Georgia Public Health Commissioner Dr. Kathleen Toomey (right) gave updates on COVID-19 vaccine distribution and the worsening winter outbreak alongside Gov. Brian Kemp (left) at Emory University’s Woodruff Health Sciences Center in Atlanta on Dec. 22, 2020. (Photo by Beau Evans)
Nursing homes in Georgia began receiving the first wave of COVID-19 vaccines on Monday, bringing relief to the state’s most vulnerable group of people who have been hit hard by the virus for more than nine months.
About 39,000 doses of the vaccine made by pharmaceutical company Pfizer have shipped to elderly-care facilities as well as CVS and Walgreens pharmacies, which are partnering with the federal government to send doses directly to nursing homes, said state Public Health Commissioner Dr. Kathleen Toomey.
Staff at nursing homes who serve as “the firewall” protecting elderly residents will likely be vaccinated first, Toomey said during a news conference at Pruitt Health’s elderly-term care facility in Gainesville.
She noted nursing-home residents account for 37% of Georgia’s deaths stemming from COVID-19, despite making up just 5% of the state’s overall positive cases.
“We hope with these vaccines we will begin to change those statistics and save lives,” Toomey said.
Toomey also announced the state has set up a new vaccine-focused hotline for Georgians to ask questions about when they will get the vaccine, what the difference is between the two brands and how the vaccines are safe. The hotline number is 1-888-357-0169.
So far, Georgia has been allocated 268,000 doses of the Pfizer vaccine and 234,000 doses of a vaccine produced by pharmaceutical company Moderna. Health-care workers have been first in line to receive the vaccines starting earlier this month. More than 26,000 vaccines have been given as of Sunday.
Gov. Brian Kemp noted more than 95% of all elderly-care facilities in Georgia have signed up with CVS and Walgreens for the direct-distribution program, which will cut out an extra step of routing vaccines through state officials.
“We are eager to see the vaccine make its way quickly and safely to our most vulnerable and to those brave Georgians who are giving them world-class care,” Kemp said Monday in Gainesville.
The first vaccine shipments come as Georgia continues seeing COVID-19 positive cases and hospitalizations spike amid the winter holiday season. Case rates have now shot far above the prior transmission peak seen in July with around 5,000 new positive cases daily in recent days.
Kemp said 60 emergency hospital beds at the Georgia World Congress Center in Atlanta should be ready for use by the end of this week. The state should have an 80-day stockpile of protective gear on hand by the end of this month, he added.
The governor urged Georgians to keep distancing, wash hands and limit gatherings ahead of upcoming New Year’s celebrations, especially people ages 18 to 29, who have seen the highest transmission rates in recent weeks and risk spreading the virus to more vulnerable family members.
“I’m encouraging everyone to be part of the solution, not the problem,” Kemp said.
Around 550,000 people in Georgia have tested positive for COVID-19 so far. As of Sunday, the virus had killed 9,714 Georgians.
ATLANTA – Georgia Sen. Ben Watson doesn’t care whether the Peach State observes standard time all year or daylight saving time.
Watson, R-Savannah, a physician, just wants Georgians to pick one or the other because studies show switching back and forth every six months causes heart disease and sleeping disorders.
“I prefer either way,” he said. “Let’s quit changing it.”
Watson pre-filed two bills this month, one calling for a nonbinding advisory referendum asking Georgians whether they would rather the state observe standard time all year, daylight saving time all year, or whether they would rather continue switching between the two.
Under the other measure, Georgia would observe standard time all year, bypassing a referendum.
A third bill pre-filed this month by state Rep. Wes Cantrell, R-Woodstock, calls for observing daylight saving time all year.
The Senate passed legislation introduced by Watson last March calling for a nonbinding referendum on the issue. But the General Assembly shut down for three months shortly after that vote due to the coronavirus pandemic, and the measure died in the Georgia House of Representatives.
“It just got caught up in the pandemic, and I didn’t press it,” Watson said.
Only two states – Hawaii and Arizona – remain on standard time all year, as do the overseas U.S. territories of Puerto Rico, American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Marianas Islands and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
Any state wishing to observe daylight time all year must seek congressional approval.
“My gut is most people would like to go to daylight time all the time,” Watson said. “It may be better to put it on the ballot and see if we can get some consensus.”
Supporters say sports betting could regenerate interest in pro sports at a time COVID-19 has emptied the stands.
ATLANTA – Advocates for bringing legalized gambling to Georgia will be back under the Gold Dome next month, pitching the financial benefits of casinos, horse racing and sports betting together and separately.
But a betting man might give legislation authorizing online sports betting in the Peach State the best odds to advance.
“It’s the easiest one to pass,” said Georgia Rep. Ron Stephens, R-Savannah, chairman of the House Economic Development & Tourism Committee. “It clearly does not require a constitutional amendment. … It’s just a matter of us giving the [Georgia] Lottery Commission direction and authority they already have.”
Efforts going back the better part of a decade to legalize casino gambling and pari-mutuel betting on horse racing in Georgia have been unable to muster the two-thirds majorities in the state House and Senate required to approve constitutional amendments and put them on the statewide ballot.
Supporters say sports betting, on the other hand, would only require simple majorities to get through the two legislative chambers because it could be accomplished simply by amending the law that created the Georgia Lottery during the 1990s.
Sports betting also enjoys the advantages of being a relative newcomer to the debate, having been taken up in the General Assembly for the first time during this year’s session. Lawmakers haven’t had time to grow tired of talking about it.
Sports betting has the backing of Atlanta’s four professional sports teams – the Braves, Falcons, Hawks and Atlanta United – which formed a coalition last winter to lobby on the legislation’s behalf.
The teams are counting on sports betting as a way to generate more fan interest, particularly at a time when they have had to shorten seasons and limit attendance because of the coronavirus pandemic.
“Increasingly, the cellphone is the primary means of entertainment for younger fans,” said Billy Linville, spokesman for the Georgia Professional Sports Alliance. “[The teams] have to engage them or they’ll go elsewhere.”
Some new ammunition the sports alliance will bring to the 2021 debate is the revenue numbers sports betting is generating in the nearly two dozen states where it’s legal.
In Tennessee, online sports betting produced $131.4 million in wagering last month – an average of more than $4 million per day – after legislation legalizing sports betting took effect Nov. 1.
In 2019, the first full year of sports betting in New Jersey generated $4.55 billion in wagering, with more than $3.8 billion bet online.
Legislation backed by the sports alliance to be introduced into the General Assembly this winter will call for dedicating 20% of the proceeds from sports betting in Georgia to the HOPE Scholarships program.
The lottery-funded HOPE program covered the full tuition costs of eligible Georgia high-school students until 2011, when then-Gov. Nathan Deal pushed a cut in benefits through the General Assembly to keep the program solvent amid rising student enrollment and the increasing costs of tuition.
“We’ve got the COAM [Coin-Operated Amusement] Machines and the lottery drawings producing more than $4 billion [a year] in revenue, and it’s not able to completely fund the HOPE scholarship anymore,” said state Sen. Brandon Beach, R-Alpharetta, who has been the legislature’s leading champion of horse racing. “We’re going to have to find different revenue sources.”
Other lawmakers are advocating other uses for the state’s share of legalized gambling proceeds.
Rep. Alan Powell, R-Hartwell, chairman of the House Regulated Industries Committee said he’d like to put the revenue generated by casinos in Georgia toward “the No.-1 hole in the [state] budget: health care.”
House Democrats have expressed an interest in setting aside a portion of the state’s share of gambling proceeds for low-income families that can’t afford to cover the funding gap the 2011 cuts to the HOPE Scholarship opened up in the program, or for a new scholarship program to help young Georgians pay off their student loans.
Besides the financial argument, supporters of legalized gambling also argue that illegal gambling is generating billions of dollars in Georgia without the state seeing any benefit.
“All we’re going to do is capture the tax,” Stephens said.
“It’s time to bring it out of the darkness and into the light,” Linville added.
But Sen. Bill Cowsert, R-Athens, chairman of the Senate Regulated Industries and Utilities Committee, said competition for Georgians’ limited entertainment dollars from legalized sports betting, casinos or horse racing could hurt the lottery program’s revenues.
Lawmakers also should consider how casinos, racetracks and/or online sports betting available at the fingertips might affect problem gamblers and their families, he said.
“We need to make certain we educate the gamblers what the risks are … and do something to make sure they don’t hurt themselves,” Cowsert said.
The 2021 version of the legalized gambling debate should kick off early. Backers of all three options – sports betting, casinos and horse racing – say they plan to pre-file legislation during the first week of January. The 2021 session begins Jan. 11.
ATLANTA – First-time unemployment claims increased in Georgia last week as the state Department of Labor began working to implement the new economic stimulus package Congress passed this week.
Initial unemployment claims totaled 26,673 last week, up 2,971 from the work before, the labor department reported Thursday.
Meanwhile, Commissioner of Labor Mark Butler warned that fully implementing the provisions of the new bill will be slow going, and that’s if President Donald Trump even signs it into law. Trump is threatening to veto it because it includes $600 weekly stimulus checks for Americans rather than the $2,000 checks he supports.
“Some of the provisions included in the bill should be able to be implemented fairly quickly,” Butler said Thursday. “However, most of the new additions in the bill are going to take a substantial amount of time due to their very complicated nature.
“These new enhancements could take months of system development to implement along with the other changes that we will have to program.”
If the president does not sign the bill, all federal unemployment insurance programs created last March as part of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act will end on New Year’s Eve. The last week payable ends on Dec. 26 for individual-filed claims and on Dec. 30 for employer-filed claims.
If Trump does sign the legislation, federal guidelines must be established by the U.S. Department of Labor before states can determine the timeline for delivering the benefits to Georgians. The guidelines are not expected before the first of the year.
Even before the uncertainty over the new stimulus bill, unemployed Georgians have been complaining over delays in processing claims under the current system, with the labor department overwhelmed with an unprecedented number of claims sparked by the pandemic’s impact on the economy.
“We’re seeing incredible delays with making determinations on claims,” Lisa Krisher, director of advocacy for Georgia Legal Services, said this week during a hearing held by the state House Democratic Caucus’ Subcommittee on COVID-19. “You can’t get anyone on the phone at the labor department to explain what’s going on.”
Krisher said the online appointment scheduling system the labor department set up during the fall has helped some, but claimants still are having a hard time getting answers when their claims are delayed or denied.
Since the pandemic exploded in Georgia last March, the labor agency has paid out more than $16.6 billion in state and federal unemployment benefits to nearly 4.2 million Georgians, more than the last nine years combined.
During the week ending Dec. 18, the job sector accounting for the most initial unemployment claims in Georgia was accommodation and food services with 6,941 claims. The administrative and support services sector was next with 2,880 claims, followed closely by manufacturing with 2,481.
More than 161,000 jobs are listed online at EmployGeorgia.com for Georgians to access. The labor department offers online resources for finding a job, building a resume, and assisting with other reemployment needs.
Clockwise: Jon Ossoff, U.S. Sen. David Perdue, Rev. Raphael Warnock and U.S. Sen. Kelly Loeffler are competing for Georgia’s two Senate seats in the runoff elections on Jan. 5, 2021. (Photos by Beau Evans)
Georgia’s U.S. senators wishing for a Christmas runoff gift may have gotten a lump of coal heading into the holiday break instead after plans for political back-patting for a newly passed COVID-19 relief package were demolished.
President Donald Trump is calling for increasing the stimulus checks in the legislation to $2,000 per American rather than the $600 included in the relief bill, handing the two Democratic contenders in the Senate runoff elections new ammunition to blast the Republican incumbents over their response to the pandemic.
“Georgia families can’t wait: $2,000 checks should be passed now,” said Rev. Raphael Warnock, the Democratic senior pastor of Atlanta’s Ebenezer Baptist church, who is running against Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler.
“$600 is a joke,” said Jon Ossoff, the owner of an investigative journalism company running as a Democrat against Republican Sen. David Perdue.
The remarks came after Trump called the $600 stimulus checks “a disgrace” on Tuesday night, less than a day after Congress passed the $900 billion COVID-19 package, which had been delayed for months as each party blamed the other for hobbling negotiations.
Loeffler, an Atlanta businesswoman, pivoted Wednesday to highlight foreign aid dollars in the COVID-19 bill that Trump and Senate Republicans have criticized, rather than saying outright whether she would support the president’s call for $2,000 stimulus checks.
“I’ll certainly look at supporting it if it repurposes wasteful spending toward that,” Loeffler said at a Cobb County rally.
Amid the COVID-19 debate this week, her campaign’s allies attacked Warnock over police body-camera footage showing an altercation between him and his ex-wife, who claimed Warnock drove over her foot with a car during an argument. Warnock insists he did not actually run over his ex-wife’s foot.
Perdue has not said yet whether he supports increasing the stimulus checks. His campaign released a new television ad Tuesday praising the COVID-19 relief package and criticizing Ossoff for not backing it.
Before Trump’s comments, both Republican campaigns hailed the package passed this week as a victory, touting its extension of small-business loans, emergency funding for schools and an additional $300 a week in federal unemployment benefits.
“We will continue to take historic action to protect and rebuild our communities from this unprecedented crisis and we will not stop fighting for the people of Georgia,” Perdue and Loeffler said in a joint statement.
Congress won’t be back in session until next week after a move by House Democrats to power through the $2,000 stimulus checks on Thursday was blocked. Trump has not yet signed the COVID-19 relief package with the $600 checks that Congress sent to his desk on Monday.
Meanwhile, Trump has also vetoed a defense spending package over a move to rename military bases named after Confederate figures. Perdue and Loeffler had backed the defense bill, prompting pressure from Democrats to override the veto despite the Republicans’ staunch support for Trump.
Georgia Democratic leaders quickly seized on Trump’s intra-party curveballs to blast Loeffler and Perdue as the heated runoff races for their seats head down the final campaign stretch to the Jan. 5 election.
“$2,000 is literally the difference between people paying their bills right now, being put out on the street, or eating right now,” said U.S. Rep.-elect Nikema Williams of Atlanta, who currently chairs the Democratic Party of Georgia.
Wins by both Ossoff and Warnock would hand Democrats control of both chambers of Congress and the White House for at least the next two years, following President-elect Joe Biden’s victory over Trump in last month’s presidential election. A win by either Republican incumbent would block that scenario.
The three-week early voting period for the Jan. 5 runoffs began last week.
