ATLANTA – Georgia health-care workers and nursing home residents will start receiving immunizations against COVID-19 this week as the state Department of Public Health gets its first shipments of a vaccine produced by Pfizer.
The first shipment of 5,850 doses arrived Monday at two locations in Coastal Georgia equipped with ultracold freezers required for storage and temperature control of the vaccine. Additional shipments are expected later this week at facilities in other parts of the state.
“Hopefully, this is the beginning of the end of this pandemic,” Christy Norman, vice president of pharmacy services at Emory Healthcare, said Monday during a news briefing.
The Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control during the weekend issued an emergency use authorization for the Pfizer vaccine, the first to emerge from the U.S. pipeline targeting coronavirus. A second vaccine produced by Moderna is expected to receive federal approval for distribution this week.
“This is really exciting for us,” said Dr. Marybeth Sexton, an assistant professor of medicine and epidemiologist at Emory. “We’re going to have access to a vaccine that looks in initial clinical studies to be highly effective.”
Approval of vaccines to combat COVID-19 is being sped through what usually is a lengthy process by the Trump administration’s Operation Warp Speed because of the pressing nature of the pandemic, as cases of COVID-19 diagnoses, hospitalizations and deaths continue surging across the country.
As of Sunday, 476,044 had been diagnosed with coronavirus, and 9,205 had died from the virus.
But Sexton said the rush to get the vaccines into American arms did not compromise safety. The technology behind the vaccines was thoroughly tested in clinical trials before the pandemic began, she said.
“The researchers were able to use lessons learned,” she said.
Sexton said Americans should not be concerned about the side effects accompanying the vaccines, including soreness in the arm, fatigue or a slight fever.
“These are not serious, life-threatening or dangerous,” she said.
Sexton said health-care workers will be in the first group to get the shots because of concerns that the surge in coronavirus hospitalizations is straining the health-care workforce.
“Even if they have a mild case [of COVID-19], they’re out of work 10 days,” she said. “We’ve got a real concern for staff to take care of patients.”
Sexton said the prioritizing of health-care workers for vaccinations includes not just doctors and nurses but custodians, transporters and other hospital workers.
“All of these people are considered health-care workers and are prioritized,” she said.
The other group getting top priority to receive the vaccines – residents of nursing homes and other elderly-care facilities – will be served through a partnership the CDC has set up with CVS and Walgreens.
Sexton said the next group to receive vaccinations after health-care workers and residents of elderly-care facilities probably will be essential workers who must leave their homes despite the pandemic, such as grocery store employees and delivery truck drivers. Another group that will receive high priority are seniors and Georgians suffering from chronic illnesses that leave them vulnerable to the virus, she said.
While many Americans have expressed reservations about getting the shots out of safety concerns, Sexton said the number of willing participants is going up, probably due to the impact of the surge in cases.
Medical experts have said achieving “herd immunity” against COVID-19 – the threshold for making further spread of the virus unlikely – is getting 60% to 70% of the U.S. population vaccinated.
President Donald Trump lost a major ruling Friday when the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a lawsuit filed by Texas challenging the Nov 3 election results in Georgia. and three other states. (White House video)
ATLANTA – The U.S. Supreme Court early Friday evening rejected a lawsuit filed by the state of Texas seeking to invalidate the presidential election results in Georgia and three other states.
In an unsigned order, the justices ruled that Texas lacks the legal standing to challenge the outcome of the Nov. 3 voting in Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, handing President Donald Trump a major defeat.
“Texas has not demonstrated a judicially cognizable interest in the matter in which another state conducts its elections,” the court ruled.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Republican and Trump ally, filed the suit earlier this week seeking to block the Electoral College from electing the next president on Monday. It claimed irregularities during the Nov. 3 election in all four states made it impossible to determine which candidate won.
President-elect Joe Biden has been certified the victor in the four states. The Democrat was determined to have carried Georgia by 11,779 votes following two recounts.
Seventeen GOP attorneys general declared their support for the lawsuit earlier this week. They were joined by Georgia’s two Republican U.S. senators, David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler, and by six of Georgia’s GOP House members: U.S. Reps Buddy Carter, Drew Ferguson, Austin Scott, Jody Hice, Rick Allen and Barry Loudermilk.
“This isn’t hard and it isn’t partisan. It’s American,” Perdue and Loeffler said in a joint statement on Tuesday. “No one should ever have to question the integrity of our elections system and the credibility of its outcomes.”
But Georgia’s Republican Attorney General, Chris Carr, dismissed the lawsuit earlier this week as “constitutionally, legally and factually wrong.”
Appearing on CNN Friday shortly before the ruling was announced, Lieutenant Governor Geoff Duncan said the lawsuit went against Republican philosophy.
“As a Republican, one of our standards is states rights,” he said. “To watch another state try to reach into our state and three other states is concerning and, long term, would have even bigger ramifications if carried through.”
Friday’s ruling opens the way for Georgia’s 16 presidential electors, all Democrats, to cast their ballots for Biden. The group will meet at noon Monday at the state Capitol.
ATLANTA – The Georgia Public Service Commission is scheduled to vote Tuesday to set parameters on legislation the General Assembly passed this year aimed at expanding broadband service in rural Georgia.
But electric membership cooperatives (EMCs) and telecom providers aren’t waiting. From the North Georgia mountains to the Florida line, they’re already making progress on rural broadband projects across the state.
“Internet access is one of the most important things that impacts us in rural Georgia,” state Sen. Steve Gooch, R-Dahlonega, said Dec. 2 at the joint announcement of a partnership between Amicalola EMC and Ellijay Telephone Co. to extend broadband service to customers in four North Georgia counties.
“If you don’t have internet access, you can’t reach out across the world as a small business and do the kind of things that other people do who are in bigger cities,” he said.
The Amicalola EMC-Ellijay Telephone partnership isn’t the only rural Georgia broadband project to move forward this month. On Dec. 3, Comcast announced it had completed an expansion of broadband to more than 2,500 homes and businesses in Haralson County.
For the EMCs, the green light came last year when the General Assembly passed legislation sponsored by Gooch that for the first time authorized EMCs to provide broadband service to their customers.
Since then, besides the Amicalola EMC project, Carroll EMC and Colquitt EMC have announced broadband projects in their areas of the state.
LaGrange-based Diverse Power became the first EMC after the passage of Gooch’s Senate Bill 2 to delve into broadband last March when it announced plans to run 150 miles of fiber-optic cable to serve 600 customers in five rural counties in Southwest Georgia.
Those three will join Blue Ridge EMC and Habersham EMC, which started offering broadband several years ago, even though the legal authority to do so prior to Senate Bill 2 was unclear.
Historically, bringing broadband service to rural Georgia has been a difficult proposition for the EMCs.
“When you get down into these rural areas, there’s just not many people, maybe five to six people per mile or, in our case, meters,” said Dennis Chastain, president and CEO of Georgia EMC, the trade association for local EMCs representing about 4.4 million Georgians. “If there’s not that many people there, it’s hard to cover the cost of building the line.”
That was certainly the case when Moultrie-based Colquitt EMC began considering providing broadband to customers in its largely rural seven-county service territory, said Danny Nichols, the EMC’s president and CEO.
“We recognized early on we couldn’t go into the broadband business on our own. The math doesn’t work,” he said. “But we couldn’t play ostrich and put our heads in the sand.”
What changed this year was the coronavirus pandemic, which made getting high-speed internet connectivity into rural communities even more critical. Suddenly, companies were forced to rely on virtual meetings to conduct business and schools had to resort to distance learning.
“A lot of our children today are having to do online classes,” Gooch said. “They’re not allowed to go back to the classrooms because of the pandemic.”
With broadband service more vital than ever, Colquitt EMC began looking for a partner that could make broadband doable. It found one in Windstream, a telecom provider serving mostly rural areas in 18 states.
Working together, Colquitt EMC and Windstream have completed their first project, bringing broadband service to 320 customers, and are about to launch a second.
Rather than making funding investments, the partners have cut a deal that doesn’t involve money, Nichols said.
“We make the pole line ready at no cost, let [Windstream] attach to the poles at no cost and use our in-house labor to install the cable on our poles,” he said.
But most broadband projects do require sources of funding. In the case of the Amicalola EMC-Ellijay Telephone agreement, the EMC is investing $6.5 million to $7 million initially for 220 miles of new fiber and up to $25 million when the project is fully built out, said Todd Payne, Amicalola’s president and CEO.
The phone company’s ultimate investment could top $15 million, said Jason Smith, Ellijay Telephone’s chief operating officer.
“This is a partnership that should be replicated across the state,” he said.
Over in West Georgia, Comcast’s completion of service to Haralson County announced this month will be followed in January by an extension of broadband to an additional 5,000 customers in Carroll County. The telecom provider’s total investment in the two counties is nearly $9 million.
Fortunately for other EMCs and telecom companies interested in pursuing broadband projects, a new source of federal funding was announced last Monday.
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is allocating $9.2 billion during the next 10 years through the first phase of its Rural Digital Opportunity Fund, which will bring broadband to unserved rural communities in 49 states. Georgia’s share of the money – $326.5 million – will serve 179,455 homes and businesses, according to the FCC.
Chastain said the federal funds will certainly help, but removing the “digital divide” that separates rural Georgia communities from their urban and suburban counterparts will continue to be a challenge that no one model will solve going forward.
“There’s not one size that fits all. There’s no silver bullet,” he said. “Great partnerships are the type of thing that’s going to move the needle.”
ATLANTA – A state Senate study committee created to examine Georgia’s coin-operated amusement machines (COAM) business has wrapped up its work with some recommendations but no specific legislative proposals.
In a final report released this week, the senators endorsed the possibility of awarding gift cards to game winners as a way to discourage cash prizes, which are illegal under state law.
The Georgia Lottery Corp., which oversees the COAM industry, has launched a pilot project that will test the gift cards concept at 100 to 300 locations across the state, primarily convenience stores and restaurants.
Lottery officials like the idea but haven’t committed to it yet because the four-to-six month pilot project hasn’t been completed, Gretchen Corbin, the lottery’s president and CEO, told members of the study committee Thursday.
“Everyone we speak to hopes that it works,” she said.
The report also suggested increasing the revenue the state derives from COAM proceeds but doesn’t recommend how to accomplish that goal.
Options include either increasing the state’s share of the revenue pie from the current 10% or growing the revenue itself by increasing the number of locations with COAM games.
The COAM industry has taken off since the lottery corporation assumed jurisdiction over the machines in 2013.
Georgians spent more than $3 billion during the last fiscal year playing COAM games. After players redeemed prizes valued at $2.1 billion, that left more than $900 million in net revenue for COAM license holders, the businesses housing the games and the state to divide.
ATLANTA – A Polk County grand jury has indicted state Rep. Trey Kelley for reckless conduct for his alleged involvement in the aftermath of a fatal hit-and-run traffic accident last year, Polk Today reported Thursday.
The driver of the vehicle, Ryan Dover, was charged with felony hit and run and reckless conduct in the September 2019 crash in Cedartown that killed Eric Keais.
Keais was riding a bicycle along North Main Street in Cedartown when he was stuck by Dover’s vehicle, according to Polk District Attorney Jack Browning.
Dover did not immediately stop and contact law enforcement and emergency medical services, as required by law, but instead contacted Kelley, R-Cedartown, who then sought help from Cedartown Police Chief Jamie Newsome.
As Keais lay in a ditch on the side of the road in need of emergency medical attention, law enforcement and emergency medical services were not contacted until about 45 minutes after the incident, according to the district attorney. Keais later died of his injuries.
The case was brought before the grand jury because the Georgia State Patrol, which investigated the crash, did not make any arrests, Browning said.
“Over the course of two days, the grand jurors heard a substantial amount of testimonial and video evidence from law enforcement officers and the GBI medical examiner, as well as several witness interview recordings from those involved in, and with direct knowledge of, the incident,” Browning said.
Lester Tate, Kelley’s lawyer, said he plans to present facts that will show his client’s innocence.
“I have not yet had an opportunity to review the actual charges, but I am well aware of facts surrounding the case,” Tate said. “I believe strongly once those facts come to light that they will show that Mr. Kelley did nothing wrong in the situation.”
Kelley was elected to the Georgia House of Representatives in 2012 and serves as majority whip. He was re-elected to the post last month, winning 78.1% of the vote.
