Home Blog Page 1163

Rabun’s Shaw named Wayne County head coach

By

-

January 4, 2022

2021-Jaybo-Shaw-ajc — (photo courtesy AJC)

Jaybo Shaw, the football coach who has led Rabun County to three region titles with Gunner Stockton as his quarterback, is moving to Jesup to take the Wayne County job.

Shaw’s Rabun County teams were 35-5 with two quarterfinal finishes and one semifinal in Class 2A. Stockton, who has signed with Georgia, set the state record for career touchdown passes.

Wayne County, a southeast Georgia school in Class 5A, won region titles as recently as 2017 and 2018 in its first two seasons under Ken Cribb but bottomed out in 2021, finishing 0-9. Six of the losses came against top-10 teams.

Shaw is a former all-state quarterback at Flowery Branch who played at Georgia Southern and Georgia Tech. He became a head coach for the first time in 2018, succeeding his father, Lee Shaw, who was Jaybo’s high school coach.

WJCL-TV in Savannah was the first to report the news of Shaw’s hire at Wayne County.

Produced by Georgia High School Football Daily. To sign up for GHSF’s free email newsletter click here.

Alto police awarded state car seat grant

By

-

January 4, 2022

Alto Police Department — (Hadley Cottingham/Now Habersham)

The Alto Police Department has been awarded a car seat mini-grant to provide car seats to families facing financial difficulty.

Through the mini-grant from the Georgia Department of Public Health Injury Prevention Program, Banks County Emergency Management and the Alto Police Department will work together to provide car seats and education to financially eligible families in Banks County.

“It’s our responsibility to keep our children safe,” said Alto Police Chief Josh Ivey. “The car seat mini-grant is a great opportunity to help our community and help protect our children from serious injuries or death in motor vehicle crashes.”

The program, funded by the Governor’s Office of Highway Safety, was created to make sure Georgia’s children are safe while riding in cars. They awarded the Georgia DPH a total of $2,066,100 to provide technical assistance and resources to first responders statewide, develop community support for motor vehicle safety programs, support data linkages and help evaluate program efforts.

“This unique partnership between highway safety and public health helps promote a safer Georgia,” Kathleen Toomey, commissioner of the Georgia Department of Public Health, said in a press release. “This programmatic support has made a difference and continues to save lives and prevent injuries.”

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, car seats reduce fatal injuries by 71 percent among infants and by 54 percent among children ages 1 to 4 years in cars. They say that car seats offer the best protection for children in the event of a crash, and they are most effective when installed and used correctly. Nearly three out of every four car seats are not used properly, placing children at unnecessary risk.

The Georgia DPH reports that since 2007, the education, car seats and booster seats provided through the mini-grant have prevented serious injury or death and saved 385 of Georgia’s children who were involved in crashes.

$1,257,375 of that funding has been allocated to the DPH Injury Prevention Program’s Child Occupant Safety Project, which provides car seats and education through the car seat mini-grant program. The program assists more than 130 counties state-wide.

Banks County Emergency Management and the Alto Police Department will educate parents and caregivers on how to properly install and use car seats, offer car seat inspections and provide car seats and booster seats to financially eligible families through the program.

For more information about the Banks car seat program, contact the Alto Police Department at 706-778-8028.

If you would like information regarding other counties involved in the program, please contact the Georgia Department of Public Health’s Child Occupant Safety Project via email at [email protected] or by calling 404-463-1487.

Shooting investigation underway after man shot in Athens

By

-

January 4, 2022

stonehenge way — ACCPD investigators believe the man was shot on Stonehenge Way and ran to the Morning Drive area. (Google Street View)

The Athens-Clarke County Police Department is investigating a Monday afternoon shooting incident where a 23-year-old man was shot.

Monday around 11:37 a.m., the Athens-Clarke County Police Department responded to a report of a shooting in the 300 block of Morning Drive.

When ACCPD officers arrived on the scene, they found a 23-year-old man who had been shot. He was transported by EMS with non-life-threatening injuries and is expected to recover.

The ACCPD’s initial investigation into the incident shows that the shooting took place at a residence in the 300 block of Stonehenge Way. They believe that the man that was shot ran to the Morning Drive area.

The ACCPD encourages anyone with information regarding this incident to contact Detective Harrison at 762-400-7361 or via email at [email protected].

U.S. Senate to consider changing the filibuster if voting rights stalls

By

Ariana Figueroa

-

January 4, 2022

United-States-Capitol — Congress averted a government shutdown Thursday when the U.S. Senate and House approved a short-term spending bill just hours ahead of a midnight deadline.

WASHINGTON (GA Recorder) — In a sternly worded letter to other senators, the New York Democrat set a deadline of Jan. 17 for the chamber to consider revising the filibuster rules, which require a 60-vote threshold for legislation to move ahead in the evenly divided Senate.

Jan. 17 is also Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

“We must ask ourselves: if the right to vote is the cornerstone of our democracy, then how can we in good conscience allow for a situation in which the Republican Party can debate and pass voter suppression laws at the State level with only a simple majority vote, but not allow the United States Senate to do the same?” Schumer wrote in the letter.

It’s unlikely that enough Senate Republicans will join Democrats to pass the current versions of voting rights legislation.

Another sticking point for Schumer is that not all Democrats are on board either with reforming or pushing for a carve out of filibuster rules.

Georgia U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock has been a vocal supporter of changing the filibuster rules for debate on voting protections; U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff has said he’s open to it, too.

With the midterm elections approaching, congressional Democrats have without success pushed for enactment of broad voter rights protections. Since the 2020 presidential election, Republicans at the state level, including in Georgia, have introduced hundreds of bills that would impose strict voting requirements, in response to former President Donald Trump’s false claims of voter fraud in the presidential election.

Schumer argued that with the first anniversary of the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol this week, Congress needs to understand that the attack “was a symptom of a broader illness — an effort to delegitimize our election process, and the Senate must advance systemic democracy reforms to repair our republic or else the events of that day will not be an aberration — they will be the new norm.”

“Given the urgency of the situation and imminence of the votes, we as Senate Democrats must urge the public in a variety of different ways to impress upon their Senators the importance of acting and reforming the Senate rules, if that becomes a perquisite for action to save our democracy,” he said.

Senate Republicans have repeatedly blocked debate on a voting rights bill. Only one Republican, Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, said in November that she would back Senate Democrats in a compromise voting rights measure named after a civil rights icon, the late Rep. John Lewis of Georgia.

In his letter, Schumer did not specify which voting rights bill the Senate aims to pass — Democrats have introduced several.

But Senate Rules Committee Chairwoman Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota has spent the last few months working on a package that has the support of West Virginia’s Sen. Joe Manchin III, a Democrat who has expressed his opposition to changing the Senate’s rules.

The same stance is shared by Arizona Democratic Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, who opposes any type of filibuster reform.

“As she has throughout her time in the U.S. House and Senate, Senator Sinema also continues to support the Senate’s 60-vote threshold, to protect the country from repeated radical reversals in federal policy which would cement uncertainty, deepen divisions, and further erode Americans’ confidence in our government,” her office wrote in a statement, the same one she made in December in response to questions about her position on the filibuster.

The bill backed by Klobuchar, known as the Freedom to Vote Act, has the support of every Senate Democrat, including Sinema.

The legislation would establish Election Day as a national holiday and set minimum standards that each state must have for elections, such as two weeks of early voting and an option for same-day voter registration. Manchin has vowed to get 10 Senate Republicans on board, but so far has not succeeded.

States Newsroom reporter Jacob Fischler contributed to this report.

Covid hospitalizations soar in Atlanta area; Northside wins a round in court vs. Anthem

By

-

January 4, 2022

Major happenings in health care didn’t cease over the holidays.

The news, in fact, exploded – in both familiar and surprising directions, including an unusual twist in the Northside Hospital vs. Anthem contract dispute.

It started, of course, with the latest on the Covid-19 pandemic.

The state last week reported daily totals of new Covid cases that shattered previous records, with the very contagious Omicron variant spreading fast. And those state numbers didn’t count the people who tested positive for the virus at home but who didn’t report their infections.

The latest surge also sparked a combined announcement Wednesday from six major metro Atlanta hospital systems, which said they had seen 100 percent to 200 percent increases in COVID-19 hospitalizations in the past eight days. “The vast majority of inpatients are unvaccinated,’’ the statement said.

The announcement – accompanied by a plea from hospitals that people not use ERs to get Covid tests — continued the joint work on fighting Covid that these systems have pursued over the course of the pandemic.

On Monday, Grady Memorial Hospital reported treating 239 patients with Covid – the Atlanta safety-net provider’s highest virus number since the pandemic began.

Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta said Monday it had 102 patients hospitalized due to Covid – also a high for that system. Of these children, 74% had at least one pre-existing medical condition, said Children’s Healthcare. “This is the highest number of children with Covid-19 in our system to date, but we have three hospitals in our system with sufficient capacity to see and treat patients,’’ said the pediatric system.

Piedmont Healthcare, on the other hand, said it’s seeing big increases in Covid patients but not to the level of its recent September hospitalization peak.

State officials also are reporting an astonishingly high rate of nearly 30 percent of Georgians who got a recent PCR test showing an infection. And the Georgia Department of Public Health said Monday it would not report daily numbers “due to a large amount of data overwhelming the system.”

The spread in metro Atlanta has forced school systems to return to remote learning for students to begin the January semester.

Contract battle goes to court

Late last week, Northside Hospital announced a temporary reprieve in its contract battle with insurance giant Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield. The Atlanta-based health system said it had been granted an injunction in Fulton County Superior Court that averted a Jan. 1 termination of the contract.

Northside Hospital Atlanta

Northside cited a new Georgia law (House Bill 454), which includes a provision saying that during a public health emergency, an insurer is prohibited from ending such a contract.

So, at least for the moment, hundreds of thousands of Georgia patients with Anthem insurance will remain in-network if they go to Northside providers.

MORE: Patients stranded out of network as contract talks collapse

Northside said it would continue its discussions with Anthem. “With the Covid-19 Omicron variant now surging through U.S. and Georgia, Anthem’s decision to remove Northside from its networks defied both logic and sensitivity,” Northside said in a statement.

Anthem, meanwhile, said in a statement that the court order extends the current Northside pact only until Feb. 1.

“Continuing the current contract will not achieve the affordability or quality improvements we have been seeking from Northside, which is why we will not stop our good-faith negotiation efforts until we reach an agreement that is in the best interests of consumers,’’ said Anthem spokeswoman Christina Gaines.

State Rep. Mark Newton, an Augusta physician who was the lead sponsor of HB 454, said Monday that “this current contract dispute illustrates precisely the need for our recent bill protecting patients.”

Newton

Newton, a Republican, added that the Legislature “has worked to be sure individual patients are not crushed’’ in such contract battles.

“Georgia families can continue to receive their health care from trusted doctors and hospitals at affordable, in-network rates.”

Northside was not among the six metro Atlanta systems reporting the large hospitalization increases. Still, Katherine Watson, a spokeswoman, said Monday that Northside has seen a 221% increase in patients in the last two weeks alone.

The numbers are still increasing, she added.

FDA authorizes a Pfizer booster shot for children ages 12 to 15

By

Associated Press

-

January 3, 2022

The Food and Drug Administration has authorized the use of a Pfizer-BioNTech booster in adolescents 12 to 15 years old.

The agency on Monday also shortened the time between the completion of primary vaccination of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine and a booster dose to five months from six.

And, the FDA allowed for a third dose of vaccine in immunocompromised children 5 to 11 years of age.

The director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Rochelle Walensky, must still weigh in with a recommendation on the FDA’s announcement before the changes can take effect.

“Throughout the pandemic, as the virus that causes COVID-19 has continuously evolved, the need for the FDA to quickly adapt has meant using the best available science to make informed decisions with the health and safety of the American public in mind,” said Acting FDA Commissioner Dr. Janet Woodcock.

The FDA said it reached its decision after reviewing data from Israel, which included information on 6,300 people ages 12-15 who received a booster shot at least five months after their initial two-dose vaccination. The data showed no new cases of two possible side effects that had been observed in some young people who received the vaccine — myocarditis, an inflammation of the heart, and pericarditis, an inflammation of the saclike tissue surrounding the heart.

The CDC recommended the Pfizer vaccine for children 12-15 in May and for kids 5-11 in November. There is still no vaccine authorized in the U.S. for children under age 5.

1...1,1621,1631,164...2,543 Page 1,163 of 2,543