260 employees in Georgia's largest school district test positive for COVID-19 or are exposed
Hundreds of employees in Georgia's largest school district have either tested positive for COVID-19 or have been exposed to the virus, officials said.
Gwinnett County Public School teachers gathered for in-person planning Wednesday at 141 facilities across the county, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported. The next day about 260 employees were "excluded from work" because of the coronavirus.
The district, which is scheduled to reopen Aug. 12, has a reporting and tracing process in addition to the protocol for excluding employees who test positive or come into contact with a confirmed case, Sloan Roach, a spokeswoman for the district, told CNN.
"As of last Thursday, we had approximately 260 employees who had been excluded from work due to a positive case or contact with a case," Roach told the outlet. "This number is fluid as we continue to have new reports and others who are returning to work."
Roach said tracing determined that the majority of the cases were contracted through community spread.
The district pushed back its start date to Aug. 12 after announcing it would allow parents to choose between in-person or online instruction for their children for the first semester of the 2020-21 school year. But Gwinnett County Superintendent Alvin Wilbanks announced in late July that the 180,000-student district in suburban Atlanta will offer only online classes.
Days after that announcement, nearly 500 parents and students held a protest demanding district leaders reinstate in-person instruction as an option, the Journal-Constitution reported. Nearly 6,000 people have signed a Change.org petition in support of in-person classes in Gwinnett County.
Gwinnett County has 17,781 confirmed cases of COVID-19, the second-most cases in the state, according to Georgia's Department of Public Health.
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The news comes after a similar-sized outbreak was reported at a Georgia sleep-away camp. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that 260 campers and staff at the camp, identified only as "Camp A," tested positive for the coronavirus shortly after one teen staffer began showing symptoms.
The 597 Georgia residents who attended the camp were required to show that they had tested negative for the virus at least 12 days before they arrived. Staff had to wear masks, but campers did not.
Most staffers arrived for orientation on June 17, and campers and senior staff members joined on June 21. Two days later, a staff member developed chills, left and then tested positive for the coronavirus. Officials began sending campers home the next day, the camp was closed by June 27, and 344 campers and staff were tested for COVID-19.
The outbreak suggests that children “might play an important role in transmission," according to the report.
Contributing: The Associated Press
Follow N'dea Yancey-Bragg on Twitter: @NdeaYanceyBragg
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: 260 Georgia school employees tested positive or exposed to COVID-19
