Kemp to send more support for hospitals but says he won’t shut down GA again in COVID surge

Nearly all Georgians hospitalized with COVID-19 are unvaccinated, Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp said in a news conference Monday, and the state will provide more funding to hire hospital staffers to help with the surge.

Georgia Department of Community Health commissioner Caylee Noggle and her team will expand their ongoing efforts to increase state-supported hospital staff members from 1,300 to 2,800, Kemp said.

This will represent a $125 million investment in staffing at hospital systems in both metro and rural areas through the first week of December, in addition to the $500 million that had already been committed. Kemp said 170 of the new staffers would go directly to rural hospitals.

Noggle’s office also has identified 450 beds in nine regional hospitals that will soon be available to treat patients statewide, Kemp said.

“My team and I will continue to monitor the situation in our hospitals to ensure that Georgians who need access to care can receive it,” Kemp said.

Kemp is giving state employees the day off on Sept. 3, the Friday before Labor Day, to get vaccinated, and recommended that any Georgian considering the vaccine reach out to their doctor if they have questions or concerns.

“In my call with the metro-Atlanta hospital CEOs last week, they reiterated on the call that well over 90% of all Georgians currently hospitalized with COVID-19 are unvaccinated,” he said.

Rather than issuing mandates, Kemp said vaccine hesitancy in the South needs to be addressed, citing the Tuskegee Experiment and hesitation among white conservatives.

Another reason people are hesitant to get the vaccine is because it does not have approval from the Food and Drug Administration, Kemp said, so he wrote to the FDA to encourage them to grant full approval to the vaccines to address this issue.

Kemp indicated he has no plans to enforce a statewide shutdown again due to COVID-19, saying that he does not want to prevent families from earning a paycheck.

“Georgians know the risk from the virus,” he said. “And they know the tools at our disposal to prevent serious illness.”

This story was originally published August 16, 2021 at 6:02 PM.

Brittany McGee

Columbus Ledger-Enquirer

Brittany McGee is the community issues reporter for the Ledger-Enquirer. She is a 2021 graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she earned her bachelor’s degree in Media and Journalism with a second degree in Economics. She began at the Ledger-Enquirer as a Report for America corps member covering the COVID-19 recovery in Columbus. Brittany also covered business for the Ledger-Enquirer.