Cases of COVID-19 among Forsyth County Schools face-to-face students and staff have slowly dropped over the past few weeks, lowering to numbers that the school system has not seen since last November.

FCS reported a total of 109 new COVID-19 cases in the last week, Feb. 22-26, which nearly matches numbers the system was reporting towards the beginning of the winter season.

The number of cases, among the system’s now 43,532 face-to-face students and staff, spiked in the week directly after Thanksgiving break, reaching up past 100 cases in one week for the first time since the school year started.

Cases within the schools peaked after winter break in the first full week of the second semester with 319 students and staff reporting a positive case Jan. 11-15. Since that peak, cases have slowly dropped, reaching 195 cases in one week by the end of January and 109 by the end of February.

The drop in cases, reported on the school system’s website, matches an ongoing trend across the country and state in recent weeks. According to the Georgia Department of Public Health’s website, total cases have gone down in the state from a seven-day moving average of nearly 10,000 confirmed cases at its winter peak in January to a seven-day moving average of more than 3,200 at the end of February.

Other states across the U.S. have seen even more significant drops in cases.

Many experts have warned, however, that deaths caused by COVID-19 are still on the rise and the drop in cases may not continue for long.

For more information about COVID-19 in Georgia, visit the Department of Public Health’s website, dph.georgia.gov, and for information on COVID-19 within Forsyth’s schools, visit the district website at www.forsyth.k12.ga.us.