ATLANTA — Hospitalizations for flu spiked in the last full week of December, resulting in several deaths in Georgia and an urgent call by state health officials.
The Department of Public Health on Monday urged people to get vaccinated amid projections of more infections.
“Flu activity is widespread and severe in Georgia, and cases are likely to increase following the holidays and as Georgians return to work and school,” the agency said in a statement, adding this for people who have no medical conditions preventing vaccination: “the Department of Public Health strongly urges you to take advantage of the health benefits the flu vaccine provides as soon as possible.”
The agency reported more than 500 hospitalizations during the week ending Dec. 27, a more than six-fold increase from the week that ended Dec. 6.
It reported seven deaths in that last full week of December.
The state warnings came as the Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Monday reported influenza cases had increased by a third nationally for the week ending Dec. 27, with deaths up nearly 1% and one pediatric influenza-associated death during the 2025-26 season.
The CDC’s acting director, Jim O’Neill, on Monday, also revised recommendations for pediatric vaccinations, including for flu. The federal government previously recommended annual vaccination for children over six months old, but O’Neill changed that blanket advice slightly, advising medical consultation first.
His memo to other federal agencies Monday said the flu vaccine “should not be recommended for all children,” but it should be available through insurance to those over six months old “through shared-clinical decision making.”
Randy Beall, a building trades advocate, urges the Georgia Public Service Commission to approve an expansion of capacity for Georgia Power at a Dec. 19, 2025 hearing, arguing that the added electrical power would allow more data centers to produce jobs for skilled labor. (Ty Tagami/Capitol Beat)
ATLANTA — Data centers promise to enrich Georgia even as the state is giving them nearly half a billion dollars a year in tax breaks, according to a recent state analysis.
The analysis for the Georgia Department of Audits and Accounts said the state effectively gave away $474 million in the fiscal year that ended in July by exempting data centers from some taxes.
Since 2018, Georgia has waived state and local sales taxes on some construction materials and on computers, servers and related equipment for larger data centers.
The review, released in late December, estimated 63 active data centers in the state, with 35 under construction and another 249 announced, most in greater metro Atlanta.
It said that 70% of the data center construction would have occurred without the tax breaks, meaning the state could have collected most of that half billion and still reaped most of the economic development benefits.
Despite the giveaway, the influx of data centers still produced a net economic gain for the state economy, said the report, produced by the Carl Vinson Institute of Government at the University of Georgia.
Data centers created 28,350 construction-related jobs in 2025, adding $3.4 billion to the state economy, it said. And they created another 5,471 data center operations jobs, for an additional $823 million injection into the state economy.
The centers enhance the value of the land they occupy, swelling local property tax collections. The report illustrated this with observations of four new data centers in metro Atlanta.
The land, on average, was valued at $26 million per complex, but the new servers and electrical equipment added $1.8 billion to the average property’s worth, with the new buildings that housed them adding at least $450 million more.
The total average value for each project approached $2.3 billion, leading to an average of nearly $28 million in annual property tax proceeds per project, the report said.
Tricia Pridemore, an elected member of the Georgia Public Service Commission, extolled the benefit of such local revenue at a hearing last month before she voted in favor of a controversial expansion of electricity generation capacity for Georgia Power.
The monopoly electric utility asked for, and got, approval for a nearly 10-gigawatt expansion, equal to the output of nearly five Hoover Dams. Eighty percent of that output is slated for current and future data centers, according to the report for state auditors.
“We have counties in the South Metro Atlanta area that are planning new school builds with this local revenue,” Pridemore said. “I know of another county that resides along the Chattahoochee River that is going to rebuild aged water infrastructure that they don’t have the tax base to pay for,” she added.
Cheap electricity is a far stronger draw than tax exemptions, the report said.
Companies that are deciding where to build a data center only consider exemptions after short-listing locations based on more important qualities, such as corporate tax rates, commercial real estate prices, the risk of natural disasters, the talent pool, utility and water lines, and proximity to highways, airports and ports, the report said.
But it said low-cost electricity, which accounts for three quarters of a typical data center’s operating costs, is the most important factor: “Electricity is such an essential consideration in the design of a data center that, unlike most commercial projects that are measured in cost per square foot, data center projects are designed and measured in cost per megawatt.”
The Georgia Power expansion faced public opposition in part due to the environmental consequences of burning more fossil fuels, since a significant portion will be new gas-burning plants.
“Methane gas plants release nitrogen dioxide and particulate matter that settle into the air children breathe on playgrounds,” said Rebecca Lesser, an Emory University student who took time from cramming for finals to speak against the proposed Georgia Power expansion at a Public Service Commission hearing last month.
“Methane traps heat 80 times more effectively than carbon dioxide, intensifying heatwaves, storms, and air quality emergencies,” she said. “I’m here because my generation is being asked to inherit the long-term consequences of decisions we didn’t make.”
Georgia Power representatives argued that the company had to expand quickly to meet spiking demand from data centers, which are powering a race for artificial intelligence.
The annual economic forecast by a think tank at UGA’s Terry College of Business predicted last month that data centers will be an economic boon for the state, citing nearly $50 billion in recently announced projects.
Amazon Web Services is investing more than $11 billion for data center facilities in Butts and Douglas counties, with at least 550 new, high-skilled roles projected plus thousands of construction and supply chain jobs, said the 2026 economic outlook by the Selig Center for Economic Growth. Microsoft is planning a $1.8 billion campus in Union City and a $1 billion campus near Rome. A company called T5 Data Centers is planning a $16 billion project in Georgia while another, Atlas Development, has proposed a $17 billion data center campus in Coweta County, which would be one of the largest on the planet.
Still, the Selig Center forecast cautioned that the effect may prove underwhelming.
“Though the economic impact of billions of dollars in capital investment by data centers is undeniable, their long-term employment and induced economic impact may be much smaller than imagined,” it said. “Data centers do create high-paying jobs, but employment numbers are low compared to the vast size of the facilities.”
The primary economic benefit is from the thousands of construction jobs created during the multi-year buildout phase, it said, though it noted that proponents argue those jobs can effectively become long-term as workers move from one project to the next.
Randy Beall, an advocate for building trades workers, said at a Public Service Commission hearing last month that approval of Georgia Power’s expansion would create good jobs.
“Data centers provide necessary jobs to help train the next generation of skilled workers, especially electricians and HVAC technicians,” Beall said. “Data centers operate around the clock and after that build out, they require full-time electrical and HVAC workers on-site to ensure they stay operational. That creates steady high-skilled jobs and helps to build a workforce Georgia will rely on as our economy continues to grow.”
Georgia’s tax incentives are designed to steer data centers to rural areas with more need for economic development, but the auditors’ report said that policy priority has met with mixed success elsewhere because workers in less developed areas typically lack the desired skills.
“Unfortunately,” the auditors’ report said, “research shows that, in most states, only a portion of newly created jobs go to target residents.”
ATLANTA — Big tech has reached so far into the lives of children that some Georgia lawmakers want to push back.
After legal missteps in an effort to restrain the industry, the state Senate got new recommendations this month from a study committee that heard grim stories about the impact of social media and other platforms.
Among those who testified were parents of children who died by suicide after extensive use of social media and experts who spoke of an escalating mental health crisis after the merger of two technologies.
“Smartphones and social media, they take the person who is vulnerable, who is struggling mentally, and further isolate and distance them from real human relationships,” Dr. Stan Sonu, a medical director at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, told the senators at a hearing at the state Capitol in November.
He described a patient who had become withdrawn over the past year, burying his head in TikTok videos. He said the boy had high scores for anxiety, depression and thoughts of self-harm despite a calm demeanor.
Sonu said he initially dismissed the changed behavior, ascribing it to teen angst. Then, the 12-year-old disclosed what had been bothering him: other boys had made him watch sex videos in the school cafeteria, bullying him afterward because of his discomfort.
Sonu said the boy had been using social media to self-medicate.
“Social media is, and I don’t say this lightly, it is legalized digital heroin,” Sonu told the senators. “By leveraging neuroscience to grab a hold of our attention, it promotes this powerful illusion that your real-life problems can be pushed aside.”
The committee is picking up the pieces after the tech industry torpedoed the General Assembly’s last attempt to rein in social media.
The Protecting Georgia’s Children on Social Media Act sailed into law with broad bipartisan support last year, but an advocacy group for tech companies sued.
A federal judge for the Northern District of Georgia ruled in June that the plaintiff was likely to prevail on claims that the law violated the First Amendment’s speech protections. She issued a preliminary injunction against enforcement.
The law required social media companies to make “commercially reasonable efforts” to verify users’ age, and it mandated parent consent for those under 16. It also banned advertising to children.
It had been a priority for Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, a Republican who is now running for governor.
Jones authorized the bipartisan committee — co-led by a Democrat and a Republican — that issued new legislative recommendations in late December.
The committee proposed a prohibition on addictive platform design, stricter data privacy and making artificial intelligence platforms subject to product liability laws.
The committee also backed measures to empower parents, such as a proposal that social media companies secure parent consent before letting minors access their platforms. But that would require age verification by everyone, like the mandate that prompted the federal judge to sideline last year’s law on the grounds that it was a “severe burden” on adults to require them to prove their age.
The committee also recommended expanding on a measure that will go into effect next fall: a prohibition on student use of personal digital devices in public elementary and middle schools. The committee recommended extending the ban to high schools.
ATLANTA — The federal government will give Georgia nearly $219 million to bolster health care in 126 rural counties, under a program established by President Donald Trump’s signature budget reconciliation bill passed in July.
The distribution, announced Monday, is part of a $10 billion allotment to the 50 states during the federal fiscal year that began in October, with another $40 billion to be divvied among them in equal installments during the following four fiscal years.
Half of the money is being distributed equally, meaning less populous states will get more per person. The other half is being split based on a variety of factors, including rural population, the proportion of rural health facilities and “the situation of certain hospitals” in each state, according to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS).
Georgia got more than all neighboring states, with the seventh largest sum nationally — $333,000 ahead of Nebraska and $3 million behind Kansas. Texas got the most money at over $281 million.
Georgia’s application by the Department of Community Health targeted 126 of the state’s 159 counties, excluding the Atlanta metro area and other populous regions, such as Athens, Dalton, Macon, Rome, Savannah and Valdosta.
The application said the state’s initiative — the Georgia Rural Enhancement and Transformation of Health program — would focus on “root causes” of disease and on “strengthening the continuum of care” in rural areas.
“This funding will help move us forward in strengthening our rural providers while bringing cost-saving innovations to the state’s health system,” Gov. Brian Kemp said in a statement.
The federal Rural Health Transformation program was authorized by Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act. A government description says the money must be used for things like “evidence-based, measurable interventions,” “consumer-facing, technology-driven solutions” for chronic disease, or training for use of “technology-enabled solutions” for delivering care.
Program goals include more “efficiency and sustainability,” encouraging “the growth of innovative care models” and fostering “innovative technologies that promote efficient care.”
The money comes as thousands of Georgians will see a spike in their premiums under the federal Affordable Care Act.
Democrats criticized the One Big Beautiful Bill for its impact on that program and on Medicaid — and on rural health care. U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock visited Evans Memorial Hospital in Claxton in August because, his office said, the hospital had to cut $3.3 million a year due to the budget reconciliation bill. The Georgia Hospital Association warned in a letter to Republican leaders in the U.S. Senate in June that the bill as it was written then would “devastate” rural health care, putting dozens of rural hospitals at risk of closure.
The White House pushed back in a memo about the new funding, blaming presidents Joe Biden and Barack Obama for expanding enrollment in government-funded health care, saying only a fraction of Medicaid spending was reaching rural hospitals as a result.
The memo said CMS would hold states accountable for their use of the new money “to ensure resources are delivered to the most deserving care providers and their patients, not the most politically well-connected.”
ATLANTA — Most new laws from this year’s legislative session took effect in July, but a handful of significant bills become law on New Year’s day.
They address shortages in accounting and dentistry, and they increase homeowner protections. They update campaign finance and vehicle licensing requirements. One adds a new look for car tags.
House Bill 148, The Public Accountancy Act of 2025, was brought by Rep. John Carson, R-Marietta, a certified public accountant trying to address a shortage of accountants. It updates a licensing framework established nearly three decades ago by offering new paths to becoming a certified public account. It also lets accounting firms do some work in Georgia without having an office in the state.
House Bill 551 by Rep. Jason Ridley, R-Chatsworth, updates rules for owning and operating a motor vehicle, adding numerous new requirements around the issuance of temporary operating permits and setting standards for a new electronic system for issuing them. It also lets permitted property owners install an immobilization device on trespassing vehicles rather than just having them towed.
House Bill 567 by Rep. Katie Dempsey, R-Rome, address regional shortages in dentistry, authorizing licensed dentists to practice online, with regulation by the Geogia Board of Dentistry. It also permits coverage of teledentistry by dental benefits plans. “Geography should not be a barrier to dental care,” Kristen Morgan, the Georgia Dental Association executive director, said in May when Gov. Brian Kemp signed the bill into law.
Senate Bill 35 by Sen. Larry Walker, III, R-Perry, gives homeowners more time to prepare for loss of insurance. It doubles the minimum notice period for nonrenewal of certain residential policies to 60 days, from 30.
Senate Bill 112 by Sen. Clint Dixon, R-Buford, requires that manufacturer warranties of residential HVAC systems transfer to home buyers. It also requires that warranties take effect on the date a system is installed by a licensed contractor and prohibits requiring product registration as a condition of warranty.
Senate Bill 199 by Sen. Sam Watson, R-Moultrie, prohibits the State Ethics Commission initiating investigations of candidates within 60 days of their election. It also requires that local elected officials file mandatory financial disclosures with the Commission rather than locally. And it requires that political action committees maintain bank accounts with detailed reporting when they contribute to candidates in the state. It also establishes uniform reporting dates for campaigns for all levels of office and requires redaction of home addresses from any records the Commission makes available to the public.
Last but not least is America First: Senate Bill 291. The act, by Sen. Steve Gooch, R-Dahlonega, establishes a special license plate featuring the American flag and the words “America First.” Funds raised from the sale of this plate will go to the state general fund. Gooch pushed the bill through as Senate majority leader, a post he left after the legislative session to run for lieutenant governor.
