The Pope High School football team has been temporarily sidelined due to a case of COVID-19.
The case was confirmed last week by the Cobb & Douglas Public Health Department and all team activities have been halted, a spokesman for the Cobb County School District said Monday.
Cobb schools declined to say if the case originated from a student or staff member and how many people are affected by the diagnosis. The local health department is handling contact tracing and the team will not meet until that process is complete, the district said.
According to the school’s website, there are 71 students on the Pope Greyhounds varsity team. In addition, 10 coaches and managers work with the varsity team and three with the freshman team.
Pope High has been closed to in-person learning so far this school year, but could reopen Nov. 5 if the district sticks to its reopening plan.
No indication has been given if the Greyhounds will cancel Pope’s homecoming game at 7:30 p.m. Friday against the Kennesaw Mountain Mustangs.
Last month, COVID-19 cases on football teams at South Cobb and Harrison high schools forced them to cancel their games, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution previously reported.
Following its phased reopening of classrooms to elementary and middle school students and students with special needs, Cobb County schools earlier this month began providing a detailed listing of confirmed COVID-19 cases at schools that are open for in-person learning.
As of Monday, nine elementary schools and six middle schools have between 1 and 10 confirmed cases. Numbers for high schools will be released Nov. 13, a week after the third reopening phase begins for those students.
The district has 382 cases that have been confirmed since July by Cobb & Douglas Public Health. A breakdown on how many of those cases are active has not been released by the district.
