August 17, 2021 6:00 AM
Morning Reads for Tuesday, August 17
- In an attempt to encourage state employees to get vaccinated, the Governor announced an impromptu state holiday the Friday before Labor Day. (He did not announce surveillance testing for unvaccinated state employees. He also did not announce a holiday 21 days from the Friday prior to Labor Day.)
- The latest COVID-19 surge, fueled by the Delta variant, is “out of control” in Georgia — and there is no reason to believe that cases will do anything except continue to skyrocket.
- A plan to monitor and address rising sea levels in Savannah and Chatham County won approval — and funding — from NOAA.
- Carolyn Bordeaux is one of nine Congressional moderates pushing for swift passage of the infrastructure bill.
- The rate of unvaccinated health care workers is alarming, particularly in long-term care facilities — and the reasons they are unvaccinated vary.
- One million Georgians will see an increase in their nutrition benefits, in part because the cost of food has increased.
- Stories from Georgia Health News make frequent appearances in my weekly link roundup, and they’ve broken major stories in Georgia, including the ethylene oxide news. And unlike many news outlets, they’re growing. Good for them!
About Author
Teri
Teri Anulewicz is a Democrat who represents House District 42 in the Georgia General Assembly. She previously spent nearly a decade on the Smyrna City Council. A native New Orleanian and quasi-Texan, Teri graduated from Agnes Scott College in 1998. She's been a front page contributor since 2015, and she compiles each Tuesday's Morning Reads.
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From Trouble In God’s Country”:
The number of Georgia counties reporting more deaths than births jumped to 118 in 2020, up dramatically from 78 in 2019, according to new county-level mortality data published Monday by the Georgia Department of Public Health (DPH).
The increase was generally expected. DPH reported in June that 2020 births were down 3.1 percent from 2019, and the Covid-19 death toll seemed certain to drive a big increase in the number of counties where burials outnumbered births.
All told, births still outnumbered deaths in Georgia, but by the narrowest margin recorded in the quarter-century DPH has been reporting county-level birth and death data. The 19,265 surplus of births over deaths was less than half the 40,000-plus surplus recorded in 2018 and ’19, and not even a quarter of the 83,051 surplus record set in 2007.
https://troubleingodscountry.com/2021/08/16/118-georgia-counties-report-more-deaths-than-births-in-2020-a-new-record/#comments
My county was – 64.
I know it isn’t a Georgia specific issue, but since our Congress critters are spouting off blaming Biden for the tragedy that is Afghanistan, I couldn’t let it go by without my own 2 cents. While the Biden administration can certainly take some blame for the ignominious end to this disaster, there is enough blame that can be duly assigned to members of both parties. Just last year, the Trump administration bypassed the puppet government and validated the Taliban with direct negotiations promising a May ’21 withdrawal. W promised we were only invading until Al Qaeda was rooted out. Both Presidents Obama and Trump had campaign promises to end the war in Afghanistan… Meanwhile, $2,000,000,000,000 and at least a couple of thousand American lives later we have a populace there that still largely wants to live in the late Iron Age. Let ’em.
Can we stick with some domestic nation building in the future?
Both of the right wing, neoliberal warmongering parties that control power in the USA are to blame. So much to unpack:
How does a volunteer military force continue reckoning with being used by a failing empire to kill millions and make weapons makers and the like rich? Vietnam to Afghanistan. When will we learn? How much longer can the USA get away with using poverty to boost enlistment?
Also, people comparing Afghanistan to Vietnam overlooking/ignoring that the USA was the invasion force in both instances and continuing to support billions more going to “defense” because of the troopz or I have a base in my town. The military industrial complex has its tentacles wrapped around everything, and doesn’t appear to be ending anytime soon.
A boost in money. Can we add a provision? Unless you have a note from a doctor, if you want the government cheese, you got to get the vax.