Coronavirus has sickened hundreds of thousands people and killed thousands more in Georgia. (Image: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)
Georgia officials combatting the COVID-19 pandemic on Tuesday outlined what stumbles and successes they’ve had that will prepare them for future viral outbreaks as the state gears up to distribute a coronavirus vaccine.
Testing programs, hospital coordination and business partnerships that have been bolstered since March should help officials roll out vaccine doses “very shortly in the next several weeks,” Dr. Kathleen Toomey, Georgia’s public-health commissioner, told state lawmakers at a conference in Athens.
The first vaccine rounds will go to health-care workers as well as staff and residents in long-term elderly care facilities, after which older Georgians with health issues and first responders are next in line, Toomey said. Widespread availability is expected by summer 2021.
“I can assure you that no matter where you live in Georgia, you will have access to this vaccine,” Toomey said.
Toomey spoke with other state agency heads at the three-day Biennial Institute for Georgia Legislators, held every two years at the University of Georgia for newly elected and returning members of the General Assembly to talk policy and procedure ahead of the legislative session that starts in mid-January.
Public schools are also rebounding after the virus sent Georgia’s roughly 2 million students home for months of online classes in March. Around 30% of the state’s K-12 students are still taking classes virtually as most districts resume in-person learning, said State School Superintendent Richard Woods.
The biggest challenge for schools statewide has been to keep up student performance during virtual learning and to send out WiFi signals on school buses and buildings to reach the estimated 80,000 households in Georgia that lack stable internet access, Woods said.
“We worked to close that gap but know it remains a challenge for k-12 and beyond,” Woods said. “It is not only an educational opportunity that we need to fill, but it is also an economic opportunity for our districts as well.”
Georgia is also better equipped to handle future outbreaks after boosting its stockpile of protective gear and practicing how to quickly add extra intensive-care beds via mobile “pods” and at the Georgia World Congress Center, said Georgia Emergency Management Director James Stallings.
“The ship was on fire, so we all became firemen,” said Stallings, who’s been on the job since September after former Emergency Management Director Homer Bryson retired.
That preparation has bolstered confidence Georgia can weather another spike in the number of positive COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations currently happening amid the winter holiday season, said Frank Berry, commissioner of the state Department of Community Health.
“While we are certainly seeing an increase in the number of beds being used … we feel comfortable and confident that we’ll be able to meet the need moving forward,” Berry said on Tuesday.
The biennial conference, which drew many prominent Georgia lawmakers and elected officials including Gov. Brian Kemp, Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan and House Speaker David Ralston, R-Blue Ridge, also featured panels on rural issues, potential revenue opportunities from legalized gambling, tax breaks and election integrity.
Gov. Brian Kemp doubled down on his refusal to call an election-focused special session and pledged to address Georgia’s election issues in the upcoming legislative session during a conference with state lawmakers on Monday.
Kemp is facing intense criticism from President Donald Trump and his allies for not intervening in Georgia’s presidential election, which certified results show Trump lost to President-elect Joe Biden by 11,779 votes.
Some Republican lawmakers are pressuring Kemp to call a special session before next month to pick Electoral College members who will vote for Trump instead of Biden, despite the certified results from the Nov. 3 general election.
Speaking before state lawmakers Monday in Athens, Kemp said state law prevents him from calling a session to choose different Electoral College members. It only lets lawmakers pick the presidential electors if the election could not be held on its scheduled date, he said.
Instead, Kemp said he wants lawmakers to focus on crafting legislation aimed at bolstering the state’s voter ID laws in the regular legislative session that starts in mid-January.
“I am confident that when the legislature reconvenes in January, we will have ample time to address any issues that have come to the attention of the members of the General Assembly, my office [and] the public over the last few weeks,” Kemp said.
The three-day Biennial Institute for Georgia Legislators is held every two years at the University of Georgia in Athens and convenes General Assembly members to talk policy and procedure ahead of next month’s regular session.
In a luncheon speech, the governor highlighted successful bills his administration backed in the most recent legislative session on foster care, criminal gangs, human trafficking, health care and hate crimes.
That legislation came as Georgia confronted the COVID-19 pandemic, which shuttered businesses and forced students to take virtual classes from home in March.
“Each of these are great achievements and worthy of celebrating,” Kemp said. “But make no mistake: This is no time to rest on our laurels or take our eye off the ball.”
Kemp said his administration’s approach to seeking balance between public health and economic interests “has shown promising signs of success,” despite an increase in positive COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations in recent weeks that health experts expect to worsen during the winter holidays.
The governor said he is working with nursing homes and hospitals to help boost short-handed staff as part of $250 million in emergency funds the state plans to spend on staff augmentation.
The biennial conference, which has drawn many prominent Georgia lawmakers and elected officials including Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan and House Speaker David Ralston, R-Blue Ridge, also featured panels Monday on rural issues, gambling opportunities and tax breaks.
This story previously stated President-elect Biden won Georgia by 11,784 votes. The correct margin is 11,779 votes.
ATLANTA – Efforts to foster economic development and improve health care in rural Georgia are starting to pay off, a panel of business and academic leaders said Monday.
A public-private partnership launched last summer has begun pilot projects aimed at helping unemployed rural residents start their own companies, Barbara Rivera Holmes, president and CEO of the Albany Chamber of Commerce, said at the 32nd Biennial Institute for Georgia Legislators, an event held every two years in Athens to familiarize newly elected state lawmakers with issues they’re likely to face in the General Assembly.
The Partnership for Inclusive Innovation is an offshoot of a task force of political, business and academic leaders Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan formed last winter to spearhead efforts to make Georgia the technology capital of the East Coast.
The Start It Up Georgia pilot project was launched in August to help would-be entrepreneurs learn how to start and operate a sustainable business. The 12-week program put 43 mentors together with 350 program participants, said Holmes, a member of Duncan’s task force.
“They took people who were unemployed or underemployed and gave them a pathway to entrepreneurship,” she said. “It’s already shown its success.”
Holmes said a pilot project to spur investment in housing is underway in Albany, and five cities including Augusta are starting a third pilot.
Dr. Jean Sumner, dean at the Mercer University School of Medicine, praised the General Assembly for passing legislation that will help improve the quality of health care in rural Georgia. Her list included a tax credit that is raising money for rural hospitals, changes to the state’s Certificate of Need law aimed at fostering competition among health-care facilities in rural communities and a bill requiring greater transparency in financial disclosures by the state’s non-profit hospitals.
Sumner said Mercer is working with the Medical College of Georgia in Augusta and Macon-based Navicent Health Inc. on a pilot project that will send medical residents to counties that lack maternity services once or twice a month.
“We lead the nation in maternal mortality,” she said. “It’s not the hospitals. [Rural] women do not have pre-delivery care.”
Sumner said a lot more needs to be done to improve the quality of rural health care. For one thing, she said, 10 of the U.S. counties with the highest death rates from coronavirus are in Georgia: Hancock, Randolph, Terrell and Early.
“These are communities of color,” Sumner said. “The reason death rates are so high is chronic disease. We have to change that.”
President Donald Trump slammed Georgia’s election system in a speech at the White House on Nov. 5, 2020. (White House video)
Georgia’s 2020 presidential election results are set to be certified again after a federal judge in Atlanta dismissed a major lawsuit Monday that sought to overturn the results and declare President Donald Trump the winner.
Judge Timothy Batten of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia ruled that the suit by attorney Sidney Powell was filed too late and sought “perhaps the most extraordinary relief ever sought in any federal court in connection with an election.”
“This, I am unwilling to do,” Batten said.
Monday’s ruling came after Gov. Brian Kemp on Sunday refused a request from some Republican state lawmakers to call a special session to let the General Assembly pick Georgia’s Electoral College members, which the governor said state law does not permit him to do.
Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger plans to certify the results later Monday showing President-elect Joe Biden beat President Donald Trump in Georgia by about 12,000 votes – the second time a statewide recount has proved Biden to be the winner since the Nov. 3 general election.
Powell, a Texas attorney and staunch Trump supporter, filed suit to de-certify Georgia’s election results and block the state’s 16 Electoral College members from voting for Biden. Her suit focused on alleged issues with Georgia’s voting machines and the process for verifying signatures on mail-in ballots.
Defense attorneys for Raffensperger and the Democratic Party of Georgia, which intervened in the case, argued Powell’s claims lacked evidence beyond speculation from election-worker witnesses and flawed analysis from experts who filed sworn affidavits.
Similar claims have been lodged in a suit by Trump-allied attorney Lin Wood, which was dismissed in the U.S. District Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit on Saturday. A separate lawsuit brought by the Trump campaign and the Georgia Republican Party is pending in Fulton County Superior Court.
State election officials have repeatedly disputed the many fraud claims spread by Trump, who held a rally in Valdosta on Saturday in which he called the election “rigged” and listed a series of allegations that so far have not been proven in court.
Raffensperger, a Republican whom Trump has called an “enemy of the people,” again on Monday said his office has found no evidence of widespread election fraud and urged the president and his allies to ease off their divisive language.
“Continuing to make debunked claims of a stolen election is hurting our state,” Raffensperger said at a news conference. “The president has his due-process rights and those are available to him. It’s time we all focus on the future and growth.”
Raffensperger’s office will soon have help from state investigators with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation to help clear more than 250 open cases of specific fraud claims that have been lodged so far throughout this year. Officials have said those cases will likely not uncover any widespread fraud.
Kemp, like Raffensperger, has faced intense pressure from Trump and his allies to scrap the election results and order an audit of voter signatures made on envelopes for the roughly 1.3 million absentee ballots cast in the Nov. 3 election. Officials have said such an audit is unlikely without a court order.
The governor has joined Raffensperger in calling for legislation to bolster Georgia’s voter ID laws in the upcoming legislative session starting next month, while resisting demands he order a special session before then aimed at giving state lawmakers power to empanel Electoral College members.
“Any attempt by the legislature to retroactively change that process for the Nov. 3 election would be unconstitutional and immediately enjoined by the courts, resulting in a long legal dispute and no short-term resolution,” Kemp said in a joint statement with Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan on Sunday.
Electoral College members from all 50 states and the District of Columbia are scheduled to formally cast votes for president and vice president on Dec. 14. The electors’ vote count will be finalized on Jan. 6.
Democrat Rev. Raphael Warnock (left) and Republican U.S. Sen. Kelly Loeffler (right) are campaigning to win a runoff election on Jan. 5, 2021. (Photos by Beau Evans)
U.S. Sen. Kelly Loeffler and her Democratic challenger, Rev. Raphael Warnock, squared off on stock trades, police support and election integrity in a debate Sunday night ahead of the Jan. 5 runoff election.
Hours earlier, Democratic candidate Jon Ossoff, who owns an investigative journalism company, debated by himself Sunday after incumbent U.S. Sen. David Perdue declined to participate, saying two debates with Ossoff before Nov. 3 election were enough.
Victories for both Warnock and Ossoff would give Democrats control of Congress and the White House following President-elect Joe Biden’s win over President Donald Trump last month – though Trump has refused to concede as he continues promoting claims of election fraud.
The importance of Georgia’s Senate runoffs for American government took center stage Sunday night, as Loeffler warned Democratic control of Washington, D.C., could spur radical policies while Warnock urged his opponent to stop entertaining Trump’s divisive actions.
While Ossoff stood alone for his Atlanta Press Club debate, Loeffler and Warnock took turns lobbing attacks at each other and playing defense in a race that has drawn hundreds of millions of dollars in spending for television ads, social-media outreach and get-out-the-vote efforts.
Loeffler, a wealthy Atlanta businesswoman, batted down allegations she profited from insider information on the risks of COVID-19 before the pandemic took hold in March to make controversial stock trades, saying federal investigators found no evidence of wrongdoing.
“I’ve been completely exonerated,” Loeffler said. “Those are lies perpetrated by the left-wing media and Democrats to distract from their radical agenda.”
Warnock, who is the senior pastor of Atlanta’s Ebenezer Baptist Church, has been bashed in attack ads for his past comments criticizing bad-actor police officers whom he described as having a “thug mentality,” as well as his past support for the firebrand Rev. Jeremiah Wright.
Following his campaign’s strategy, Warnock on Sunday dismissed attacks from Loeffler and her GOP allies as distractions aimed at stirring emotions in voters rather than engaging in policy discussions.
“It’s clear to me that my opponent is going to work really hard spending millions of dollars of her own money trying to push a narrative about me,” Warnock said. “She’s clearly decided that she does not have a case to be made for why she should stay in that seat.”
Warnock has largely focused his campaign on bolstering health care amid the COVID-19 pandemic and strengthening the Affordable Care Act. He slammed legislation Loeffler has sponsored on health insurance, arguing it includes loopholes for insurers to deny coverage to people with pre-existing conditions.
“She knows that junk health-care plan show rolled out has a loophole in it big enough to drive a Mack truck through,” Warnock said on Sunday. “She can’t explain that, and so she’s trying to misrepresent my record.”
Loeffler has previously dismissed criticism her health-care plan, insisting it would cover pre-existing conditions despite questions over legal loopholes.
On Sunday, she repeatedly called Warnock a “radical liberal” and criticized his stances on criminal justice reform, particularly for reducing prison populations.
“He doesn’t care about safety and security in any community,” Loeffler said. “I’m fighting to make sure we have the resources to keep our communities safe and our police departments well-funded and well-trained.”
Warnock has backed creating a federal body to probe officer use-of-force misconduct and opposed calls to defund police agencies, despite repeated claims from Loeffler to the contrary. He said Sunday that Loeffler was exaggerating his stances on criminal justice reform to suit her campaign’s attack strategy.
“The land of the free is the mass-incarceration capitol of the world,” Warnock said. “People on both sides of the aisle know our criminal justice system needs reform.”
Loeffler and Perdue are both threading the needle between supporting Trump’s quest to reverse his election loss and rallying Republican voters in Georgia who have lost faith in the state’s election system to turn out on Jan. 5.
Loeffler several times on Sunday declined to pick sides in the spat between Trump, whose steadfast supporters she is seeking to court, and Gov. Brian Kemp, who appointed Loeffler in January following former U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson’s retirement due to health issues.
“My loyalties are with Georgia,” Loeffler said.
Amid Republican in-fighting, Warnock and Ossoff are angling to portray the two wealthy senators as out-of-touch with average Georgians as they push to keep up voter momentum following Biden’s win in Georgia, which was the first time a Democratic presidential candidate has won the state since 1992.
Ossoff, facing an empty podium, spent much of his one-sided debate Sunday night highlighting Perdue’s absence. He called the Republican senator “arrogant” and accused him of benefiting from insider trading via controversial stock trades early in the COVID-19 pandemic – allegations Perdue has denied.
“Senator Perdue, I suppose, doesn’t feel that he can handle himself in debate or perhaps is concerned that he may incriminate himself in debate,” Ossoff said. “Both of which, in my opinion which are disqualifying for a U.S. Senator seeking reelection.”
Ossoff also reiterated many of his campaign stances including following strict advice from health experts to curb the pandemic’s spread, expanding emergency COVID-19 business loans with more safeguards against corporate abuse and investing in clean-energy jobs and technology.
Perdue, like Loeffler, has stressed federal investigators found no evidence he made illegal stock trades shortly after a closed-door briefing for senators on COVID-19 in January, which Perdue’s campaign says he did not attend. He has also dismissed news reports on alleged close ties with companies he regulates as a member of several Senate committees.
Perdue has sought to cast Ossoff as too extreme for conservatives, noting a Hong Kong media company’s past purchase of one of his films. His campaign panned Ossoff’s solo debate appearance on Sunday as “an epic failure” largely for giving few details on how he would boost COVID-19 relief.
“These are serious times and Jon Ossoff just showed how unserious – and unprepared – he really is,” said Ben Fry, Perdue’s campaign manager. “Georgians will reject Jon Ossoff once again next month.”
Early voting for the Senate runoff elections starts Dec. 14. The deadline for Georgia voters to register for the runoffs is Dec. 7.
This story has been updated to clarify Sen. Perdue’s campaign has stated he did not attend the closed-door briefing on COVID-19 in January.
