Cobb's COVID-19 test positivity rate reaches 'red' zone

*Vehicles line up along Roswell Road Wednesday for COVID-19 testing at East Cobb United Methodist Church.*

The highly transmissable Delta variant of COVID-19 has been spreading especially fast in Cobb County, which is among the nearly three-quarters of Georgia counties classified as being in the “red zone” for test positivity rate.

That’s the percentage of people tested for COVID-19 who get a positive result. Georgia Department of Public Health figures show that 12.6 percent of Cobb PCR tests for the virus have been positive.

That’s from July 29-Aug. 11, during which 27,338 PCR tests were administered in Cobb County.The red category is designated by Georgia DPH for counties with a positivity rating of 10 percent or more, and as of Aug. 11 that’s 73 percent, or 115, of Georgia’s 159 counties.

Some counties had test positivity rates of 30 percent or more, mainly in rural areas of the state.

Only 42 counties were in the yellow zone (positivity rates of between 5-10 percent, and two counties (Fayette and Jefferson) were in the green zone (5 percent or under).

Public health officials have said during the COVID-19 pandemic that anything above a 5 percent test positivity rate is cause for concern.

Cobb’s 14-day average of cases per 100,000 has climbed above 600 (PCR and Antigen tests), a figure as high as late January, when transmission of the virus was dropping.

(You can read the latest statewide test positivity report by clicking here.)

At one point, Cobb’s 14-day average was under 100 cases per 100,000 people, the threshold for high community spread. At the same time, the test positivity rating fell to around 2-3 percent.

But that has shot up as the Delta variant became the predominant strain of the virus in Cobb, Georgia and most of the nation.

The transmission of the COVID-19 prompted Cobb County Manager Jackie McMorris to impose a mask mandate for county buildings starting Friday.

The Cobb County School District is also coming under pressure from some parents to impose a mask mandate. The school year started Aug. 1 with a masks-optional policy, and before Thursday’s Cobb Board of Education evening meeting a rally is planned to demand a mandate.

There was a rally last week that was met by counter-protestors, the day after the entire 5th grade at East Side Elementary School was sent home due to a COVID-19 outbreak.

There’s nothing on the school board agenda related to the district’s COVID-19 protocols.