Free Republic

I am deeply opposed to the government shutting down churches and arresting preachers. But I am also deeply opposed to churches meeting right now. Let me tell you about Albany, Georgia. There are 490 cases of COVID-19 in Dougherty County, Georgia. The county seat is Albany. There are 29 deaths in the county. For perspective, I started writing this piece on Wednesday, and there were 466 cases and 26 deaths. By the time you read this, the number will be over 500. Dougherty County has 89,000 people, making it, per capita, the hardest-hit part of Georgia and, again per capita,...

Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R), while announcing a statewide stay-at-home order, said Wednesday that he only recently became aware the coronavirus could be spread by asymptomatic people. "The reason I'm taking this action, like I've continued to tell people, I'm following the data, I'm following the advice of Dr. [Kathleen] Toomey," Kemp said in response to a reporter's question at a press conference announcing the order.

Brian Kemp, the Republican governor of Georgia, admitted on Wednesday that he had only just learned that asymptomatic individuals can still spread coronavirus — even though health experts had warned about the possibility as early as January. Kemp, in a press conference on Wednesday said the fact that he’d just learned that information contributed to him issuing a statewide shelter-in-place order in Georgia. Kemp, said that he had, in just the last 24 hours, learned “that this virus is now transmitting before people see signs.”

Georgia Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler traded millions in stocks in the days after a closed Senate briefing on the coronavirus – and dumped holdings in retail stores that have been battered by the pandemic. The wealthy Loeffler, who was appointed to her seat and is married to the president of the New York Stock Exchange, sold $18.7 million in International Stock Exchange, according to information her office shared with the Atlanta Journal Constitution. That is the company that owns the New York Stock Exchange. The trades came Feb. 26 and March 11, as the virus spread but the broader public...

BAHAM: At The Florida State Line, “Your Papers, Please” March 31st, 2020 Mike Bayham Governor Ron DeSantis issued an executive order adding people traveling to Florida who are from Louisiana or have stayed a night in the Pelican State to a 14-Day “self-isolate” order, with the highway patrol charged with enforcement along the state line Florida shares with Alabama and Georgia via checkpoints. That a state would set up screening stations along the borders for more than weighing 18-wheelers was hard for me to even conceptualize. And as we are living through an unfortunate historic time, I wanted to see...

A shortage of kits and testing supplies nationally means rationing of coronavirus tests is likely to continue in Georgia, and state officials do not know when broader testing of the public will be possible, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has learned. Officials hope the two-dozen or so drive-through and other remote testing sites set up by public health agencies, labs and hospitals in Georgia will eventually help expand testing more broadly. Five thousand test kits provided by the federal government were recently deployed to two federal-state drive-through testing sites in Albany and Cherokee County, and the state received 1,550 kits this week...

At Atlanta's Grady Hospital, all 100 beds in the intensive care unit were full. Then COVID-19 hit. Viral patients are now quarantined wherever the hospital finds space. "The stress is not just capacity," Chief Medical Officer Dr. Robert Jansen told CBS News. "It's not just stress of supplies, but on the individuals taking care of the patients. Because so much is not known." At all of Atlanta's four major hospitals, every ICU bed is taken. "Just kinda deteriorated," said Justin Anthony, whose cousin is in one of those hospitals. "By Sunday, the fever had not broken and she started coughing....

A 42-year-old hospital worker in Georgia who had coronavirus was found dead in her home with her 4-year-old child by her body. Diedre Wilkes' body was discovered Thursday in the living room of her home in Newnan, about 40 miles southwest of Atlanta, after a family member called the Coweta County Sheriff's Office requesting a welfare check, the coroner, Richard Hawk, told NBC News on Wednesday. It's believed she died 12 to 16 hours before she was found, the coroner said. A posthumous coronavirus test was conducted and came back positive for COVID-19, according to Hawk. Wilkes did not have...

German customs officials are attempting to track down about 6 million face masks ordered to protect health workers from the coronavirus which went missing at an airport in Kenya. "The authorities are trying to find out what happened," said a defence ministry spokeswoman, confirming a report first published by Spiegel Online. The FFP2 masks, which filter out more than 90% of particles, were ordered by German customs authorities. They and the armed forces procurement office have been helping the health ministry to get hold of urgently needed protective gear.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) has no intention of dropping out of the race for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, and as the July convention draws closer, his decision to keep his campaign alive may mean chaos for the Democratic party. Five more states have suspended their Democratic primaries amid concerns about coronavirus, and it may soon be impossible for any candidate to win a majority of delegates. The New York Times reports that Indiana, Connecticut, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, and Maryland have now joined Ohio in postponing their presidential contests, leaving the future of the Democratic presidential nomination uncertain. Ohio, of...

Nearly 400 Americans and Canadians were evacuated from the Costa Luminosa, an Italian cruise liner, after several passengers tested positive for the coronavirus. They flew home anyway. In the end, said passengers who fled a cruise ship because of a coronavirus outbreak at sea, the evacuation and journey back to the United States was more harrowing, chaotic and frightening than their ill-fated maritime voyage.Weak and sick from no food for nearly 24 hours, several passengers fainted. Two went into respiratory distress. Others had fevers so high that they had to be separated from the rest of the travelers aboard the...

The relentless march of urbanization, in the United States and around the world, has been coming for a long time. .. America went from 8.8 percent urban in 1830 to 25.7 percent in 1870, then to a majority in 1920, and up to about two-thirds by the mid-1950s. We were 80 percent urban by 2010. North America has the most urban population in the world. But it is not alone in seeing an accelerating trend. The U.N. estimated that, in 2009, half the world’s population lived in urban areas for the first time in human history. Over 4 billion people...

Two more senators made hefty stock sales before the coronavirus pandemic tanked global markets, records revealed as two other lawmakers who dumped millions in shares faced mounting calls to resign. Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Jim Inhofe sold as much as $6.4 million worth of stock in the weeks before panic about the coronavirus sparked a worldwide selloff, according to disclosure filings first reported by the New York Times. The additional revelations came amid widespread outrage toward GOP Sens. Richard Burr and Kelly Loeffler, who reportedly sold shares after getting briefings on the coronavirus threat.

The Senate’s newest member sold off seven figures worth of stock holdings in the days and weeks after a private, all-senators meeting on the novel coronavirus that subsequently hammered U.S. equities. Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R-GA) reported the first sale of stock jointly owned by her and her husband on Jan. 24, the very day that her committee, the Senate Health Committee, hosted a private, all-senators briefing from administration officials, including the CDC director and Anthony Fauci, the head of the National Institutes of Health of the United States, on the coronavirus.

The COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic poses two threats: public health and economic. ... As I write: All schools are closed in all of Italy.All churches are closed (including St. Peter's Basilica).All weddings and funerals are postponed.All restaurants are closed.In fact, all stores except grocery stores and pharmacies are closed.People are urged to work from home unless they work in special designated factories The streets are almost empty. These steps are not an overreaction. The coronavirus is out of control of in Northern Italy. As of 6 p.m. local/1 p.m. EST on March 10, there were 15,113 total cases in Italy, with...

Gwinnett County police are probably going to need more than cheese to lure this Speedy Gonzalez out of hiding. Generations of Looney Toons fans probably remember the swift-footed Mexican mouse character named Speedy Gonzales, but police announced on Tuesday that they have charged a 35-year-old Buford man — who officers say is also named Speedy Gonzalez — with forgery, identity theft and theft by deception. The charges are related to checks that were stolen from a Suwanee home and later used at a Home Depot in the Snellville area.

On Saturday, Georgia became the second state to postpone its primary elections amid growing concern over the spread of the Wuhan virus. Louisiana announced earlier this week that it would be moving back its primary as a result of the coronavirus. Georgia's primary, originally scheduled for March 24, will now be held on May 19. "Events are moving rapidly and my highest priority is protecting the health of our poll workers, their families, and the community at large," Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. "Our priority is to protect the health and safety of all Georgians and...

A new ad from Stacey Abrams's voting-rights nonprofit displays an asterisk next to Georgia governor Brian Kemp's (R.) name as the Democrat continues to suggest her former opponent's 2018 victory was illegitimate. . . . Her cause in Georgia has received attention from national Democrats, with presidential candidates such as Joe Biden, Pete Buttigieg, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (Mass.), and Sen. Cory Booker (N.J.) saying the race was stolen from Abrams.

Rep. Doug Collins (R-Ga.) on Monday announced that he would self-quarantine at his home after coming into contact with a person who later tested positive for the novel coronavirus. The announcement makes Collins the third GOP lawmaker to say they're taking the precautionary measure. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) separately said on Sunday that they would self-quarantine until 14 days had passed since interacting with the individual at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Maryland. “This afternoon, I was notified by CPAC that they discovered a photo of myself and the patient who has tested...

Count the state of Georgia as yet another this year moving to shine much-needed light on how pharmacy benefit managers (PBM) operate. On Thursday, Georgia’s state Senate unanimously (52 – 0) passed SB 313, a bill that restricts the business practices of PBMs just a day after the House voted 165 – 1 to pass other consumer-friendly PBM measures. The Georgia House approved bills that would penalize PBMs for violating the state’s department of insurance regulations and direct them to expand generic and lower cost drug options for consumers.  SB 313 compels PBMs to report the rebates they receive from...