National Guard To Help Front-Line Health Workers Across GA

ATLANTA — More than 100 Georgia National Guard personnel are being deployed to hospitals across the state to aid in COVID-19 treatment.

A day after the FDA fully approved the Pfizer vaccine, Gov. Brian Kemp announced that the 105 medical guardsmen will be assigned to 10 Georgia hospitals, including Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta and Wellstar Kennestone Hospital in Marietta.

“These guardsmen will assist our frontline healthcare workers as they provide quality medical care during the current increase in cases and hospitalizations, and I greatly appreciate General Carden and his team for their willingness to answer the call again in our fight against COVID-19,” said Governor Kemp.

Across the nation, hospitals are seeing ICU and emergency beds fill up as the delta variant of the coronavirus infects more unvaccinated people. Metro Atlanta hospital leaders last week came together to publicly plead for people to get the vaccine.

This followed Kemp’s announcement that he was doubling the number of staffers at state-supported hospitals, bringing 450 beds online statewide.

As of Tuesday, the Georgia Department of Public Health reported more than 1.04 million confirmed cases of COVID-19 since the pandemic started in March 2020, with 19,275 deaths, 71,152 hospitalizations, and 11,836 ICU admissions.

In just one day, GADPH reported that 71 people died and 669 were hospitalized, with 16,915 confirmed cases for Monday, Aug. 23.

Children under the age of 12 are especially susceptible to the virus because they are unable to be vaccinated. As of last week, well over 6,000 Georgia children between the ages of 5 and 10 were confirmed to have COVID-19. Nearly 4,000 children aged 11 to 13 were confirmed to have tested positive, according to state Public Health Department reports.

These numbers and the resulting surge of hospitalizations has prompted leaders to push for assistance at area hospitals.

“This Georgia National Guard mission is in addition to the 2,800 state-supported staff and 450 new beds brought online I announced last week, at a total state investment of $625 million through December of this year,” he said.

Those hospitals include:

• Southeast Georgia Health System, Brunswick
• Northeast Georgia Medical Center, Gainesville
• Wellstar Kennestone, Marietta
• Piedmont Henry, Stockbridge
• Phoebe Putney, Albany
• Memorial Health University Medical Center, Savannah
• Navicent Health, Macon
• Grady Hospital, Atlanta
• Piedmont Fayette, Fayetteville
• Houston Medical Center, Warner Robins

Although Kemp continues to push back against mask mandates, social distancing regulations and vaccination requirements, drawing up a new executive order last week banning forced local government COVID-19 precautions, he does recommend vaccinations.

“I continue to urge all Georgians to talk to a medical professional about getting vaccinated,” he said.