More than 820 students and 40 teachers in a school district in Georgia will have to quarantine after coming into contact with a confirmed COVID-19 case just a week after classes began.
The Cherokee County School District in the Atlanta metro area reported on its website that 826 students and 40 teachers at 20 elementary, middle and middle schools must be quarantined for 14 days. It is not clear how many people in the neighborhood have tested positive for COVID-19.
Affected classrooms are “deeply cleaned” before reopening, the district states on its website. Quarantined students should receive online instruction.
The district advises that its 40,000 students wear face masks and wraps, but does not require them. Only staff and teachers are required to wear masks if they cannot distance themselves socially. Studies show that face masks and masks can stop the spread of COVID-19, but Georgia does not have a mask mandate, and districts are careful to issue their own.
The quarantines illustrate the difficulty of reopening schools in a pandemic, especially in hot spots such as Georgia.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) strongly recommends reopening of schools to prevent the negative consequences of the loss of instruction for individuals on students. But it also advises students and staff to wear masks and keep a distance of at least six feet.
But experts think it may be harder to open schools safely in areas of the country where there is widespread transmission of COVID-19.
The outbreak in Georgia appears to be stabilizing, but the state still reports an average of 3,200 new cases per day.
Cherokee County has reported a total of 3,535 cases, including 650 cases in the past seven days.
At schools that reopen with personal instruction, students and staff would have to wear masks and offices should be six feet apart, the CDC advises.
But some schools do not follow these guidelines uniformly due to space constraints or questions about whether it is possible to maintain mask wear.
Cherokee County Superintendent Brian Hightower wrote Friday in a letter to parents that it is not clear how long schools can remain open.
“The answer will depend on all of us as a community. We need social distance when we can, and always wear masks when we can not, ‘he wrote.
“As we have said before, social distance is not possible in all situations at our schools – this is the reason we require our staff to wear masks or face masks when they cannot from a distance, and this is the reason we supply masks to students and strongly recommend that they wear them. “
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