CAIRO — More than 250 students and 21 employees across the Grady County School System are currently quarantined due to possible exposure to the novel coronavirus, the school system announced this week.

Cairo High School alone has quarantined 148 students and four employees after five students and an employee were found to have tested positive for the virus.

Superintendent Kermit Gilliard said infected high school students this week were in circumstances in classrooms and buses where there were less opportunities to practice social distancing than they were last week, when 60 students were quarantined at CHS.

“We had more students within six feet of the positive students,” Gilliard said.

Three school bus drivers also have been quarantined. Substitute drivers are being used to complete bus routes.

Positive tests have also been recorded among students at Washington Middle School and Whigham School and among employees at Shiver School, Northside Elementary School and Washington.

A total of seven students and six employees are known to have a positive virus diagnosis throughout the entire school system as of Thursday.

Across the county as a whole, cases of COVID-19 are continuing to slowly climb, though a virus-related death has not been recorded in more than a week.

The county’s death toll has remained at 22 deaths since September 23, following a two-month period were more than one dozen individuals succumbed to the virus.

Twenty-eight individuals were diagnosed with the virus this week, bringing the county’s total up to 796. 

A total of 91 county residents have been hospitalized. Archbold Medical Center reported that two individuals were treated for the virus earlier this week at Grady General Hospital.

The Grady County Health Department will host free specimen collection tests every Tuesday and Friday this month from 8 a.m. to 11 a.m. with the exception of Friday, October 9; Tuesday, October 13 and Friday, October 30. 

Additional testing dates will take place Thursday, October 8; Monday, October 12; Wednesday, October 14; and Saturday, October 31. 

Patients are encouraged to schedule appointments by calling (229) 352-6567 from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. Mondays through Fridays or between 8:30 a.m. and 5 p.m. Saturdays. Patients can also visit www.covid19.dph.ga.gov and select “Take the Screening Questionnaire” to begin the application process.

Visit www.southwestgeorgiapublichealth.org to see the full testing schedule for all southwest Georgia counties.