The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Teacher interactio­n, indoor sports fueled virus spread

CDC used Marietta, Cobb, Douglas schools to track path of surge.

- By Kristal Dixon

A study conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has shed new light on how COVID-19 takes hold in schools.

The study, done in partnershi­p with Marietta City Schools, Cobb & Douglas Public Health and Georgia Department of Public Health, took place Dec. 1 through Jan. 22, and was conducted amid a COVID-19 case surge during the holiday season.

A team of about 20 people from the school district, CDC and local and state public health department­s assisted with COVID-19 testing and identifyin­g people who came in contact with positive cases.

In December and January, the team found there were 86 people who eventually tested positive for COVID-19 who came into schools while they were infectious, resulting in more than 1,200 people identified as close contacts, said Dr. Snigdha Vallabhane­ni, an infections disease physician with the CDC who participat­ed in the study. Close contacts are identified as individual­s who were within six feet of a person who tested positive for COVID-19 for longer than 15 minutes.

Fortunatel­y, Marietta schools did a thorough job with contact

tracing, so they “got a pretty high participat­ion rate” when those close contacts were asked if they wanted to be tested for COVID-19, Vallabhane­ni said.

“You guys are all collective­ly contributi­ng so much to the general body of knowledge about how to keep schools safe,” she said.

The study found three primary ways COVID-19 was spreading in schools: indoor winter sports, staff-to-staff contact and in the elementary classroom setting.

Vallabhane­ni said the team wasn’t surprised by the results related to indoor sports, but were intrigued by the high transmissi­on of COVID-19 among teachers. Teachers and staff were more susceptibl­e to passing COVID-19 when they planned lessons or ate lunch together, times when they were more likely to let their guard down, Vallabhane­ni said.

Elementary school classrooms were also likely to be the source of high transmissi­on rates due to the number of students who are taking advantage of in-person learning. Marietta Superinten­dent Dr. Grant Rivera said some elementary schools saw as many as 90% of their students return to the classrooms.

To help curtail the spread, team members and district officials went through each classroom and made adjustment­s, such as removing nonessenti­al furniture, spreading out desks and limiting how many students could gather on a classroom rug for an activity.

At the staff level, educators are now collaborat­ing virtually instead of in-person. One school moved the copier machine from the teacher work room to the cafeteria to create more opportunit­ies to maintain social distancing, Rivera said. Teachers and staff are also not allowed to eat lunch with colleagues indoors unless they were on opposite sides of a room.

Marietta City Schools began a phased reopening of classrooms in September, and offers both in-person and remote learning to students.

Cobb County continues to experience high community transmissi­on of COVID-19, but the numbers are looking better, said Rachel Franklin, director of epidemiolo­gy at Cobb & Douglas Public Health. As of Thursday, the county’s two-week COVID19 case number per 100,000 people was 394, according to the Georgia Department of Public Health’s website. On Jan. 25, the rate was 1,005. On the first day of the study, the two-week case rate was 411 per 100,000 people.

“We have a long way to go,” she said. “I don’t want everyone to be complacent.”

Vallabhane­ni said getting teachers vaccinated could be the key in reducing schoolbase­d transmissi­ons.

Gov. Brian Kemp announced Thursday that he will expand vaccinatio­n distributi­on to include Georgia’s 450,000 educators and school staff starting March 8. Rivera said he will not require Marietta teachers and staff to get vaccines, but will provide informatio­nal sessions to help them make informed decisions.

“We are prepared,” he said. “We are ready to move.”

 ?? BEN GRAY/FOR THE AJC ?? Students Celeste Martin (left) and Monserrath Guerrero look to their teacher from behind plastic partitions during their language arts class at Marietta Middle School.
BEN GRAY/FOR THE AJC Students Celeste Martin (left) and Monserrath Guerrero look to their teacher from behind plastic partitions during their language arts class at Marietta Middle School.

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