Wednesday on Political Rewind: As cases of COVID-19 surge dramatically across Georgia, candidates on both sides of the aisle are using the spread of the virus in their 2022 campaign messaging. Meanwhile, Gov. Brian Kemp is urging state business leaders to back his efforts to fight violent crime in Atlanta and other major cities.
From Broadway to your local community playhouse, the pandemic put live theater on hold. But the theater is slowly coming back. Joining us to talk about that and more is playwright, best-selling author, poet and political activist Pearl Cleage. She's currently the playwright in residence at the Alliance Theater in Atlanta.
Across Georgia, emergency rooms are slammed and intensive care units are diverting patients, sometimes out of state. The common thread is a spike in severe COVID-19 cases among the unvaccinated middle-aged.
Cases among children have been steadily growing, but the numbers appear to show that severe illness, hospitalization and death are rare in children infected with the coronavirus.
"We are in a major surge now as we're going into the fall, into the school season. This is very serious business," Fauci said. He urges states and localities to mandate COVID-19 vaccines for teachers.
COVID-19 hospitalizations at coastal hospitals have matched or surpassed their prior peaks and are expected to keep climbing. Most patients are unvaccinated.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued guidelines on July 27 stating that everyone in K-12 schools should wear masks indoors, even if vaccinated. Gov. Brian Kemp said he will not impose any statewide mask mandate, even as some school districts, including Atlanta, have mandated them for children and staff.
Monday on Political Rewind: Officials continue to resist establishing a statewide procedure for mitigating the possible spread of COVID-19 in schools. Cases are rising in some systems in the first week of classes. In Atlanta, public schools will begin offering vaccines to middle and high school students next week.
As summer festivals and massive concerts returned this month amid the promise of "hot vax summer," the surge in the delta variant has disrupted plans for carefree live music.
Several districts are keeping their mask mandates in place despite an executive order by Gov. Ron DeSantis that leaves it up to parents to decide whether their children wear face coverings in school.
Workers in health care facilities will be required to provide proof that they have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19, with exemptions only for religious or valid medical reasons.
Gov. Brian Kemp Friday defended his decision not to impose mask-wearing or vaccination mandates on Georgians to stem the latest surge in coronavirus cases, hospitalizations and deaths.
Word that the high court was going back to online proceedings came less than a week after Verda Colvin was sworn in as the newest Supreme Court justice during a live ceremony inside the state Capitol and two months after the court resumed conducting in-person hearings at the nearby Nathan Deal Judicial Center.
Georgians want state leaders to restore deep budget cuts across education and health care. They also want investment in programs that will allow the state to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic and thrive.
Georgia is in the middle of a rise in cases of the highly transmissible delta variant of the coronavirus. But absent any guidance or mandates from the state, districts and charter schools are left to figure out how they are going to cope. The solutions vary wildly from district to district.
