ATLANTA – Both COVID and monkeypox rates are starting to decline in Georgia, the state’s chief science officer said Tuesday during an update to the state Board of Public Health.
“Last week, we saw a 38% decline in [COVID] cases in Georgia,” said Dr. Cherie Drenzek, epidemiologist and chief science officer for the state Department of Public Health (DPH).
“Hospitalizations and deaths have also declined about 20% in the last two weeks,” Drenzek added, noting there are about 120 deaths per week in Georgia now.
Monkeypox infection rates are also starting to decline in Georgia, Drenzek said.
All told, there have been close to 1,600 cases in Georgia, with most of those in metro Atlanta. The majority of the people who have been infected have been men who have sex with men. Only 2% of those infected have been women.
And at least 50% of those diagnosed with monkeypox had also tested positive for a sexually transmitted infection in the last year, Drenzek said.
Dr. Alex Millman, Georgia’s chief medical officer, said the state’s monkeypox vaccine effort has focused on outreach to community groups, pop-up vaccine events, and social media messaging.
Currently, vaccines are administered across Georgia, and people can book appointments online through a DPH website.
The vaccines are indicated for people who have already been exposed to monkeypox or who have a high risk of being exposed, Millman said.
So far, around 22,000 first doses of the two-dose vaccine have been administered to Georgians, he said.
DPH administered more than 4,000 doses during the recent Atlanta Black Pride week, he said.
The DPH board approved a plan to continue meeting virtually each month and hold hybrid in-person/virtual meetings each quarter.
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
ATLANTA – A committee of state senators met on the Georgia Tech campus Tuesday to learn how the state can boost its cybersecurity.
Industry and academic experts described how cyberthreats have evolved over the past decades to the committee chaired by Sen. Jason Anavitarte, R-Dallas.
“It’s our belief we need to leverage every asset that we have,” Anavitarte said, stressing the need for a bipartisan effort. “This cannot be territorial, this cannot be Republican versus Democrat.”
“One single incident can lead to a major disruption in business,” added David Levine, chief information security officer for RICO International, a Stone Mountain-based manufacturer. Levine and other experts said schools, hospitals, transportation and energy supplies are all at risk.
Georgians may recall the attack on the Colonial gas pipeline last year that stymied the flow of fuel on the East Coast or the ransomware attack on the city of Atlanta that gummed up computer operations for months in 2018.
Hackers target governments and businesses through emails and phishing. They can hold data from governments or businesses ransom for large sums of money and even delete essential files, several experts said. Typically, the motivation is money, Levine said.
As the threats have grown, so has the demand for skilled cybersecurity workers.
Georgia Tech founded a School of Cybersecurity and Privacy to help train cybersecurity experts.
The university sponsors advanced research as well as programs for undergraduates who get real-world experience helping governments and businesses fix cybersecurity problems.
Shorter-term training programs are also needed to rapidly grow the workforce, said Curley Henry, vice president and deputy chief information security officer for Georgia Power.
Another challenge is collecting and coordinating information about cybersecurity attacks. Companies understandably do not always want to disclose when they’ve been attacked, said Matt Guinn, a principal research scientist at Georgia Tech.
But a Georgia law that took effect last year requires government entities to report cyberattacks to the state’s Emergency Management and Homeland Security Agency.
“I believe that bill really helped … get in front of a problem once it occurs, rather than playing catch up,” said David Allen, the state’s chief information security officer.
Allen said it’s extremely rare for a cyber attacker to be prosecuted and convicted because the attacks are hard to trace and may involve multiple states or countries. Still, his office works closely with federal agents from the FBI, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, and the Secret Service to investigate attacks.
States like Ohio and Michigan have attempted to improve cybersecurity by creating civilian cybersecurity corps that can provide rapid responses to attacks, Allen said. The legislators appeared to be interested in the idea.
The committee plans to meet next in October.
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
ATLANTA – A Southwest Georgia man has pleaded guilty to drug charges after federal agents discovered a methamphetamine-soaked rug and packages of crystal methamphetamine at the Atlanta airport.
Chad Williamson, 42, of Fitzgerald, pleaded guilty to possession of methamphetamine with intent to distribute in federal court in Albany. He faces a minimum mandatory sentence of 10 years in prison up to a maximum of life behind bars and a $10 million fine.
According to court documents, two packages containing methamphetamine and addressed to Williamson were intercepted by agents from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport. The packages had been shipped from Mexico.
One of the boxes contained a methamphetamine-soaked rug, which can be chemically extracted for use. The packages also contained more than 200 grams of crystal meth.
“The defendant was part of a larger international network using any means necessary to smuggle methamphetamine into Southwest Georgia,” U.S. Attorney Peter D. Leary said Tuesday. “Thankfully, federal agents intercepted this deadly drug before it could hit the streets.”
Agents with the Drug Enforcement Administration raided Williamson’s residence in March of last year after he had removed the SIM card from his cellphone to hide its contents. After Williamson failed a drug test, he was arrested and later admitted that his address was being used for drug deliveries.
The SIM card was located, and a download of the phone revealed an ongoing relationship between Williamson and a drug supply source.
Williamson will be sentenced within 90 days.
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
ATLANTA – August was another in a string of busiest months ever at the Port of Savannah.
The Georgia Ports Authority (GPA) handled a record 575,513 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) of container cargo at Savannah last month, up 18.5% from August of last year.
Counting the July volume, the port posted its fastest time ever for moving 1 million TEUs in a fiscal year.
“Our expanding container trade drives economic development, delivering jobs and opportunities locally and across the state,” authority Executive Director Griff Lynch said Tuesday.
Lynch said growth at the Port of Savannah is being absorbed without adding to the local traffic volume because the recent opening of the final stretch of Jimmy DeLoach Parkway linking the port’s Garden City Terminal with interstates 95 and 16 is improving traffic flow.
Also, the port is relying increasingly on rail to move cargo. Intermodal volumes accounted for nearly 51,700 rail lifts last month, up more than 4,000 lifts over August of last year.
“The investments we have made in our operating infrastructure have been paying off in our ability to handle the sustained influx of business that began two years ago,” said Joel Wooten, the authority’s board chairman.
“Combined with a deeper harbor, our improved rail capabilities and expanded container yard space have allowed GPA to maintain fluid cargo management.”
Business has been so brisk that a backlog of incoming vessels is waiting to call at the port. However, the backlog waiting to enter the Port of Savannah fell from 265,000 containers in July to 223,460 last month.
Lynch said he expects the backlog to shrink further during the next six weeks, while improvements to Container Berth 1 at the Garden City Terminal set for completion next June should provide a permanent solution.
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
A group of community-clinic doctors describes the problems they face to a state House committee on Monday.
ATLANTA – Against the backdrop of hospital closures, state lawmakers Monday considered how to improve health care delivery across Georgia.
The House Governmental Affairs Local Service Delivery Subcommittee meeting – chaired by Rep. Darlene Taylor, R- Thomasville – gave doctors and health-care administrators a chance to explain how the state’s health system works – and where it is falling short.
Local public health departments play an important role in delivering preventive care, said R. Chris Rustin, public health administrator for the Chatham County Health Department.
The 159 county boards of health, which serve 10.8 million Georgians, can provide routine vaccinations and many other basic services, he said.
But different county public health departments have different resources. Rustin compared the robust complement of services offered in Chatham with the nearby – but much smaller – McIntosh County Health Department. Both are part of the same public health district but vary widely in what they can offer.
When it comes to COVID, Chatham County can provide vaccination services five days a week, while McIntosh only offers the service one day a week by appointment, Rustin said.
Earlier in the pandemic, when testing was hard to get, Chatham County provided drive-through testing services six days a week, while McIntosh had much more limited services.
A large public health department like Chatham’s can also offer extras like pediatric primary care, a dental clinic, a travel clinic, HIV care, and a garden to help people on public assistance programs access vegetables.
Rustin said public health departments all face staffing challenges. He said a career in a county health department is rewarding and comes with great benefits but pays below market rate, making staffing a challenge, especially in smaller counties like McIntosh.
Losing just one nurse in McIntosh amounts to losing half of the clinical staff, Rustin said.
No public health department will turn away a patient for lack of money, though the departments typically charge on an income-based sliding scale. They can also bill insurance, Rustin said.
Another important part of Georgia’s health care infrastructure is the federally qualified primary health clinics – or FQHCs.
The doctors who run these clinics said they treat the whole patient and are accessible to everyone, including people on Medicaid, Medicare and private insurance.
Challenges they face include transportation, staffing and providing dental care.
The doctors said rural Georgia communities need emergency services, even if the community cannot support a full hospital. A lack of emergency services puts pressure on both patients and health care providers from the emergency service technicians who respond to 911 calls to doctors in distant hospitals who have to treat patients who have waited a long time for care.
The doctors said they believed Medicaid expansion would benefit Georgia.
“We will figure out how to make it work,” said Dr. Steven Miracle of Georgia Mountains Health Center, who supports the idea.
Hospital administrators also described challenges their facilities face, including staffing and transportation.
Julie Windom, vice president of government relations for Atrium Health, said her company’s two urban hospitals in Macon and Rome are often fully occupied.
The emergency rooms face serious challenges and are almost always full, Windom said.
Although Navicent Macon is the second-largest hospital in Georgia (after Atlanta’s Grady Memorial) with more than 600 beds, it usually has to close 90 to 120 beds a day because of staffing shortages, Windom said.
The company is now building a freestanding emergency room in Chattooga County, she said.
Steve Whatley, former mayor of Cuthbert, said the rural Southwest Georgia community hopes to resurrect the town’s recently shuttered hospital.
The Cuthbert hospital’s closure in 2020 affected the entire community, but the loss of emergency services has been felt especially acutely, Whatley said.
“We have one fully staffed ambulance,” he said. “People have died in our county waiting on our ambulance.”
Randolph County and the surrounding counties need at least a freestanding emergency room, Whatley said. The community will apply for a $25 million federal loan to build an emergency room and five hospital beds to accompany it.
“The loss of the hospital was very hurtful,” Whatley said. “But the biggest loss to us was our emergency room.”
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
