UPDATED, SEPT. 7, 7:07 P.M.:
The Cobb Board of Health voted to encourage universal masking and vaccination in schools, but cannot issue mandates or require policy changes.
ORIGINAL STORY:
The Cobb County Board of Health will hold a special meeting Tuesday to discuss COVID-19 policy in schools.
The meeting takes place at 5 p.m. and can be seen via Zoom at this link; registration is required.
The meeting notice, issued late Friday afternoon by Cobb and Douglas Public Health, says the only item of business is “Position Request for Consideration: COVID-19 Guidance in public and private schools in Cobb County.”
The health board is made up of eight people, including Lisa Cupid, Chairwoman of the Cobb Board of Commissioners; Cobb County School District Superintendent Chris Ragsdale; Marietta City Schools Superintendent Grant Rivera; Marietta Marietta Steve “Thunder” Tumlin; and four others by appointment.
They include retired banking executive Wyman Pilcher by the City of Marietta. The Cobb Board of Commissioners appointees are Paula Greaves, M.D., an obstetrician and gynecologist with the Wellstar Health System; Pete Quinones, CEO of Metro Ambulance Service; and the health board’s chairwoman, Dr. Carol Holtz, a retired nursing professor at Kennesaw State University.
The call for the “emergency” meeting comes as COVID-19 case numbers remain high with the Delta variant. As of Friday, the 14-day average of cases per 100,000 people in Cobb County is 814, several times above the “high community spread” threshold of 100/100K.
According to Georgia state law, county health boards can “take such steps as may be necessary to prevent and suppress disease and conditions deleterious to health and to determine compliance with health laws and rules, regulations, and standards adopted thereunder.”
On Aug. 19, Cupid issued a 30-day emergency declaration in Cobb County, shortly after County Manager Jackie McMorris issued a mask mandate for indoor county facilities.
For the third consecutive week, the Cobb school district reported active COVID-19 cases in the 1K range, with an unknown number of other absences due to quarantine provisions.
While Marietta made masks mandatory in schools last month, Cobb is one of the few school districts in metro Atlanta with a masks-optional policy.
At a Cobb Board of Education meeting last month, Ragsdale announced revisions to quarantine guidelines but that masks, while “strongly encouraged,” would remain optional, saying he wanted parents to have a choice regarding their children.
There were two pro-mask rallies at Cobb school district headquarters last month that were met by counter-protestors, and parents on both sides of the issue spoke out at the August school board meeting.
The Centers for Disease Control has been urging indoor mask usage in schools, as has Dr. Janet Memark, director of Cobb and Douglas Public Health.
In early August, Cobb and Douglas Public Health issued a statement after a new Georgia Department of Public Health order that “each school system has their own unique challenges to meet the needs of students and faculty and we respect their authority to make the final decisions.”
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- Cobb schools report 1K+ COVID cases; 69 at Sprayberry
- Cobb leaders issue vaccine and mask plea
- Cobb issues COVID-19 emergency declaration
- Cobb COVID test positivity rate reaches ‘red’ zone
- Cobb imposes mask mandate at county buildings
- Cobb COVID-19 hospitalization rates soar with Delta variant
- Cobb public health director urges masking, vaccines
- Checking Cobb’s vaccination rates by census tracts
- East Cobb News COVID information and resource page
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