Decatur schools encouraging students to wear masks last 2 weeks of school

ATLANTA, Ga. (CBS46) - City Schools of Decatur is asking staff and students to wear masks again for the next two weeks until the end of the school year because of rising COVID cases.

Last week, the district reported 56 cases, which is its second-highest weekly count for this school year.

The district can’t outright issue a mask mandate because Gov. Kemp signed the Unmask Georgia Students Act into law. That law allows parents who don’t want their children to wear masks to opt-out of district mandates.

The state of Georgia is currently reporting 5,200 new cases between April 27 and yesterday, which isn’t much of a change from the previous report.

On a national scale, cases are right around 61,000 a day right now with hospital admissions of a little over 2,200.

In some larger cities like San Francisco, there is a spike in COVID cases -- up 160% since this time last month.

Experts are warning that we are not out of the woods yet and say to prepare for an uptick this summer.

Some areas of the country are reinstating mask mandates as cases rise. Today, the World Health Organization estimated that nearly 15 million people were killed either by the coronavirus or by its impact on an overwhelmed health systems. That is more than double the official death toll.

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