After a week into the school new year in one Georgia school district, over 250 students and teachers are now quarantined as cases of Covid-19 infections among teachers and students multiply as schools resumed on Monday.
According to the district, students and teachers who have been exposed to positive cases would have to quarantine for two weeks.
It also added that during the period only online instruction would be available to students.
Cherokee County School District, which resumed school on Monday, August , for instance keeps track of coronavirus cases in the school and publishes numbers of recorded cases in school on its website.
In an update on the school site, more than a dozen teachers and students have tested positive. The school has sent about hundreds of people home in five days.
From the beginning of the week, about 11 students in their first grade to twelfth grade across elementary, middle and high schools have been confirmed positive alongside two staff.
Addressing families on the rise in cases of infections, Superintendent Dr. Brian V. Hightower, said in a letter on Friday that the chances that number of positive cases among teachers and students would increase is very high as schools reopened during the pandemic.
“We know we’re under a microscope, as national media follows the reopening of schools across the country,” Hightower said.
“But know that our decisions are not based on what people in New York or Kansas think, nor are we concerned about ‘optics’ or ‘image’ – we’re focused on what’s doing best for our community,” he added.
Hightower also encourages schools to enforce wearing of masks to keep down rate of infection.
Meanwhile, High school students of North Paulding High School in Dallas, Georgia, were seen in a viral posted by a student, Hannah Watters, as they were closed packed together in the school hallway without masks..
Hannah Watters was earlier suspended from school, but the suspension was later lifted. She confirmed this in her Tweet on Friday that she was no longer suspended.
There has been a surge in the rates of children testing positive for the virus as school reopen across the country. Consequently, this has forced some schools to abandon their plan to reopen and settle for virtual learning.
According to American Academy of Pediatrics’ finding, mid through end of July, about 100,000 children were Covid-19 positive. It was reported that 338,000 children out of 5 million confirmed cases in the country tested positive.
