9 students, staff test positive for COVID-19 after Georgia school hallway photo goes viral

A Georgia high school captured in viral images last week plans to temporarily close all in-person classes after nine students and staff tested positive for COVID-19.

North Paulding High School in Dallas, Georgia, gained national attention soon after students returned to school Aug. 3 when photos posted on social media showed crowded hallways, with many students not wearing masks.

Hannah Watters, 15, who was concerned about her and her classmates' health and safety, shared a photo on Twitter and wrote, "This is not ok. Not to mention the 10% mask rate."

"This isn’t a joke. These are many lives, kids to be precise."

Watters' suspension:Georgia school lifts suspension for student who shared photo of crowded hallway, maskless peers

The school's principal Gabe Carmona notified parents Saturday that six students and three staff members had tested positive for the virus. Each of them had been in the school building sometime in the prior week, though it's unknown if they were infected there.

The 30,000-student suburban Atlanta school district resumed classes Aug 3. with 70% of students returning for in-person instruction five days a week  – days after multiple football players at North Paulding tested positive for the coronavirus. The county had let students decide between in-person or online classes, but the system's online learning slots filled up.

Now, all students will take online classes Monday and Tuesday, Paulding County Schools Superintendent Brian Otott said in a letter to parents Sunday. He said those two days will be used to clean and disinfect the school, and parents will learn Tuesday evening if in-person classes can resume later in the week.

“Hopefully, we can all agree that the health and safety of our students and staff takes precedence over any other considerations at this time,” Otott said in his letter, which was obtained by Atlanta-area news outlets.

Paulding County schools spokesman Jay Dillon did not immediately return phone and text messages Sunday evening from The Associated Press.

And Paulding County isn't the only Georgia school district to see infection. Last week, hundreds of employees in Georgia's largest school district, Gwinnett County Public Schools, either tested positive for COVID-19 or were exposed to the virus, officials said. About 260 employees were "excluded from work" due to coronavirus exposure.

Georgia's largest school district:260 employees test positive for COVID-19 or are exposed

Meanwhile, school officials in a metro Atlanta school district reported that 12 students and two staff members across a dozen schools tested positive for the virus during their first week back at school. The Cherokee County school system said more than 250 students with potential exposure had been sent home to quarantine for two weeks.

“We have students and staff reporting presumptive, pending and positive COVID-19 tests every day, and this will continue as we operate schools during a pandemic,” Cherokee County Schools Superintendent Brian Hightower wrote in a letter to parents Friday, adding that the school system was taking “extra steps for transparency.”

Cherokee County also saw maskless photos go viral online last week. Dozens of seniors gathered at two high schools to take traditional first-day-of-school senior photos, with students squeezing together in black outfits. No one in the pictures wore a mask.

Hightower said in his letter that many of the seniors in those online photos “wear masks routinely” — though the schools don't require it.

More:250 students and staff asked to quarantine in Georgia district after one week of school

Masks are similarly not mandated in Paulding County Schools – a decision Otott defended in an initial response to the North Paulding viral photos. “Wearing a mask is a personal choice and there is no practical way to enforce a mandate to wear them," he wrote.

Watters said she was "highly disappointed" that her district is making masks optional. She kept tallies of her classmates and found only a third were wearing masks.

According to the Georgia Department of Health, the state had reported a total of 216,596 confirmed cases and 4,199 deaths as of Sunday.

Contributing: The Associated Press.