{"id":18836,"date":"2020-10-08T09:07:11","date_gmt":"2020-10-08T13:07:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thegeorgiasun.com\/?p=18836"},"modified":"2023-09-24T15:07:13","modified_gmt":"2023-09-24T19:07:13","slug":"is-rural-georgia-ready-for-a-post-coronavirus-population-surge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/?p=18836","title":{"rendered":"Is rural Georgia ready for a post-coronavirus population surge?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The coronavirus pandemic represents an economic development opportunity for rural Georgia, local business and government leaders said Wednesday during a conference sponsored by the Georgia Chamber of Commerce.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The highly contagious invisible virus has made Americans wary of living in close proximity to each other in urban settings, Larry Hanson, executive director of the Georgia Municipal Association, told in-person and online audiences at the chamber\u2019s fourth annual Rural Prosperity Summit in Tifton.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDensity is what the coronavirus loves,\u201d Hanson said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPeople are wanting to leave metro areas,\u201d added Bill Gross, owner and president of W.H. Gross Construction Co. in Kingsland. \u201cRural Georgia is in a phenomenal spot right now.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But rural communities won\u2019t be able to take advantage of their coronavirus-driven attractiveness unless policy makers address systemic challenges that have long plagued rural Georgia, including access to health care, said Chris Clark, the chamber\u2019s president and CEO.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nine Georgia counties lack a single physician, 64 counties have no pediatrician and 79 have no ob-gyn, Clark said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf you don\u2019t have quality health care in your community, it\u2019s awful hard to bring economic development,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Likewise, rural Georgia faces disparities in academic achievement and a digital divide that leaves rural businesses and school systems with inadequate internet connectivity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Scott Steiner, president and CEO of Phoebe Putney Health System in Albany<\/a>, said rural South Georgia has been unable to lure enough health-care professionals from outside of the region to deal with a chronic shortage of doctors and nurses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf we really want more doctors and nurses, we\u2019ve got to grow them ourselves,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Steiner said Phoebe Putney has been in discussions with officials from local schools and colleges to explore ways to stimulate more interest in the health-care profession among students.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An important step toward addressing the problem came last year when the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine opened the first medical school in South Georgia in Moultrie.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Several rural school superintendents said their districts are finding it difficult to provide students with the online instruction COVID-19 has forced on school systems because of the lack of high-speed internet connectivity in rural communities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Schools are being forced to install WiFi antennas outside their buildings and set up internet hot spots in school buses in parking lots adjacent to libraries and other buildings with good internet connectivity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe big need in our community is broadband,\u201d said Kermit Gilliard, superintendent of the Grady County School System. \u201cIt\u2019s important that we partner with businesses to extend broadband in our communities.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a great way of life,\u201d state Sen. Freddie Powell Sims, D-Dawson, said of rural living. \u201cBut you still have to have the necessities you find in more urban parts of the state.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The coronavirus pandemic represents an economic development opportunity for rural Georgia, local business and government leaders said Wednesday during a conference sponsored by the Georgia Chamber of Commerce. The highly contagious invisible virus has made Americans wary of living in close proximity to each other in urban settings, Larry Hanson, executive director of the Georgia […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18837,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_show_updated_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[8481,8962,8474],"class_list":["post-18836","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-coronavirus","tag-rural-georgia","tag-sun","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18836","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18836"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18836\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18837"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18836"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18836"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18836"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}