By Brenda Goodman and Andy Miller Brenda Goodman is a senior news writer for WebMD. Andy Miller is editor of Georgia Health News. This article first appeared in WebMD. After 10 months of masks, social distancing, virtual school, fear for vulnerable loved ones, and loneliness, this is the news no one wanted to hear: The virus…
With Georgia topping 5,000 current hospitalizations for COVID-19, public health experts are calling for more state restrictions to curb the virus surge. Yet another ominous factor popped up Tuesday: Georgia Public Health officials reported the state’s first case of the more contagious COVID-19 variant discovered in Britain last month and subsequently detected in several nations…
On the last day of 2020, Augusta University Medical Center was swamped with very sick COVID patients. Sixteen were waiting Thursday in the ER to be moved to ICU beds, but no such beds were available. And other hospitals were filled up as well, said Dr. Phillip Coule, vice president and chief medical officer of Augusta…
Story updated Vials of COVID-19 vaccine have been arriving at medical facilities across Georgia over the past two weeks. But the inoculation process itself has not always gone smoothly here, with logistical challenges and even some ethical concerns, according to health care providers. Still, physicians and medical organizations contacted by GHN expressed relief and excitement…
The impact of COVID-19 overwhelmed the news cycle – and public discussion — during 2020. That’s why it’s difficult to include any other topics in our annual Top 10 Georgia health care stories of the year. Nevertheless, we put COVID-related stories in our first five slots. It very well could have been all 10. Here’s…
It’s sad to bring unpleasant news on Christmas Eve. But this is the year 2020, when unpleasant things keep happening. Thursday’s preliminary figures show more than 10,600 new COVID cases in Georgia, easily a single-day record. The total includes 2,682 positives from rapid antigen tests. Other virus-related numbers are equally frightening. ICU bed capacity in Georgia…
More than half a million Georgians are enrolled in the state’s health insurance exchange for next year, a more than 10 percent increase from 2020. The increase is partly due to many people signing up after losing their jobs and their employer-based health insurance. The insurance exchange was created by the Affordable Care Act for those…
Georgia’s recent spike in COVID-19 cases includes a comparable rise in the number of children getting the disease. “These aren’t necessarily cases linked to a [school] setting, but rather cases among children who are in these age groups,’’ said Amber Schmidtke, who tracks Georgia COVID trends in the Daily Digest. College-aged adult and young adults have…
When Maya put paint chips in her mouth, her mother instantly knew the danger. Sarah Tuck recognized that their Savannah rental home, built 100 years ago, could contain lead. So she got Maya tested through a doctor’s office. The reading for Maya when she was about a year old was a disturbing 18 micrograms of…
By Rebecca Grapevine Nine years ago, Georgia reported ample data to the feds on the health care quality of its Medicaid and PeachCare programs. In fact, a federal report at that time praised Georgia’s “proactive role in designing its data systems to support quality measurement.” For seven more years, Georgia continued to be near the…