ATLANTA — Earlier this week, Gov. Brian Kemp announced he plans to introduce legislation to end school mask mandates and allow parents to decide if their kids wear a mask at school.
"At this point in the pandemic, it is my belief that parents have the tools that they need to best take care of their children. That's why I just think we should let parents decide," Kemp said Wednesday. "Nobody seems to be following the data and the science anymore, they're following the politics."
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director said that decision at this point in the pandemic might do more harm than good.
In a one-on-one interview with CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky, 11Alive reporter Joe Henke asked about when she thinks schools can safely roll back safety measures.
"Every county in Georgia right now is in high transmission," she replied. "That means a lot of virus is circulating. We want to make sure they protect themselves against any transmissible virus by getting vaccinated and wearing that mask in school."
The World Health Organization defines high transmission of COVID-19 as a test positivity rate of 5 percent or more over a 14-day period.
Currently, metro Atlanta counties are well above that rate. The only Georgia county close to dropping below 5 percent is Clay County, which currently has a positivity rate of 5.5 percent.
"As those numbers come down and continue to come down, we are cautiously optimistic as we watch them come down we will revisit these guidances as appropriate," Walensky said of when the CDC might adjust its recommendation for students around the country to wear masks at school.
For anyone that is ready for the pandemic to end and certain safety precautions to be relaxed or disappear, the daily number of new vaccinations in Georgia isn't helping.
That number has dropped off considerably from early December when vaccinations increased drastically when the Omicron variant was first recorded in Georgia.
Walensky said there still needs to be more immunity in the population before it would be safe for people to start letting their guards down.
"We can do that one of two ways, we can do that through vaccination or we can do that through people getting infected," she said. "It certainly is much safer to do it through vaccination. We know if you're unvaccinated you're 97 times more likely to die from COVID than if you're boosted. So right now here in Georgia 53 percent vaccination rate, 34 percent boosted rates. Get yourself vaccinated and it will be a safe way to get us out of this."