Coronavirus has sickened thousands of people in Georgia and killed hundreds. (Image: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)
Gov. Brian Kemp urged Georgians Thursday to have patience with public health officials amid reports over questionable data-keeping methods for positive cases of coronavirus in the state.
The governor’s request came as the state Department of Public Health acknowledged in local news reports that it is combining test results for viral and antibody testing, which health experts worry could skew data trends that guide the state’s response and economic recovery.
At a news conference Thursday, Kemp said public health officials have been “working at breakneck speed” to collect testing data and organize the results in practical ways. That has led to some slip-ups in the way testing data has been presented on the agency’s website in recent weeks.
“We’re not perfect,” Kemp said. “We’ve made mistakes [and] when we do that, we’ll own that, change it and make sure people are aware of that.”
“Please afford them some patience and steer clear of personal attacks,” the governor added.
Meanwhile, the number of people hospitalized for coronavirus has fallen sharply over the past several weeks to below 1,000 patients this week, marking a promising sign the virus may be slowing.
That trend comes as state officials are sending out more personal protective equipment to hospitals, creating a training program for disinfecting elderly care facilities and boosting staff for Georgia’s new contact-tracing program.
As of 1 p.m. Thursday, more than 40,000 people in Georgia had tested positive for COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel strain of coronavirus that sparked a global pandemic. It had killed 1,754 Georgians.
For the last several weeks, Kemp has touted testing data that shows a declining trend in the number of people who have tested positive for coronavirus compared to those whose results were negative.
Mass testing to confirm whether a person has contracted coronavirus is critical for health officials to pinpoint where new outbreaks may be cropping up, as many people begin resuming aspects of their normal lives following Kemp’s May 1 decision to end the state’s mandatory shelter-in-place order.
But state health officials acknowledged this week that antibody test results are being grouped in with the total number of test results, according to multiple news outlets. Antibody testing is meant to find signs that a person may have contracted coronavirus in the past, not whether that person is currently infected like viral testing does. Lumping those antibody results with viral testing could make the state’s infection rate appear lower than it actually is.
Dr. Kathleen Toomey, the state’s public health commissioner, said Thursday the agency is instituting checks to avoid future data errors as well as ways to improve the layout for its website, where the public has access to the data.
She also emphasized the tough task health officials have in collecting huge amounts of data each day from a variety of sources like private doctors and local hospitals.
“This is an unprecedented ask of surveillance to be this agile and expand this quickly,” Toomey said. “We’re working diligently.”
Toomey also stressed that officials are considering many different types of data and pieces of information, not just positive test results.
“A website or data here or there should not be the holy grail,” Toomey said. “It’s just one piece, one tool that we use.”
One new source of data being used by health officials to contain the virus is contact tracing, which tracks the interactions a person infected with coronavirus has had with other people.
Toomey said about 500 contact tracers have been hired so far, with another 500 tracers on track to be hired by mid-June. To date, those tracers have conducted interviews with more than 3,300 coronavirus-infected persons and identified more than 9,000 people with whom they interacted.
She said whether people agree to meet and share information with contact tracers will make the difference in the state’s ability to fight the disease into the future.
“It is the cooperation of the community that will make this effect, not how many people we have on board,” Toomey said.
Georgia may need to dip deep in its reserve fund to balance the budget during the remaining month and a half in the state’s fiscal year amid huge revenue shortfalls prompted by coronavirus, the state’s chief economist said Wednesday.
Between $1 billion and $1.5 billion in reserves may be needed to plug the gap in the fiscal 2020 budget, close to half of the $2.7 billion total in Georgia’s “rainy-day” reserve fund, said State Economist Jeffrey Dorfman.
Speaking with state lawmakers Wednesday, Dorfman cautioned that it’s still early in the ballgame to say precisely how much emergency reserve spending may be necessary. The state last month saw a drop in revenue of nearly $1 billion compared to April 2019, and that shortfall is expected to plunge further in the coming months.
“We expect that we’re sort of near the bottom now,” Dorfman said. “But it will take a little while for us to get back to normal.”
With many businesses now reopening, Dorfman said sales tax collections should rebound back close to normal by later this fall. But the first three months of the 2021 fiscal year, starting July 1, could see a brutal 10% drop in revenues, he added.
Dorfman also said the state is likely short about $1.35 billion in income tax receipts delayed until July 15 due to coronavirus. Those revenues should be recouped once collections roll in after the delayed filing deadline, he said.
Members of the Georgia House and Senate Appropriations committees met jointly Wednesday in their second online meeting since the 2020 legislative session was suspended in mid-March as concerns mounted over coronavirus.
Their top priority upon resuming the session in about a month is to pass a dramatically reshaped budget for the 2021 fiscal year, before the June 30 deadline to do so.
Already, top budget-writing lawmakers have asked state agencies to start preparing for 14% cuts across the board in next year’s budget, with revenue forecasters expecting a decline of between $3 billion and $4 billion in tax collections in the coming months. Those cuts will almost certainly lead to scaled-back services and furloughs for teachers, social workers and more.
On Wednesday, House Appropriations Committee Chairman Terry England, R-Auburn, said the agency cuts will be stiff but that Georgia will bounce back.
“It’s going be a little bit different and still be a little bit difficult for a little bit,” England said. “But we’re going to get through it.”
In-person legislative meetings are scheduled to resume next month ahead of an expected mid-June resumption of the 2020 session. Leaders in the state House and Senate still need to agree on whether they will reconvene on June 11 or June 15.
Coronavirus has killed hundreds of people in Georgia and sickened thousands more. (Image: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)
Gov. Brian Kemp announced Tuesday he plans to extend mandatory statewide closures for bars and nightclubs in Georgia amid ongoing concerns over coronavirus, which to date has killed nearly 1,500 people in the state and sickened thousands more.
But the governor will allow summer day camps to open and relax some restrictions on restaurants in the coming days, as state health officials continue seeing downward trends in hospital admissions, ventilator use and infection rates tied to COVID-19.
The update comes less than two weeks after Kemp decided to let Georgia’s shelter-in-place order expire for all residents in the state, except for persons who are age 65 and older, living in long-term elderly care facilities or with chronic health conditions. Those individuals are still under a shelter-in-place order set to last through June 12.
On Tuesday, the governor again urged everyone in Georgia to seek diagnostic testing for coronavirus to improve the state’s data collection, which has seen a big boost in recent weeks following an increase in testing. He noted the rate of positive COVID-19 test results compared to negative results is declining daily, marking a slowdown in the spread of the virus – but that Georgians should not get complacent.
“We’re in a good place,” Kemp said Tuesday. “We just want to keep these numbers moving in the right direction.”
As of 4 p.m. Tuesday, more than 34,700 people in Georgia had tested positive for COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel strain of coronavirus that sparked a global pandemic. It had killed 1,465 Georgians.
At a news conference late Tuesday, Kemp said he has issued a new executive order requiring bars, nightclubs and live-performance venues to remain closed through the end of May. He also said existing social-distancing and sanitizing requirements at many close-contact businesses will stay in place through the rest of this month.
Restaurants, however, will be allowed to serve a maximum of 10 patrons per table instead of six, as had been required over the past several weeks. They will also be able to serve 10 patrons per 300 square feet, Kemp said.
Also, summer day camps will be allowed to open starting Thursday if they can meet 32 different sanitizing and social distancing rules, Kemp said. Overnight camps will remain prohibited for the time being.
State government employees at some agencies will start reporting back for in-person work next week, Kemp said. The General Assembly is also set to resume the 2020 legislative session on June 11, Georgia House Speaker David Ralston confirmed in a memo Tuesday.
Testing is still key to quickly identifying local COVID-19 outbreaks as businesses reopen, along with the state’s new contact-tracing program tasked with identifying all persons who interact with an infected individual.
On Tuesday, Kemp said the state has hired almost 250 contact-tracing staff and has launched an online monitoring tool for persons who test positive for COVID-19, so that they can confidentially tell officials who else they came into contact with recently to assist contact-tracing efforts.
In a new development, the governor also announced federal officials have sent Georgia its first shipment of the treatment drug remdesivir, which has been authorized for emergency use to help infected patients recover from coronavirus.
Dr. Kathleen Toomey, the state’s public health commissioner, said officials are still discussing how to best distribute the drug but that priority will be given to hospitals in areas that have seen COVID-19 outbreaks or flare-ups.
Toomey added that despite the recent encouraging data trends, Georgians need to continue keeping their distance from each other and wearing masks in public to reduce the chances for future outbreaks.
“We can ensure that our state is safe as long as everyone continues to take responsibility for themselves, their families and their communities as we continue to move forward,” Toomey said.
ATLANTA – Georgia lawmakers due to reconvene the 2020 legislative session next month face a daunting task: plugging a projected budget shortfall of $3 billion to $4 billion inflicted by the coronavirus pandemic.
“It’s a different world than it was three or four months ago,” said state Rep. Terry England, R-Auburn, chairman of the House Appropriations Committee. “Nothing’s going to be easy.”
England’s committee and its Georgia Senate counterpart began meeting online this week to start looking for ways to meet a target of 14% across-the-board state agency spending cuts, which the Governor’s Office of Planning and Budget ordered up May 1 in a joint memo also signed by England and Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Blake Tillery, R-Vidalia.
In deciding on that percentage, lawmakers and state officials looked at several studies but particularly at a report released last month by Moody’s Analytics, which predicted Georgia’s revenue shortfall could range between roughly 12% to 15% depending on the severity of the economic downturn.
During a meeting Thursday, legislative budget writers got their first look at just how much Georgia’s economy is reeling. They were greeted with the dismal news that state tax revenues fell by more than $1 billion last month compared to April of last year.
With those numbers actually reflecting taxes collected in March, when the pandemic was just starting to affect Georgia, lawmakers were told worse is yet to come.
The only silver lining in the scenario is that the $27.5 billion fiscal 2020 mid-year budget adjustment the General Assembly adopted in March already incorporates 4% spending reductions Gov. Brian Kemp ordered for state agencies last summer, when revenues were showing slow growth for reasons other than COVID-19.
Still, lawmakers returning from a nearly two-month break brought on by the pandemic will have to find about $1 billion to address the looming shortfall in tax revenues through June 30.
England said he expects much of that money will come by drawing down the state’s reserves, now a healthy $2.8 billion.
Saving for a rainy day
In fact, Georgia is among several states that likely has enough in its “rainy day” reserve fund to keep the budget afloat along with “relatively limited amounts of spending cuts or revenue increases,” the Moody’s report notes.
But state lawmakers may not dip too deep into the reserve fund again this year after already approving Kemp’s request in March to pull $100 million from the fund for the coronavirus response.
Tillery said he expects lawmakers may look at using some reserves to plug shortfalls for the current fiscal year, which runs through June. But beyond that is up in the air.
“It’s going to be difficult,” Tillery said. “We’ll have to make hard decisions and sometimes deadlines are quite the catalyst for hard decisions.”
There is precedent, however, for significantly raiding Georgia’s reserves in times of economic downturn. The rainy-day fund was shrunk to just $116 million to make up for losses of tax revenue during the Great Recession a decade ago and to less than that during a recession that hit the state in the early 2000s.
“In a perfect world, you don’t go that deep,” England said. “[But] at this point, you’ve got to go with the hand you’re dealt.”
England pointed out that Georgia never lost its AAA credit rating from Moody’s and other bonding agencies despite thinning out the reserves, a practice the bond market tends to look upon unfavorably.
Hoping for help
After addressing the mid-year fiscal 2020 shortfall, lawmakers will have to deal with the heavy lifting of the fiscal 2021 budget, which takes effect July 1.
While some of the spending reductions will come through such obvious steps as freezing vacant positions and furloughing employees, budget writers will have to get creative to achieve the deep cuts necessary to fill the huge shortfall.
England said one possibility that has emerged from the pandemic is letting some state employees keep working from home and save costs on office space after the all-clear is given to return to work.
“This teleworking thing has worked out pretty good,” he said. “Productivity is actually up in some areas and folks are happier because they’re not having to drive an hour to work.”
But no matter how innovative lawmakers approach cutting the budget, spending reductions alone won’t get the job done. England and Tillery conceded as much this week when they sent a letter asking members of Georgia’s congressional delegation to release $500 billion to help Georgia and other states prop up their coronavirus-ravaged budgets.
Georgia already is set to benefit from billions of dollars in federal relief, part of a $150 billion package for state and local governments inside a $2.2 trillion economic-stimulus bill Congress passed in late March. But those funds for now can only be used for specific purposes like public schools and costs to curb the virus’ spread – not to bolster state budgets.
The outlook for the additional federal funds is far from certain. President Donald Trump has said he won’t sign another economic-stimulus bill without a payroll tax cut, a step U.S. House Democrats don’t support.
Taxes to the rescue?
Absent a federal bailout, the General Assembly likely will be pushed to raise some taxes as an alternative to relying completely on spending cuts to plug the shortfall.
The legislature passed and Kemp signed a bill in January to collect taxes on online purchases made through such “marketplace facilitators” as Amazon and Google. That should raise as much as $15 million per month in additional tax collections, said State Economist Jeffrey Dorfman.
But lawmakers must look at more revenue-raising alternatives, said Danny Kanso, a policy analyst for the Atlanta-based Georgia Budget and Policy Institute.
“State leaders should do everything in their power to avoid making devastating cuts that would be likely to disproportionately hurt public schools and higher education – and possibly weaken Georgia’s already stretched-thin health care system,” he said. “Lawmakers should approve common-sense options to raise revenues, such as lifting the tobacco tax to the national average and closing special-interest loopholes that cause the state to forego billions of dollars every year.”
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Hufstetler, R-Rome, said those options will be on the table when the legislature reconvenes under the Gold Dome.
“We’re looking really at all the tax credits and potential revenue sources to see what we can do, even if it’s items that would sunset in a couple of years that could help out on the revenue side,” Hufstetler said.
“I think there’s the potential to maybe not eliminate credits but maybe tailor them in a way that really helps Georgia, not so much people outside of Georgia,” he added.
Tobacco targeted
The American Cancer Society’s Cancer Action Network is calling for raising Georgia’s tax on cigarettes from 37 cents per pack, third lowest in the nation, to $1.87. That would generate more than $425 million a year in state tax revenue.
“Today’s pandemic has placed a heightened awareness on the need for strong public health infrastructure,” said Andy Freeman, the organization’s government relations director in Georgia.
“Increasing our state’s alarmingly low cigarette tax … would place us at a significant advantage in our [COVID-19] response plan and benefit the health of thousands of Georgians long after the pandemic passes.”
But Rep. Brett Harrell, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, said such a huge increase in the cigarette tax would unfairly single out one product.
Harrell, R-Snellville, supports raising the tax to 62 cents per pack, which would make Georgia’s cigarette tax comparable to what surrounding states charge. That would generate about $50 million a year, he said.
“I’m willing to move legislation out of our committee that would raise taxes,” he said. “[But] I don’t think it’s right to zing the hell out of a product nobody likes. That’s not sound policy.”
Coronavirus has sickened thousands in Georgia and killed hundreds. (Image: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)
Gov. Brian Kemp announced Thursday that anyone in Georgia can be tested for coronavirus after expanding the criteria beyond only those with symptoms, health-care workers, the elderly and the chronically ill.
Shortages in testing supplies like nasal swabs and diagnostic kits had previously forced state health officials to limit tests to groups most at risk of contracting the virus.
But help from universities, corporations and the federal government has boosted the state’s testing capacity in recent weeks ahead of a push for contact tracing to head off local outbreaks before they start, the governor said at a news conference Thursday.
“Let’s build on this momentum in the days and weeks to come,” Kemp said.
As of late Thursday afternoon, around 31,000 people in Georgia had tested positive for COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel strain of coronavirus that sparked a global pandemic. It had killed 1,340 Georgians.
Testing is a critical part of the push to curb the virus’ spread now that previously shuttered businesses have started reopening in Georgia and the state’s shelter-in-place order has largely been lifted.
Around 110,000 tests were done in Georgia in last two weeks, said the state’s public health commissioner, Dr. Kathleen Toomey. That accounts for more than half of the total roughly 217,000 tests take through Thursday afternoon.
Identifying positive cases quickly will allow health officials to implement contact tracing, a meticulous process that identifies the web of interactions that an infected person has with others.
Toomey said Thursday the state has brought on about 550 workers and students to perform contact-tracing tasks, marking about half of the full 1,000 tracers that are needed.
“We want to be able to identify everyone in the community who may be infected, whether symptomatic or not, so that we can ensure we can stop that spread,” Toomey said.
As the outbreak in hard-hit Albany starts to ease, health officials are now turning their attention to the Gainesville area in Hall County where an outbreak affecting poultry workers in the Latino community is occurring.
Georgia Insurance Commissioner John King, who was born in Mexico and is bilingual, said Thursday he is working with local Hall County leaders to broadcast Spanish-language messages on social distancing and protective measures to the community.
“This task force will focus on communicating with them in their own language,” King said.
Beyond the Gainesville area, elderly care facilities continue to be a top priority for health officials and members of the Georgia National Guard, which has been busy disinfecting the state’s 790 long-term care facilities over the past month.
Kemp said Thursday elderly residents in those facilities have accounted for more than half of all deaths in Georgia caused by the virus to date.
Meanwhile, the federal government is poised to send 210,000 test swabs to Georgia in weekly shipments throughout May, said the state’s emergency management director, Homer Bryson.
The governor also touted efforts by companies like CVS and Walmart to set up testing sites, as well as a screening app run by Augusta University to connect patients with doctors via online video feeds.
So far, more than 14,400 people have been screened on the app and 8,300 referred for testing, said Augusta University President Brooks Keel.
Also Thursday, the governor batted down concerns over some forecast models indicating Georgia could see a spike in positive cases and deaths from coronavirus, following his decision last week to start lifting mandatory statewide business and social restrictions.
“I think it’s important for Georgians not to get scared or panicked because someone has a new model that says something,” Kemp said.
Kemp stressed health officials are seeing a steady decrease in the percentage of positive COVID-19 cases compared to testing amounts, indicating the rate of infection appears to be slowing. He urged Georgians to keep wearing masks in public and to avoid large gatherings.
The governor also highlighted the dire economic downturn spurred by business closures and stay-at-home habits, which has sent tax revenues plummeting and prompted the need for deep cuts in the state’s $27 billion budget.
“We must fight for both the public and economic health of our state,” Kemp said.
Georgia’s chief economist told lawmakers Thursday that a return to normalcy is needed to soften the blow to the state’s $27 billion budget, which is set for deep cuts amid coronavirus-prompted closures.
That assessment was one of several that budget-writing state lawmakers got Thursday in a sobering overview of the sharp drop in tax revenues poised drive the General Assembly’s upcoming budget negotiations.
Whether Georgia bounces back enough to soften the budgetary blow will depend on how confident consumers feel to venture out of their homes to shop and return to work, Jeffrey Dorfman, the state economist, told lawmakers Thursday.
“It’s all going to depend on consumers and when we feel safe,” Dorfman said. “When we choose to [return to] normal is what’s going to matter.”
Revenues from income, sales and other taxes in Georgia were down almost $1 billion for the month of April compared to April of last year, as both mandatory and voluntary actions taken to curb the virus’ spread saw businesses close and people stay put in their homes.
Lawmakers now face the need to make steep spending cuts, press for federal relief and pull from Georgia’s emergency reserves to balance the budget.
Some measures have eased the pain from coronavirus like a boost in online retail sales and purchases of alcohol by home-bound Georgians. But a spike in unemployment claims, plummeting of sales taxes on hotel stays and general merchandise, and the delayed deadline to file state income taxes have combined to put Georgia in a serious financial bind.
“You’re going to see some crazy economic numbers in the news over the next couple of months,” Dorfman said Thursday.
Members of the Georgia House and Senate Appropriations committees met jointly Thursday in an online meeting for the first time in the coronavirus era. They plan to hold another virtual meeting next Wednesday before convening in person later this month, ahead of a June 30 deadline to pass the 2021 fiscal year budget.
Lawmakers have already asked state agencies to start preparing for 14% cuts across the board in next year’s budget, with revenue forecasters expecting a decline of between $3 and $4 billion in tax collections in the coming months. Those cuts will almost certainly lead to scaled-back services and furloughs for teachers, social workers and more.
“We understand that times are tough for y’all and for us,” said House Appropriations Committee Chairman Terry England, R-Auburn. “We appreciate and take very seriously our roles here and what we’re trying to do and to be good stewards of taxpayer dollars.”
Dorfman, the state economist, told lawmakers Thursday the full impacts of the crisis are tough to predict since the only comparable historical event was the Spanish Flu of 1918, for which he said there is not much useful data.
Instead, lawmakers should plan to see a continuing downward trend in revenues through at least this month in sales taxes and for much longer when it comes to corporate tax collections, with businesses poised for months of diminished profits, Dorfman said.
“We don’t really have a good idea based on history of how this is going to go,” Dorfman said. “Hopefully, in the weeks and months to come, we’ll get a better idea as we experience this together.”
The worst economic data is expected to come after Memorial Day (May 25) when officials will learn how bad tax collections were during Georgia’s mandatory shelter-in-place period last month, said Kelly Farr, director of the state Office of Planning and Budget.
Speaking at Thursday’s meeting, Farr credited lawmakers for carrying out the bulk of 4% cuts that Gov. Brian Kemp ordered earlier this year for the current state budget, before coronavirus was ever an issue. But the shortfall will likely force officials to tap into the state’s roughly $2.8 billion reserve fund to float the fiscal 2020 budget until July 1, Farr said.
“We basically start spending out of the rainy day fund to make up for the lack of revenue,” Farr said Thursday.
Appropriations chiefs urged calm and courage as lawmakers hash out the budget. Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Blake Tillery, who assumed the role following the death of former budget guru Sen. Jack Hill last month, said Georgia’s budget experts have already set to figuring out solutions.
“We’re in a time that’s going to require a lot of us to pull together and work together,” said Tillery, R-Vidalia.
