‘Absolute madness’: Johnson County parents wait out long lines for COVID test Sunday
For the past week, Katherine Houlehan and her twin boys — both students in the Blue Valley School District — have started most days with a drive-thru coronavirus test. Usually it’s in and out.
On Sunday, however, lines around the block at their testing site kept them waiting about an hour and a half.
Houlehan and her sons, who are in the third grade, arrived 15 minutes early to Sunday’s 10:45 a.m. COVID-19 test. The line of cars in front of her was immediately disheartening.
At about noon, after sitting in the car with her boys for 90 minutes, they got their tests.
“It was absolute madness,” Houlehan told The Star on Sunday, while leaving the testing site. “We’ve never waited in a line like this before.”
Testing in the new year has been in high demand. The prevalence of the omicron variant of COVID-19, coupled with holiday gatherings, has made finding testing sites and even at-home test kits difficult. Missouri’s health department recently announced a testing site at Kauffman Stadium to try and help fill the demand.
On Tuesday, the seven-day average of new cases across the Kansas City metro hit an all time high, with 14,839 new COVID-19 infections reported in the past week.
This is “hands-down the toughest surge the medical community has had to face since the pandemic began in 2020,” Dr. Steve Stites, chief medical officer for The University of Kansas Health System, said last week.
On Sunday, the MAWD drive-in testing clinic at 14950 Newton Drive in Overland Park was packed with families, students and staff of the Blue Valley School District who sat in line waiting for their swab, which are free to district members six days a week.
When reached early Sunday afternoon, a woman with MAWD’s appointment line said no media person was immediately available to speak with The Star.
Houlehan’s sons were among those in line. Her daughter, who is in high school, tested positive for COVID-19 on Jan. 2, ahead of a planned family vacation they cancelled last-minute.
Since then, Houlehan’s twin boys, who are fully vaccinated and who have not shown any symptoms of the virus, have tested through MAWD every morning, so they can have peace of mind before attending school. So far all their results have been negative.
Before, only a handful of cars were ahead of them. But on Sunday, it was too many to count.
“It’s a double-edged sword: I’m happy a lot of people are getting tested; that means people are taking this very seriously,” she said. “At the same time, it’s so disheartening to see such a long line. It really speaks to how out of control COVID cases are right now.”
School districts have grappled with how to handle the most recent outbreaks as students return to the classroom. The Johnson County Board of Commissioners on Thursday afternoon agreed to continue a mask mandate for schools serving students as old as sixth grade.
Just before winter break, Sloane Heller, a parent to two elementary school students at the Blue Valley School District, said one of her sons was exposed to someone infected with the virus at the lunch table.
When they had to wait in the same MAWD line a few times in mid-December after his exposure she only recalled a couple cars in front of them, at most.
“It’s very concerning to see a line of this size knowing that we don’t currently require masks in all high schools,” Heller said Sunday. “We need a universal mandate right now. This line is a clear sign that it’s needed.”
Last week, Johnson County health officials informed school districts that contact tracing within schools was “no longer feasible.”
The Johnson County Department of Health and Environment released new guidance to schools on Tuesday, saying that due to the high level of transmission, it could no longer conduct “intensive” contact tracing — investigating who has been exposed. Officials said the priority should be asking people who test positive to stay home and isolate.
This prompted the Blue Valley school district to tell families that it will no longer provide the health department with close contact information, and that the health department will no longer notify staff and students if they may have been exposed.
Now that her boys have reached one week since their exposure to the virus, Houlehan doesn’t see a need to continue testing beyond Sunday. But if they’re exposed again, she said they’ll be back, line or not.
“Knowledge is power, and people need to know whether they’re sick or not. They need to know whether it’s safe to go out in public, go to school, go to work,” she said. “The only way we can really get this pandemic to end is if people take responsibility for their own health, get vaccinated, and make good, conscientious choices.”
This story was originally published January 9, 2022 at 4:07 PM.
