% just nine days after the first day of school.
Less than two weeks into the school year, a Kentucky school district has canceled in-person classes for the rest of the week after nearly a fifth of its students came down with Covid, strep throat, the flu and other illnesses.
The Lee County School District, which has just under 900 students, began classes Aug. 9 but noticed attendance drop to about 82% on Friday, Superintendent Earl Ray Schuler said.
By Monday, the rate dipped to 81%, and 14 staff members called in sick, Schuler said.
If we’re throwing around anecdata, I was a first responder during COVID and several people I worked with lost their sense of taste and/or smell. I would guess at least 25 percent temporarily and I knew a couple who still had altered senses many months later, including one who could only taste sweet properly and everything else tasting like sulfur. The first few times we worked together I thought she was trying to give herself diabetes. Protein shakes didn’t taste good either.
My daughter had COVID in January and lost her sense of taste and smell - it was the only symptom she had. It took about three months to regain her senses, and she still has one food ingredient (we think it’s a red dye) that tastes like she imagines licking a dirty bathroom floor would taste. Whatever it is, it’s in some nacho cheese flavorings and red Sour Patch Kids. It’s an improvement from everything tasting like bathroom floor, though.