After a week and a half of classes in the spring semester, the Cobb County School District has not updated its COVID-19 case data.
Each Friday during the 2020-21 school year and in the fall semester of 2021, the district revised those figures each Friday, with breakdowns according to each school.
But for the last two Fridays, those numbers have not been provided on the district’s COVID Case Notification page.
Instead, the page shows it was last updated on Dec. 17, 2021, the last day of the fall semester, with a figure of 6,709 cumulative cases reported among students and staff since July 1, 2021.
In December, Cobb school superintendent Chris Ragsdale said the district was changing some of its COVID protocols, including eliminating much of its contact-tracing and revising procedures for staff quarantine if they’re identified as close contacts.
At a Cobb school board meeting, Ragsdale didn’t reference how the district may be counting and publicly reporting COVID cases.
On Friday, East Cobb News asked the district about the status of keeping those figures current.
A spokeswoman responded by saying only that “recent changes to our public health protocols, and their impact on accurate COVID-19 case counts, are under review. Once determined, we will provide an update on our COVID-19 webpage about what process we will use going forward.”
That’s the same answer she has given to other news outlets.
Nearly two years into the pandemic, and the highly infectious Omicron variant is yielding record transmission levels in Cobb, Georgia and elsewhere.
As of Friday, the 14-day average of cases per 100,000 people in Cobb County was around 2,500, far higher than the “high” transmission rate of 100/100K.
Cobb government leaders said at the end of last week they will likely extend an emergency declaration through most of February, for another 30-day period.
That doesn’t affect the schools.
The Georgia Department of Public Health issues a weekly School Aged Surveillance Data report, and notes the numbers in Cobb are decreasing slightly.
As of Jan. 13, the 14-day case count in Cobb County between the ages of 5-17 has been 2,169, with a 14-day case rate of 1,642 per 100,000.
Those figures are not broken down by public school district or private schools.
The single-day high recently reported in Cobb was 252 on Dec. 30; on Jan. 12, the number was 171, part of a downward trend that’s generally dipping below 200.
The spring semester resumes on Tuesday. The COVID protocol changes may be discussed Thursday at Cobb school board meetings, which are scheduled for 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. and include time for public comment.
Agendas for the meetings will be posted at this link on Tuesday.
Related posts:
- Cobb school board chooses 2022 officers after partisan sparring
- Cobb schools revise COVID-19 protocols after new state order
- Cobb schools report 2.4K students enrolled online for spring
- Cobb schools to begin spring semester in-person
- PHOTOS: Former East Cobb Middle School campus demolished
- East Cobb would lose school board seat in recommended map
- Proposed Cobb school board map aimed at keeping GOP majority
- East Cobb MS earns STEAM certification from Cobb school district
- Cobb schools accrediting agency puts district on improvement plan
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Once again, Super Ragsdale and his Motley Crew demonstrate that they consider themselves free to do whatever they want, whenever they want, or in this case, NOT DO WHATEVER THEY WANT, and never mind the students, teachers, and parents, they are just minor players in this game of politics, not education. After all, as their “spokesperson” said, “if we don’t report numbers, there is no covid.”
Anybody buy that????
Maybe submit an open records request to get the numbers?