ROME CITY SCHOOLS MASK MANDATE TO REMAIN IN PLACE AT ALL CAMPUSES; CORONAVIRUS, VACCINATION UPDATE BY THE GEORGIA DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC HEALTH

The Rome City Schools announced via Facebook on Monday evening that its mask mandate will remain in place at all campuses, based on directives of the CDC and local health officials regarding mask usage on school property. The mandate will be in effect “until otherwise directed by system administrators”, as indicated in the post. This follows a decision by the Floyd County Schools’ Superintendent Glenn White to refrain from requiring masks, but recommend and encourage their usage; this update to FCS policy resulted from a meeting among White and system principals last week. Masks were also discussed by members of the school board earlier in the week.

Just 657 new cases of coronavirus and 34 more virus-related fatalities were reported in Georgia on Monday by the state Department of Public Health.

According to the latest update by the DPH issued just before 3 pm, there have been 876,146 confirmed cases of COVID-19 statewide. The state’s death toll now stands at 17,421. In Floyd County, there were 9,946 confirmed cases and 182 fatalities. Gwinnett County had this state’s highest number of confirmed cases with 85,940, and Fulton County had the most deaths with 1,260.

As of the latest update to the DPH’s vaccine dashboard on Monday evening, 5,819,740 vaccines have been administered across the state; 34 percent of all Georgians have had at least a dose of the vaccine, while 23 percent have been fully vaccinated.