Georgia\u2019s COVID case numbers jumped by 4,800 in the state figures reported Thursday, continuing a recent upswing that\u2019s apparently fueled by the Delta variant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt is believed that the Delta variant is highly prevalent throughout Georgia,\u201d said Dr. Charles Ruis, health director in the Southwest Health District, which is based in Albany. \u201cThe best way to prevent a COVID-related death is to get vaccinated, and vaccines are widely available in our region.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Urgent care centers in the metro Atlanta<\/a> area were slammed Wednesday with patients, many asking for COVID tests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A similar patient crunch occurred in Bulloch<\/a> County in east Georgia, where most arrivals at one urgent care center Wednesday were tested for COVID, reported news outlet Grice Connect. It added that urgent care facilities and other providers were dealing with a shortage of testing supplies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On Thursday, dozens of hospitals around the state reported having severely overcrowded emergency rooms. Several were in the Piedmont Healthcare network.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAs has been the case throughout the pandemic and as indicated by publicly available government data, our COVID-19 hospitalization trend has followed the state\u2019s, with caseloads varying across our hospitals based on the level of community spread in those local communities and their surrounding areas,\u2019\u2019 said John Manasso, a Piedmont spokesman.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe continue to believe that our best way out of the pandemic \u2013 including addressing the state\u2019s growing inpatient COVID population \u2013 is for those who are eligible to get vaccinated while also following CDC guidance: wear a mask when indoors in public areas, watch your distance and wash your hands.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n The ER crowding extended to hospitals in the Emory, Wellstar and Northside systems. Bibb\/Macon and Augusta ERs were hard hit as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Emory Healthcare said Thursday that like many Georgia hospitals, its emergency departments \u201chave been seeing higher volumes of non-COVID-19 patients, which is now exacerbated by a growing surge in COVID-19, resulting in increased wait times for patients who visit emergency rooms.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cA number of states with lower vaccination rates, such as Georgia, are seeing similar trends,\u201d said Emory in a statement. \u201cPatients are also presenting with a higher degree of illness which requires more resources to provide care, leading to longer stays in the emergency departments and more patients are requiring admission to our hospitals, which are also busy. We strongly encourage everyone who is eligible to get a COVID-19 vaccination as soon as possible to help protect themselves, their families and our community.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Several Georgia hospitals said they were diverting ambulances because ICU and other beds were filled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The increasing COVID numbers did not deter Gov. Brian Kemp from tweeting Wednesday that Georgia \u201cwill not lock down or impose statewide mask mandates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAs the first state in the country to reopen over a year ago, we\u2019ve proven that Georgians know how to come together and protect themselves and their loved ones,\u201d\u00a0Kemp said<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe data is clear,\u2019\u2019 Kemp said. \u201cThanks to efforts initiated under the Trump administration, we have a medical miracle in multiple vaccines that protect from the virus and save lives. Nearly all new COVID hospitalizations in Georgia are among the unvaccinated.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cGeorgians know the risks and they know these safe, effective vaccines are our greatest tool to defeat COVID-19.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n New numbers from Georgia\u2019s Department of Public Health show that more than 98% of the over 335,000 COVID-19 cases recorded since mid-January were among the unvaccinated, GPB reported.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Georgia reports 40 percent of residents as fully vaccinated, one of the lowest rates in the U.S.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kemp added that the \u201cbiggest obstacle to getting more people vaccinated\u201d came from \u201cmixed messages\u201d in Washington D.C., and \u201cthose with partisan agendas.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Still, more school systems announced mask requirements for staff and students. The AJC reported Thursday that Drew Charter School in Atlanta will quarantine more than 100 students after two students and two employees tested positive for COVID-19 in the first week of classes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The City of Atlanta<\/a> joined Savannah<\/a> in issuing a mask requirement for inside public buildings. Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms issued the order \u201crequiring all persons in a public place, including private businesses and establishments, to wear a mask or a cloth face covering over their nose and mouth when indoors.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The CDC, noting the rising danger from the Delta variant, announced this week that it is recommending masks again for vaccinated people in some cases.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cPublic health experts overwhelmingly agree, and the data has proved, that wearing a face covering helps slow the spread of the deadly virus,\u201d Bottoms said in a statement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Dr. Harry Heiman, a public health expert at Georgia State University, said that Thursday\u2019s high COVID case numbers and hospitalizations \u201care exactly what many public health experts have been warning about. Georgia and our surrounding Southern states are the perfect setting for a surge from the Delta variant, due to our low vaccination rates and lack of community-level mitigation.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe are seeing the same inaction from our state\u2019s political and public health leaders that we saw last summer and last winter \u2014 leading to many preventable hospitalizations and deaths,\u201d Heiman added. \u201cIt is imperative that state leadership take stronger actions now \u2014 targeted to vaccine outreach and community-level mitigation, including ensuring that all K-12 schools have mask mandates and state universities have both vaccination mandates and mask mandates to ensure safe environments for students, faculty, and staff.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Georgia\u2019s COVID case numbers jumped by 4,800 in the state figures reported Thursday, continuing a recent upswing that\u2019s apparently fueled by the Delta variant. \u201cIt is believed that the Delta variant is highly prevalent throughout Georgia,\u201d said Dr. Charles Ruis, health director in the Southwest Health District, which is based in Albany. \u201cThe best way […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19332,"comment_status":"open","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":[7286],"tags":[8481,8480,8473,8474],"class_list":["post-27812","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-coronavirus","tag-coronavirus","tag-covid-19","tag-media","tag-sun","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27812","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=27812"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27812\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19332"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27812"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27812"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27812"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}