WABE’s Week in Review: Georgia Hits One-Day Covid Record as More Vaccines Arrive

Meantime, more than 150,000 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine produced by Moderna are now in the state. Georgia’s public health commissioner, Doctor Kathleen Toomey, said this vaccine is easier to store than the one from Pfizer.

“There were parts of rural Georgia, including our own public health departments, that weren’t able to receive them,” said Toomey.  “With now the Moderna vaccine, we can literally cover the state with vaccinations, and we’re very excited to begin that process.”

Front line health care workers and those who work at long-term care facilities are receiving vaccinations first.

More People Going Hungry in Georgia During the Pandemic…

The economic downturn caused by the coronavirus is exacerbating hunger in Georgia. Before the pandemic, more than a million Georgians needed help getting enough food. Now, even with a new relief package from Congress,  experts are warning that higher levels of hunger could continue for years.

Many people needing help are those in businesses like restaurants and hotels crushed by the economic slowdown from the pandemic, according to Lily Pabian, executive director of WeLoveBuHi, a community organization behind food distribution events along Buford Highway.

“These communities are frontline workers,” said Pabian. “They live pretty much paycheck to paycheck. They don’t have the comfort of 401k, retirements, all that stuff. If they want to pay the bills, they have to work.”

“The food banks are responding to an unrelenting 50-percent increase in demand for food,” said Danah Craft, executive director of the Georgia Food Bank Association. “And it has grown in the last 60 days.”

Some 40-percent of the people coming for help now have never had to look for assistance before, according to Craft.

The Georgia Food Bank Association estimates one in five children in Georgia right now is experiencing food insecurity. And food banks the association works with are supplying 8 million more meals a month than they were pre-pandemic.

This heightened need to respond to hunger will last much longer than the pandemic itself because the economy won’t bounce back instantly, said Tom Rawlings, Director of the State Division of Family and Children Services. And that will force nonprofits, food banks, and government agencies to fill the gap for years to come.

High Schoolers Are Helping Remove a Controversial Relic…

Decatur city commissioners unanimously backed a resolution to remove the “Indian War” cannon from in front of the old Dekalb County Courthouse.

High school students in Decatur pushed for the resolution saying the monument, placed there in 1906 by the United Daughters of the Confederacy, celebrates the forced removal of Native Americans from the South.

“Certain community members don’t want this cannon to reflect oppression or a horrible history, said Decatur High School student Koan Roy-Meighoo. “But, the fact of the matter is, it does.”

Dekalb County Commissioners will have to make the official removal as the cannon is on county property.

Remembering Those Many Have Forgotten… 

Each year there’s a candlelight memorial to recognize the deaths of those who are homeless in Fulton County.

Mercy Care, a major health care provider for the homeless in Atlanta, leads the event. The medical center moved it online for 2020 because of the ongoing pandemic.

Dozens still joined the Zoom call earlier this week and held a candle up to their screen, as Mercy Care staff read the names of 73 people who died homeless.