MOULTRIE, Ga. — Colquitt County continues to be on the mend from positive COVID-19 cases, but with school starting back, there’s been worry for the children. The Department of Public Health said on Monday: Caution remains warranted but don’t let worry consume you.

Tracked data from the past 14 days — this interview took place on Aug. 10, so it’d be from July 28 to then — shows 11 positive cases in children within the county.

Dr. Charles Ruis, DPH Southwest District health director, said the breakdown of this data revealed that three of the cases were between ages of 5-10, and eight were between the ages of 14-18.

Within the past 28 days — July 13 to Monday — 28 children were found positive. Two cases were less than age 5, nine were between ages 5-10, two were between ages 11-14, and 15 were between ages 14-18.

“For the 28 days, it was a rate of 1 [case] per day,” Ruis said. “It’s a slight downward trend in the number of kids [affected] per week, which is a good thing to see as schools get started.”

So with that, schools must have two different goals in mind: keep coronavirus out and to recognize it and get it out should its head be reared.

Keeping it out means using online school instead of face-to-face instruction when needed, screening students and staff before they come to school, checking temperatures, social distancing and wearing masks.

These are all recommendations though, not mandates. It’s up to the school systems to take the recommendations and adhere to them. 

“Some schools have pretty strict policies for wearing masks, some are encouraging masks, some break it down for the age of the child and so forth,” Ruis said. 

In the case of the Colquitt County School System, Superintendent Doug Howell said they intend to continue following CDC guidelines, and are hosting online instruction as well as face to face.

CCSS encourages students to wear a mask should they come to the face-to-face instruction, but, in Howell’s own words, they aren’t mandating it if the governor hasn’t.

Ruis said he’s worried about how environments on school buses will work. Howell already said last week that he wants parents to send children on the bus wearing a mask, but will it be enough?

“If a child gets on the school bus and they’re infected, depending on the length of the ride and how many other children they interact with, there could be a substantial risk of spreading COVID,” Ruis said.

He said school systems could rectify this through screening and asking how students feel before coming to school, but that may be harder for younger kids to answer than it is for older ages.

Another option is using a daily screening sheet. Send it home with parents for them to turn around the next day before school.

“I haven’t run across any schools yet that I’m aware of that are going to do that,” Ruis said.

In terms of recognizing it and eliminating the virus, Ruis said that person, staff or child, needs to be moved into a secluded area where they’d likely be handled by the school nurse who’s wearing protective gear. 

Should that person be a child, the procedure is to call their parent(s)/guardian(s) for pickup, then quarantine the child for at least 10 days.

The theory is that you could put a mandate here to help out the area, but Ruis said that’s not the case. It’s not always as practical as it sounds and there’s a question of how it will be enforced.

“We’re (the DPH) doing our best to make sure the superintendents are educated on COVID and how it spreads,” he said, feeling confident they’re well-informed. “Sometimes what’s needed in one location isn’t needed in another and so they have received recommendations [accordingly].”

Some recommendations are manageable and some are a challenge, but these school systems must do what they feel is needed for their staff and students, Ruis said.

Again, Colquitt County is still on the way to recovery. Last week, it was reported to have 10 new cases a day. Ruis said this information was a few days old, but the county is reported as averaging 8.6 cases a day with 121 new cases in the past 14 days.

“That’s a rate of 265 per 100,000 residents over the last 14 days, which is considered high,” Ruis said. “However, it’s tapering down compared to previous weeks. If this trend keeps going, Colquitt County’s going to be a comfortable zone before long.”

“It appears Colquitt County had its peak somewhere around the third week of July and things are going in the right direction,” he said.