The Cobb County School District said Wednesday it is closing Kincaid Elementary School in Northeast Cobb for 14 days, starting Thursday, due to a positive case of Coronavirus at the school.
The district statement did not indicate if the individual is a student, teacher or staff member at the school, and said it would not discuss specifics due to federal privacy laws and at the request of the Georgia Department of Public Health.
Nan Kiel, a district spokeswoman, said that within 48 hours of the closure at Kincaid, ”Cobb staff will thoroughly clean and sanitize the entire campus, including buses.”
She said that no other Cobb schools will be closed at this time. The Kincaid closure is the first in the Cobb district, which has 112 schools and is the second largest school districg in Georgia with nearly 112,000 students.
Kincaid is in the Sprayberry High School cluster, and other feeder schools include Daniell Middle School, Simpson Middle School, Dodgen Middle School and Walton High School.
In its statement Cobb schools didn’t mention whether other schools in the cluster or feeder schools that use the same buses as those serving Kincaid may be affected.
Kiel said that Kincaid students will be getting online instruction from their teachers “using a variety of digital platforms and tools.”
Piedmont Church in Northeast Cobb, whose members include families in the nearby Kincaid attendance zone, cancelled its Wednesday night activities.
Fulton County schools, with 94,000 students, have been closed since Tuesday due to a positive case of Coronavirus of a teacher at one of its schools. All but two schools in that district—two middle schools in south Fulton—will be open on Thursday.
Cobb schools has posted its Coronavirus guidance here.
The Kincaid closing comes as cancellations of public events around the U.S. is growing, including in Cobb (see links below).
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On Wednesday, the World Health Organization declared Coronavirus to be a pandemic, a reference to how fast it is spreading globally.
More than 125,000 cases have been confirmed around the world, and more than 4,600 deaths, around half of those in China.
In the U.S., more than 1,100 cases have been confirmed, with 37 deaths, 24 alone in Washington state. Georgia has six confirmed cases, including one in Cobb. The number of “presumptive positive” tests has grown to 16, with six in Cobb.
Those test results still must be confirmed by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control.
More than 100 passengers of a cruise liner off the coast of San Francisco have been flown to Dobbins Air Reserve Base in Cobb for quarantine, and more are expected. Cobb officials have said none of those individuals have tested positive for Coronavirus.
Also on Wednesday, changes were made involving many sporting events around North America. Among them are the NCAA men’s and women’s basketball tournaments, which will be played, but fans other than family members will be banned.
The men’s Final Four scheduled for the Mercedes-Benz Stadium in downtown Atlanta April 3-5 may be relocated to a smaller arena in the metro area.
The popular St. Patrick’s Day Parade in Savannah also has been cancelled.
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