COVID-19 cases

MOULTRIE, Ga. — School started back on Monday, Aug. 17, and with that, Colquitt County Superintendent Doug Howell said they’ll be doing all they can to keep kids safe. He also recognized that a positive case showing up would be inevitable.

The inevitable occurred quickly, with the revelation of confirmed cases in two Packers football team members and an assistant coach on Tuesday. 

Fortunately, the three were confirmed prior to school’s start and their 14-day isolation period, which already started, will end Thursday. The school system had another confirmed case about two weeks ago in a Doerun Elementary School teacher.

She’s already in isolation and is on track to come off it soon, Howell said, but the question of it all becomes how will the school system be transparent to its public to assure student and staff safety?

Howell said starting next Monday, Aug. 24, the system will send out weekly reports stating how many people are confirmed and how many are quarantined from a “system viewpoint.”

They’ll be based on the statistics from the prior week.

“We’re going to do that for faculty, staff and we’ll also do it for students,” Howell said. “And it’ll be the current cases, which is what people should be concerned with. If someone’s already tested positive and gone back to work, that’s a done deal.”

But things had to get rolling to start this, he said.

With 13 schools and some related sites to record, the school system’s nurse coordinator, Suzanne Sumner, will be pulling the data for each of them.

Sumner is regularly in contact with the Department of Public Health Southwest District and contacts them for a consultation if someone in the school system is a confirmed case.

“She calls the health department on every case and they weigh in on it just like they did with the football team,” Howell said.

In that case, Dr. Charles Ruis, DPH Southwest District health director, recommended the entire football team quarantine from school and football until 5 p.m. Aug. 20. The exception were players who test positive in which case they’ll need a14-day isolation period, 10 should their case be mild or moderate.

Howell was asked if all the players will be getting tested, but he said no. 

“We can’t require people to be tested,” he said. “We can’t require [adult] testing, surely we can’t require kids to be tested.”

He also said there won’t be any changes to safety measures taken in practices as GHSA safety measures are already extensive. This includes health screenings and an action plan for failed screenings or positive case. 

“Every practice they take temperatures, every practice they ask questions — the health screenings and etc. — so they’ll continue to follow the GHSA guidelines and protocols for practices,” Howell said. 

 Should a question of in-school safety come, Howell said the school system contracted Ecovasive Southeast Infection Control over the summer to spray down and sanitize every building in the school district.

“[They spray] every school in our district. Every office, every classroom, every bathroom and every building,” Howell said. 

The company comes in four times a year to spray — every three months or so — and their last visit was July 24. Howell said they’ll be back around October 15 or 16 — holidays the school system takes to coincide with the Sunbelt Ag Expo.

Howell said Ecovasive’s spray has a 90-day residual effect that keeps killing germs and viruses. Ecovasive’s website states that it combines “electrostatic spray technology with botanical, EPA approved, non toxic, bleach free disinfectants.”

It stated that the spray keeps killing viruses “every second of every day” and is on the COVID-19 EPA Emerging Pathogen list.

“That doesn’t mean we don’t still daily clean, we do,” Howell said. “We’re going to clean like we normally do. Every principal is responsible for cleaning their buildings every day, but that doesn’t mean you have to shut down a building because someone has COVID.”