Coronavirus cases have been confirmed in Georgia. (Image: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)
ATLANTA – State health officials stepped up testing for coronavirus in Georgia Thursday following confirmation earlier this week of the state’s first two cases.
Dr. Kathleen Toomey, the state’s public
health commissioner, said the risk remains low for an outbreak in Georgia and
there are no signs now that the virus is spreading within local communities.
But as health officials begin testing
more people arriving in Georgia from other countries, Toomey said she expects
more confirmed cases could surface.
“We expect we will ultimately find more
positive cases,” Toomey said at a news conference Thursday. “The more you test,
the more you find.”
Georgia’s state lab began testing for the virus Thursday, tripling the number of diagnostic tests the state has conducted so far, Toomey said.
She did not give a specific count of how many tests were done before Thursday but said it was a “small number.”
The state now has more than 2,500
diagnostic test kits on hand from the federal government capable of completing
1.5 million individual tests, Kemp said.
Anyone in the state will be able to
receive testing regardless of the status of their health insurance, Toomey
said.
“If you are uninsured, we will provide
the test for free,” she said.
Georgia Public Health Commissioner Kathleen Toomey talks about coronavirus testing at a news conference on March 5, 2020. (Photo by Beau Evans)
Georgia joined a growing list of states this week with
confirmed cases of coronavirus, which is thought to spread largely by
“respiratory droplets” when someone coughs or sneezes after symptoms are
present, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Symptoms appear within 14 days of contraction and include
fever, coughing and shortness of breath.
Two infected Georgians, a father and his son, have been quarantined with family at their home in Fulton County and showed mild symptoms, according to officials.
The father tested positive for the virus after arriving via Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport last week from a trip to Milan, Italy, where the outbreak has infected thousands of cases and led to more than 100 deaths.
Italy is one of a few countries – along
with China, Iran and South Korea – where travel restrictions and screening have
been ramped up at the Atlanta airport in recent days, said Hartsfield-Jackson’s
general manager, John Selden.
The airport, along with federal health
officials, has instituted multi-layered testing for travelers arriving from
China and Iran, Selden said. So far, only one person has been sent to Emory
University Hospital in Atlanta for additional screening, who tested negative
for the virus.
The update Thursday afternoon from state
officials came shortly after Congress approved $8.3 billion in federal funding
for coronavirus control and prevention. The spending package includes money to
develop a vaccine for the as-yet untreatable disease.
It also comes ahead of President Donald
Trump’s scheduled visit to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in
Atlanta on Friday.
Kemp, who last week convened an expert
group to handle coronavirus prevention and response activities, said more than
100 cases have been confirmed in the U.S. to date.
He urged “common-sense practices” like
hand washing, covering one’s mouth when sneezing or coughing and avoiding sick
persons when possible.
“This is still no time for Georgians to
panic,” the governor said.
ATLANTA – Fewer people arrested in Georgia could be released on their own recognizance under bail-reform legislation that cleared the state Senate this week.
Calls have long arisen for Georgia judges
to rely less on issuing signature, or own-recognizance, bonds that do not
require arrested persons to pay a bail amount to be released from jail.
Critics say these bonds too often lead to
people committing other crimes after they were recently let out of jail on
their own recognizance.
But proponents of the practice argue large
bail amounts tend to punish low-income persons arrested for minor offenses like
petty theft or drug use, while wealthier defendants can spend their way free.
Senate Bill 402 would abolish signature bonds and require that any bond that has a set dollar amount would need to be paid in full to secure release.
Arrested persons could still be released on their own, but they would be issued “unsecured judicial release” bonds that do not list a dollar amount.
However, the bill would not permit those
non-monetary bonds to be issued for several felony charges ranging from murder
and rape to drug trafficking, DUI and criminal street gang activity.
The bill’s sponsor, Sen. Randy Robertson,
said judges would still be given discretion to send offenders to treatment and
diversion programs instead of jail.
Judges could also still set very low bail amounts to ease the financial burden on defendants if they wanted, he said.
Robertson, R-Cataula, said his proposal aims to keep violent offenders from being released prematurely from jail and to better reflect how much money – or lack thereof – defendants are actually paying for bail.
“The ongoing misuse of these bonds is
creating an immediate risk to the state of Georgia,” Robertson said from the
Senate floor.
Robertson, a retired major with the
Muscogee County Sheriff’s Department, highlighted the case of 25-year-old Ahmad
Coleman, who was arrested last October for allegedly opening fire near an
Atlanta library, wounding four college students.
At the time, Coleman was out on his own recognizance with a $120,000 signature bond stemming from his arrest months prior for allegedly opening fire at an apartment complex.
The Senate passed the bill on Tuesday by
a 46-8 vote. It now heads to the Georgia House of Representatives.
Opponents of Robertson’s bill worry
expanding the kinds of crimes that would no longer qualify for non-monetary
bonds could hurt lower-level offenders with less means to pay bail.
Zanele Ngubeni, an Atlanta defense attorney who spoke at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing last week, said recognizance bonds have a track record of incentivizing defendants to show up for court hearings. State law is already tough enough to punish those who skip court, she said.
Jill Travis, executive director of the
Georgia Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, warned the bill could
potentially limit how many people would qualify for alternative-sentencing
programs despite Robertson’s assurances.
She called for language changes to make
it clearer that judges could allow defendants to participate in pre-trial
treatment programs.
“There’s no opportunity for pre-trial
involvement anymore on a recognizance,” Travis said last week. “The only way to
do this is using a bonding company, using cash or using property.”
But victims of crimes committed by
offenders out on their own recognizance insist Georgia needs stricter rules on
non-monetary bonds.
Daphne Jordan, an Atlanta resident who
said her sister was shot by a repeat offender, dismissed the argument that
curtailing signature bonds would disproportionately affect poorer people in
jail for small-time offenses.
“When I hear people say [that] people who
commit crimes don’t have the ability to pay for their bonds, then they should
not commit crimes against people who are hard-working individuals who are out
here trying to make a living,” Jordan said.
ATLANTA – The Georgia House passed a measure Thursday requiring hemp farmers and sellers to hold licenses showing they are authorized to possess the non-psychoactive cousin of marijuana.
House Bill 847 follows passage last year of a measure that legalized the growing, processing and transport of hemp. It deals with crucial licensing requirements as well as penalties for carrying hemp without proper documents.
Under the bill, anyone caught with hemp
who does not have a proper license would face the same penalties as for
marijuana possession in Georgia. That could include jail time and fines,
depending on the amount of leafy-green substance being carried.
With a license, hemp farmers and others
in the new industry could cultivate and transport hemp like any other
agricultural product. A late revision to the bill also added college and
university hemp researchers to the list of eligible licensees.
Licenses would require paying the state
Department of Agriculture a permit fee of $25,000 for the first year and
$50,000 for every year thereafter.
The bill, sponsored by Rep. John Corbett,
R-Lake Park, cleared the House by a 159-7 vote. It now heads to the Senate for
final approval.
States have rushed into the hemp business
in recent years to take advantage of its many commercial uses, including the
manufacture of rope, textiles and CBD oil used to treat a variety of illnesses.
But how to distinguish the leafy green
substance from its still-outlawed cousin, marijuana, has tripped up law
enforcement representatives and criminal justice reform advocates concerned
about conducting traffic stops.
Corbett’s bill aims to clear up concerns
over expensive testing of hemp during traffic stops by requiring official paperwork.
With the licensing and enforcement
structure in place, many state lawmakers representing rural parts of Georgia
are hailing the burgeoning industry as a new and potentially lucrative crop for
farmers.
“We are not making decisions for them,”
said House Agriculture and Consumer Affairs Committee Chairman Tom McCall,
R-Elberton. “But we are giving them the opportunity to maybe grow another crop
that they can make a profit on.”
ATLANTA – State lawmakers are mulling whether to broadly expand the statute of limitations in Georgia for people to sue who were sexually abused as children by members of businesses and nonprofit groups like the Catholic Church or Boy Scouts of America.
Since 2015, victims in Georgia have been
able to sue their abusers and organizations that covered up the abuse before
they turn 23 years old or within two years after those victims realized what
they suffered was in fact abuse.
Victim advocates have praised that statute-of-limitation
window as a tool for securing justice for people who repressed memories of
their abuse for decades. But they argue Georgia law is still too limiting.
House Bill 479, dubbed the “Hidden
Predator Act,” would expand the age range and timeframe for many more adults in
Georgia to file lawsuits for sexual abuse they suffered as children.
Supporters say the changes represent a
much-needed legal show of support for victims, while opponents warn it could
unleash a wave of litigation capable of crippling social-benefit groups like
schools and churches.
Sponsored by Rep. Heath Clark, R-Warner
Robins, the bill would let anyone between the ages of 23 and 52 file suit
before July 1 of this year if they were abused as children. It would also
extend the time people have to file suit from two years to four years after
they realized they were abused.
That would give people suffering from
repressed memories and deep trauma more time to understand the effects of abuse
and decide whether to seek litigation as adults, said Emma Hetherington, a
University of Georgia assistant clinical professor who runs the school’s
Wilbanks Child Endangerment and Sexual Exploitation Clinic.
“It’s very akin to a veteran in combat
who suffered post-traumatic stress disorder,” Hetherington said at a House
Judiciary Committee hearing Wednesday.
Most contentiously, the bill would allow
for a one-year window starting this July for victims of any age to sue their
alleged child abusers for abuse that happened at any time.
The one-year window would also apply to
lawsuits filed against employer groups that harbored an abuser or buried
evidence of the abuse – but only for alleged abuse that happened since July 1,
1973.
Other states like New York have recently
passed laws giving victims a limited window to sue for cases dating back
decades ago. Rep. Mary Margaret Oliver, D-Decatur, said Wednesday that Georgia
should follow their lead.
“We’ve got to get in line,” she said. “We
are preventing victims from getting in that line without passing this bill.”
But attorneys concerned about the impacts
of more lawsuits on Georgia argue much of the bill’s language is too broad and
could prompt a rush to the courts.
Mark Behrens, a Washington, D.C.-based corporate defense attorney representing the American Tort Reform Association, highlighted news reports stating the enactment of New York’s statute-of-limitations law change inspired hundreds of lawsuits to be filed in a single day.
“The financial impacts are going to be
enormous in your state,” Behrens said Wednesday.
The Catholic Church especially faces
exposure to lawsuits for abuse that occurred decades ago, during a time when
church officials had a different policy for disciplining abusive priests than
they do now, said Frank Mulcahy, executive director of the Georgia Catholic
Conference.
He worried that policy, which involved
sending abusive priests to “treatment” rather than alerting law enforcement,
could draw churches into legal jeopardy due to a provision in the bill allowing
victims to sue organizations for “concealing (or) attempting to conceal”
evidence of priest abuse.
“We know today it’s virtually impossible
to cure a pedophilia person. But we didn’t know that at the time,” Mulcahy
said.
“We would be involved in concealing that
under this definition,” he added, “even though what we did was to try to help
the person and the church as well.”
House lawmakers on the committee did not
vote on Clark’s bill Wednesday. It is expected to go through some changes
before returning for a committee vote in the coming days.
ATLANTA – A proposed fee for bookings of ride-hailing services like Uber and Lyft cleared the Georgia Senate Wednesday on the promise that revenues from the new charge would go entirely to fixing the state’s roads and public transit systems.
The path to imposing a flat fee instead
of state sales taxes on Uber and Lyft has wound through two legislative
sessions, lobbyist pushback and Hurricane Michael.
Originally, House Bill 105 by Rep. Sam
Watson, R-Moultrie, only involved an income-tax exemption for farmers receiving
federal disaster aid payments to recover from Hurricane Michael, which pummeled
the heart of Georgia’s agriculture industry in late 2018.
But last week, Senate lawmakers tacked on an amendment to Watson’s bill that proposes charging a 50-cent fee for ride-share bookings for single passengers. The fee would be 25 cents for multiple passengers.
With the fee, ride-share companies like Uber
and Lyft, plus taxi and limousine companies, would not have to pay state sales
tax.
Representatives for San Francisco-based
Uber favor paying the fee over sales taxes, arguing a tax levy would drive up
costs for riders and drivers.
Revenues from the fee would be dedicated
to transportation and transit infrastructure projects in the state, said Sen.
Steve Gooch, who spearheaded the amendment.
“We believe that this revenue is
important for transportation,” said Gooch, R-Dahlonega.
If signed into law, the fee could drum up
between $24 million and $45 million for the state in its first full year in
effect, according to a fiscal note. County and city governments, which would
not benefit from the fee, would lose out on between $16 million and $26 million
the first year.
The heavily revised bill passed the
Senate by a 51-2 vote, with Sens. Renee Unterman and Greg Dolezal voting
against it. It now heads back to the House, which could give it final passage.
But even more legislative maneuvering is
needed first before money from the fee could go exclusively to transportation
and transit.
State law requires that any proposals to
dedicate tax revenue to a specific purpose gain voter approval via a
constitutional amendment, which first needs to pass the legislature by a
two-thirds vote.
A proposed constitutional amendment was
tucked in Tuesday to an entirely separate measure, House Bill 164, dealing with
fees raised from scrapping old tires. With this proposal, the General Assembly
is angling to expand its ability to dedicate sales taxes for specific purposes,
said Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Hufstetler.
“Anything that the legislature would want
to dedicate in the future, they could do that,” Hufstetler said Wednesday.
Wednesday’s vote in the Senate stems from earlier efforts to collect sales taxes on third-party retailers like Amazon and Google that facilitate online transactions for other businesses.
House and Senate lawmakers hashed out a
compromise for those so-called “marketplace facilitators” in January after
pledging to give Uber an exemption in separate legislation.
A similar 50-cent fee on Uber and Lyft
rides had previously been slated for inclusion in a measure sponsored by Rep.
Kevin Tanner, R-Dawsonville, that seeks to raise more funding for rural transit
services.
Last week, state officials announced
farmers in the southern part of the state could start applying next month to
receive Hurricane Michael recovery funds part of a $347 million federal aid
package.
ATLANTA – Legislation aimed at tightening rules on third-party companies that play a role in negotiating pharmaceutical drug prices between insurers and local pharmacies in Georgia passed the state House Wednesday.
Companies called pharmacy benefits managers (PBMs) act as
go-betweens for prescribers and insurance companies that contract with health
insurers to negotiate lower drug prices for patients.
But critics accuse them of muddling up the process,
prompting increases in drug prices and unnecessary delays in filling prescriptions.
Three bills cleared the House by near-unanimous votes
Wednesday to increase regulations on pharmacy benefits managers. They now head
to the Georgia Senate.
House Bill 946, by Rep. David Knight, R-Griffin, would
require pharmacy benefits managers to set prices within 10% of a nationally
used average and require them to undergo financial audits by the state
Department of Insurance. It would also require all rebates from drug makers to
be distributed to patients, rather than allowing pharmacy benefits managers to
keep a portion.
Knight’s bill would also ramp up penalties against certain
fees and the practice of steering, in which PBMs direct patients to use
associated pharmacies with potentially higher costs. The practice was
prohibited last year in Georgia, but Knight’s bill proposes levying a new fine
against PBMs that disregard the state anti-steering law.
Speaking from the floor, Knight said his bill would crack
down on the “heinous practices” of pharmacy benefits managers.
“We will not take this in Georgia anymore,” Knight said. “It
is not good health care policy. It is not good for the patients and it is not
good for providers.”
The bill passed by a 165-1 vote with Rep. Matt Gurtler,
R-Tiger, voting against it.
Knight’s bill mirrors separate legislation filed in the
Senate by Sen. Dean Burke, R-Bainbridge. That measure, Senate Bill 313, drew
support from hospital and pharmacy groups as a way to keep smaller pharmacies
in Georgia from going out of business amid increasing drug costs. It cleared
the Senate Insurance and Labor Committee on Tuesday.
In previous committee hearings, PBMs have argued the bill
would hamstring them when negotiating with big pharmaceutical companies for
lower prices, potentially driving up costs overall by giving drug makers free
rein to set prices as they please.
Industry representatives also said Burke’s measure ignores
the influences of other players like drug manufacturers and wholesalers in the
complex series of transactions that lead to final prescription costs.
A separate bill by Knight passed unanimously on the House floor Wednesday that would require the state Department of Community Health, which administers Medicaid in Georgia, to study whether to remove prescription drug benefits from the state’s Medicaid managed care system.
The measure notes West Virginia carved out pharmacy benefits
from its Medicaid manager list and saved millions of dollars in administrative
costs.
The House also unanimously passed a third measure, House
Bill 918 by Rep. Sharon Cooper, that would bolster rules on steering and relax
some penalties for pharmacies that are audited by PBMs.
Cooper, who chairs the House Health and Human Services
Committee, said Wednesday her measure aims to stop PBMs from fining pharmacies
for small clerical errors like mislabeling, which can cost local pharmacies
thousands of dollars.
“We have to put a stop to corporations running medicine,”
said Cooper, R-Marietta. “They’re going to put pharmacists out of business.”
