“Small as we are, if we get one phone call, that can cause a ripple,” said Sean Pederson, the city manager of Bonner Springs, Kan., a community of about 7,800 residents some 20 miles west of Kansas City. Mr. Pederson said he has found himself mopping floors during the pandemic when city hall janitors were out with the virus. Over the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekend, a snowstorm blanketed the region. With multiple employees out on the city’s public works staff, other departments scrambled to find workers to plow the streets. … It’s a familiar story in small towns across the country, where the spike in infections from the Omicron variant hit local governments with particular force. The virus has ripped through big cities like Los Angeles and New York, sidelining thousands of police officers and transit operators. In many, leaders have rushed to reassure residents that firefighters and paramedics will show up when they call amid record absences. But in small communities, the people responsible for keeping crucial public services up and running say the strain is acute: With bare-bones workforces already stretched thin, there is no margin for error when multiple workers have to call in sick.
Source: NY Times
