This flu season is taking it’s toll at the national level– and at Hays High School.

In case you hadn’t noticed, since January there have been large numbers of students who have been absent from school. You might think these students are just skipping school or something else came up, but this isn’t the case – in fact, it’s something more serious: influenza.

According to the Center for Disease Control, the number of new laboratory-confirmed cases of illness during the week ending January 27, was 126,117. That’s just the number of people who went to the doctor and got it confirmed. And nationwide the death toll is over 50 as virus strains include both B strains (Yamagata and Victoria), H1N1 and H3N2, according to the CDC.

Here at Hays, the numbers of students and teachers missing class are way up.

“We haven’t seen this much flu in a while, and I have been here for a long time, like 25 plus years. This is the only the first really big outbreak that I’ve seen within the last five to 10 years,” said Hays HS nurse Sheri McKee.

Hays High has seen its fair share of sick students in the last month. The district held flu clinics, but statewide the percentage of cases has spiked despite preventitive measures. And the attendance at schools has reflected that.

“The funding that we get for the kids it affects the school in general because there’s so many absent and then it affects everybody too because, when kids come back to school they’re not, like, 100 percent healthy,” Sheena Moran, attendance clerk said.

Generally, students are missing up to five days.

“A lot of people seem behind, so testing, and retesting, and test corrections. Everyone’s kind of all over the place, so just getting everybody back on one page has been a little difficult,” said Coach Alyssa Alex.