Coronavirus cases have been confirmed in Georgia. (Image: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)
ATLANTA – Coronavirus has come to Georgia.
Gov. Brian Kemp and state health
officials confirmed the first cases of coronavirus in Georgia late Monday
night. Two people in Fulton County contracted the virus after one of them
traveled to Italy.
The virus was contracted by a man
traveling from Milan, Italy, returning via Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta
International Airport. Both individuals with the virus are quarantined with
relatives in their shared home.
Georgia Public Health Commissioner
Kathleen Toomey said the man consulted a doctor in “a matter of days” after
returning, when he developed symptoms.
His lab testing started Saturday, and
results confirming the presence of COVID-19 returned late Monday night, Toomey
said.
Toomey said she expects there will be
more confirmed cases but that state and local health officials are prepared to
treat them.
“We knew that Georgia would likely have
confirmed cases of COVID-19 and we planned for it,” Toomey said in a statement.
“The immediate risk of COVID-19 to the general public, however, remains low at
this time.”
Dozens of cases and a handful of deaths
traced to the new flu-like virus have been confirmed in several states in
recent weeks. The first two cases in Georgia came days after Kemp tasked a
group of specialists including Toomey, State Epidemiologist Cherie Drenzek and
public safety officials with handling virus prevention and response activities.
State Sen. Ben Watson, R-Savannah, a
doctor who chairs the Senate Health and Human Services Committee, said last
week an official quarantine area for coronavirus has been established at an
undisclosed location in the state.
Toomey spoke with Kemp at a hastily
called 10 p.m. news conference Monday night to disclose some details of the two
cases – but declined to elaborate on the travel itinerary of the infected man
who visited Italy.
She noted the infected person’s symptoms
did not appear until after he arrived back from Milan. The virus is thought to
spread largely by “respiratory droplets” from when someone coughs or sneezes
after symptoms are present, according to the federal Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention.
Symptoms appear within 14 days of
contraction and include fever, coughing and shortness of breath. Health
officials stress for people to wash their hands, cover their mouths when
sneezing or coughing and avoid sick persons when possible.
Heath officials also urge anyone with
those symptoms to stay home and call a doctor if they have traveled or been
around anyone who recently traveled to China, Italy, South Korea, Hong Kong or
Iran.
Kemp, in his statement, expressed
confidence state officials are ready to handle more confirmed cases of
coronavirus as outbreaks continue in other countries and, now, potentially in
the U.S.
“Already, state health officials have
established contact with these individuals to gather more information, monitor
their condition, and determine any exposure,” Kemp said. “They are confident
that our efforts to prepare for this moment have enabled us to manage these
cases appropriately and minimize any risks moving forward.”
ATLANTA – Georgia lawmakers advanced legislation Monday to cap interest rates charged by the state’s auto-title pawn industry that consumer advocates claim trap low-income families with unfair lending practices.
Title pawns proliferated in the state
following a crackdown more than a decade ago on traditional payday lending, in
which cash-strapped individuals with poor credit take out small loans at high
interest rates.
With title pawns, a person’s vehicle is
used as collateral for a loan without the need for a credit check. The loans
carry high interest rates, at times in the triple digits, and can cost
borrowers their vehicles plus the balance of any unpaid debt upon default.
While traditional payday loans are
capped, state law continues treating auto-title loans like pawn shops that do
not face limits on interest rates. Critics say the practice allows lending
companies to profit from low-income borrowers unable to pay off the loan’s
principal and at risk of having their cars repossessed.
Senate Bill 329 would cap interest rates at the same amount – roughly 60% – as other small loans are regulated in Georgia. It would also set stricter terms for refinancing loans and set limits on how much money a lender could collect on default.
The bill originally capped rates at 36%
but its sponsor, Sen. Randy Robertson, removed that lower limit just ahead of a
hearing in the Senate Finance Committee on Monday.
Robertson, R-Cataula, said the rate cap
aims to protect Georgia families stuck in debt cycles and help them potentially
“become a part of the mainstream banking community.”
The bill aims to help struggling Georgia
families avoid getting stuck in the type of debt cycles that can motivate
desperate people to commit crimes.
“Generations to come would not be trapped
in the financial world where you have to borrow a little bit of money at an
exorbitant interest rate,” Robertson said Monday.
The bill passed out of the committee
Monday by a 5-4 vote, with a tie-breaking vote cast by committee Chairman Chuck
Hufstetler, R-Rome. The bill now heads to the full Senate.
Consumer-protection advocates hail the
measure as a deterrent to predatorial lending. Stephanie Cockfield, the finance
education director for the nonprofit The Ark in Athens, said last month her
group has long helped people refinance their title loans after struggling for
years to pay them off.
“There just is no way out of it unless
you can pay in full,” Cockfield said. “You can literally be in this loan until
you die, and the balance will be the exact same as when you first took out the
loan.”
Representatives from title lending
companies, including Savannah-based TitleMax, said last month that an interest
rate cap like Robertson’s bill proposes could put them out of business.
Hundreds of title pawns closed shop in
California after that state passed legislation capping interest rates recently,
said Carrie Carbone, chief legal officer for TitleMax’s parent company, TMX
Finance. Without title pawns, people in a financial pinch have fewer legal
options to pay off monthly bills and other expenses, she said.
“It clearly is designed to kill the title
pawn industry,” Carbone said.
Sen. Nan Orrock, D-Atlanta, said raising
the rate cap from 36% to roughly 60% should keep title-loan companies from
going out of business.
“They’ll be in business,” Orrock said
Monday. “That’s just as clear as the nose on your face.”
Speaking after the hearing, Robertson
said he opted to reduce the rate cap amid pushback from the title loan industry
and concerns the measure might not otherwise pass out of committee.
He said the slightly higher rate would
bring parity to title loans and other small-sum lending instruments in the
state.
“This lines it up with everything else,”
Robertson said.
ATLANTA – Georgia’s lucrative tax incentives for movie and television productions could soon expand to homegrown music recordings and international broadcasts of the 2026 World Cup as part of a bill that cleared a House committee on Monday.
The proposed additions to the state’s film tax credit are part of a measure meant to tighten oversight of a program that relieves production companies of having to pay billions of dollars annually in taxes.
House Bill 1037, by Rep. Matt Dollar, R-Marietta, would require all film productions located in Georgia to undergo mandatory audits by the Georgia Department of Revenue or third-party auditors picked by the state agency.
It would also tighten rules for how film
companies could transfer or sell unused tax credits to other businesses, a
common practice for production groups that conduct part of their movie-making
work outside Georgia.
The measure passed out of the House
Creative Arts and Entertainment Working Group on Monday along with a pair of
amendments broadening the tax credit’s scope.
One addition to Dollar’s legislation
would allow music written, recorded and promoted by Georgians that was used in
a film to qualify for the credit.
That proposal was brought by Rep. Beth
Moore, an entertainment attorney who said the change would benefit local
musicians who currently do not receive all the proceeds from licensing fees
film companies pay to use their music.
“Right now, Georgia productions are not
incentivized to source the music in their productions from Georgia,” said
Moore, D-Peachtree Corners. “They are expending money on music licensing, but
that money may be going to artists, record labels and song writers either in
other states or even in other countries.”
Another, more contentious amendment to
the bill would let broadcasts of major sporting events expected to reel in $50
million for Georgia qualify for the film credit – but only for events held in
2026.
That limitation is aimed specifically at
wooing soccer’s international governing body, FIFA, which is poised to decide
which U.S. cities will host soccer matches for the World Cup in 2026.
A tax credit that could draw thousands of
television broadcasters and journalists to a single location might persuade
FIFA officials to pick Atlanta as a host city for several soccer matches when
the U.S. hosts the massive soccer tournament, said Marshall Guest, a senior
vice president with the Metro Atlanta Chamber.
“It’s tough to put a dollar figure on,”
Guest told lawmakers at a hearing on the bill last Friday. “But it’s incredibly
impactful and one that would move Georgia forward like the Olympics did (in
1996).”
The chance to cash in on a huge sporting
event persuaded Dollar to keep the amendment despite pushback from some
lawmakers wary over adding more groups to the tax credit program in a bill meant
to tighten the credit.
“I think the easier thing would have been
to take it out,” Dollar said. “But I do think that was a worthwhile thing for
the state of Georgia to pursue aggressively.”
Dollar’s legislation comes on the heels of back-to-back state audits that slammed the $4-billion program as too loosely monitored. Supporters of the credit point out it still brings huge economic impacts to the state despite the management shortcomings.
“We need some tweaks and fixes,” said
Steve Weizenecker, an Atlanta entertainment attorney. “But this system is
working in a good way.”
ATLANTA
– Lawmakers want to hear from voters on how
the Peach State should keep time.
The state Senate
unanimously passed legislation Monday calling for a nonbinding advisory
referendum asking whether Georgia should continue switching back and forth twice
a year between standard time and daylight saving time, observe standard time
all year or go with daylight time all year. An identical bill is before the
Georgia House of Representatives.
The question
of time has become a hot topic around the country. Since 2015, at least 39
states have considered putting an end to the twice-a-year switch, Sen. Ben
Watson, R-Savannah, the Senate measure’s chief sponsor, said during a brief
floor debate Monday.
While most
of those states are considering going with daylight saving time only, several
scientific studies have concluded losing an hour by switching from standard to daylight
time has health consequences, Watson said.
“There’s a
higher risk of heart attacks during the two weeks following the daylight saving
time transition,” he said.
Watson cited
one study by the Association of Psychological Science that found the annual “spring
forward” switch to daylight time even affects the legal system.
“Judges dole
out longer sentences when they’ve been sleep deprived,” he said.
The federal
government seems to have taken a stand in favor of standard time. States that
want to move to daylight time all year must receive congressional approval to
do so, while states wishing to go with year-round standard time can make the
change on their own.
Two states –
Arizona and Hawaii – observe standard time all year.
ATLANTA – The first bills in a legislative package targeting human trafficking in Georgia cleared their floor votes in the state House and Senate on Monday.
Two bills backed by Gov. Brian Kemp would
strip the commercial driver’s licenses of certain convicted human traffickers
and seek to help trafficking victims clean up criminal records they may have.
The governor has made toughening enforcement on human trafficking – as well as on criminal gangs – a high priority for the current legislative session. He previously tapped his wife, first lady Marty Kemp, to head a newly formed state commission to tackle human trafficking.
House Bill 823, by Rep. Houston Gaines,
would impose a lifetime ban on driving a commercial vehicle for persons
convicted of human trafficking-related offenses. The ban would only apply to
people who used commercial vehicles to traffic victims.
Gaines, R-Athens, said from the House
floor Monday that the bill would go a long way toward reversing Georgia’s
status as a state with one of the highest rates of human trafficking in the
nation.
“Together, we must fight back against
those that victimize our state,” he said. The bill passed unanimously and heads
to the Senate.
In the Senate, a measure by Sen. Brian
Strickland that would the legal pain for victims of human trafficking also
passed unanimously. Senate Bill 435 would let victims petition the court to
vacate convictions for crimes committed while they were being trafficked.
Strickland, R-McDonough, who is one of
Kemp’s floor leaders, said the measure would help victims overcome legal
problems that linger after they are no longer being trafficked.
“Victims of human trafficking often find
themselves victims of our criminal justice system as well,” Strickland said.
“This bill will make certain a criminal record doesn’t keep these people from
gainful employment.”
“This will allow so many to move on with
their lives without fear,” added Sen. Zahra Karinshak, D-Duluth.
Beyond legislation, Kemp has asked state
lawmakers to approve more funding for a human trafficking investigative unit
launched last year and housed in the state Attorney General’s office.
Last week, Kemp and Georgia Attorney
General Chris Carr highlighted gains made from a new human trafficking
investigative unit, which since September has helped secure indictments against
four people allegedly involved in human trafficking.
