Amid the ongoing COVID-19 surge around Georgia, Emory Healthcare postponed some elective surgeries this week due to a shortage of beds and continues to evaluate “elective surgical cases on a daily basis across all our hospitals,” the hospital system said.
Two state government websites in Georgia recently stopped posting updates on COVID-19 cases in prisons and long-term care facilities, just as the dangerous delta variant was taking hold.
While Chatham’s average is slightly higher rate than Georgia’s overall vaccine rate of 42%, it falls woefully short of the levels needed to achieve “herd immunity,” when enough of the population is vaccinated in order to protect those that can’t be, such as children and immunocompromised people.
Atlanta-based Delta Air Lines is implementing new policies for its employees as the COVID-19 delta variant continues to take a toll on hospital systems across the country, including charging employees $200 per month if they fail to get vaccinated.
Plenty of evidence exists supporting vaccination mandates in schools, workplaces and health care settings, doctors with Emory University School of Medicine said this week after full approval came from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for Pfizer-BioNTech’s COVID-19 vaccine.
The director of the National Institutes of Health, Dr. Francis Collins, says that after vaccine companies submit their trial data, the FDA will have to review it, which could take time.
With COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations still on the rise in Georgia, Gov. Brian Kemp deployed the Georgia National Guard Tuesday to hospitals across the state. Kemp announced that 105 members of the Guard with medical training will head t0 10 hospitals.
The Pfizer mRNA vaccine is now not only safe and effective against COVID-19 serious illness and death: It’s also fully FDA approved.
Dr. Cecil Bennett of Newnan says the most important thing is to listen to patients who have not yet been vaccinated and try to understand their concerns.
After vaccination, antibody levels can help predict how much protection a COVID-19 shot offers, scientists are learning. The finding could speed up the development of future vaccines.
The Georgia Health Care Association submitted a request Monday for $347 million from the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan Congress passed last spring for nursing homes, citing a significant decline in nursing home occupancy during the pandemic.
As the delta variant hits Georgia and across the country, Phoebe Putney Hospital in Albany continues to break records for COVID-19 cases, a bleak flashback to last year when Albany was a global hotspot during the onset of the pandemic.