Recent editorials from Georgia newspapers:
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March 1
The Rome News-Tribune on the rising number of flu cases in Georgia:
Influenza is on the rise in Georgia and across the country. It’s time to take warning.
The Georgia Department of Public Health in its latest report said there had been nearly 500 hospitalizations due to the flu, four flu-related deaths and one death directly attributed to influenza.
At the same time, the Centers for Disease Control reported the flu was geographically widespread in 46 states and Puerto Rico, an increase of three states within a week. What the CDC termed “high-intensity flu activity, another measure of clinic visits for flu,” was reported in 28 states and New York City, reflecting an increase of five states over the previous week, which amounted to a 22 percent jump in only one week.
The spread of the flu locally is reflected by an increasing number of patients in the emergency room at Floyd Medical Center as well as Floyd Primary Care and Floyd Urgent Care. There already have been school closings in Walker and Dade counties because of the flu, strep and norovirus, according to Logan Boss, spokesman for the Northwest Georgia Public Health District.
This year’s H3N2 strain of the flu virus is usually longer lasting and harder hitting than the H1N1 strain that was dominant last season. After spiking in late December, flu-like illnesses declined slightly in January but have been moving upward since, reaching their highest level in Georgia by mid-February up to that point. As Logan Boss observed, “It could be the peak or there could be more to come.”
The best course of action is to get a flu shot. That’s true even though this year’s vaccines - which were developed for the current flu strain - don’t work as well as might be expected because the current flu strain is a tough one.
Of course, there are other common sense things that can be done to avoid exposure to the flu. The health district’s Boss recommends such steps as avoiding close contact with sick people, washing hands often, covering coughs and sneezes and disinfecting surfaces that could be contaminated with the virus.
To reiterate: the best option is to get a flu shot - right away.
Online:
https://www.northwestgeorgianews.com
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Feb. 24
The Augusta Chronicle on the state deciding on which hospital builds in Columbia County:
Broadcaster and writer John Stossel has made a devastatingly compelling case through the years that competition almost always makes things better. Other great thinkers have done the same before him.
Yet, in two of our most important human endeavors - education and health care - choice is oddly absent in American society.
We’ve touted school choice before, and will again. We believe it’s the civil rights cause of the 21st century; the wealthy already have it, and it’s time every family did.
As for health care, Georgia’s “Certificate of Need” process lets the state decide whether you and your family need more or better access to hospitals and cutting-edge equipment. That puts a stranglehold on competition and ensures that little monopolies abound.
Look no further than Columbia County - this state’s most populous county with no hospital.
Three Augusta-area hospitals vied to build one there. Shamefully, given the opportunity to recommend one of the three, Columbia County officials decided to punt. So the state decided the matter for the county in 2014 - and picked state-affiliated Augusta University Medical Center (formerly Georgia Regents) over Doctors Hospital and University Hospital.
Both of the latter institutions appealed the decision and lost, though Doctors Hospital continues to press the issue in the courts.
On Friday, AU Medical Center deservedly celebrated its purchase of 83 acres in Grovetown for its 100-bed hospital and Level II trauma center - only Level I is better equipped to handle the most traumatic injuries.
We share their excitement. It’s a historic development for a county that, as we noted, is the largest in Georgia without a hospital, and which is growing in population nearly by the minute.
We know the facility, under President Brooks Keel’s leadership, will be not only first-rate, but a lifesaving addition to a very lively area.
We just wish the process had been more free-market. And we share University Hospital President Jim Davis’ concerns about the Certificate of Need process and its stifling of competition in health care.
There are a half-dozen bills in the Georgia Assembly to alter or abolish the big-government CON process - though established health-care facilities comprise a powerful force in favor of the Certificate of Need and the protection against competition it provides.
Georgia is otherwise a pretty conservative state, Davis said this week, but “when it comes down to health care and hospitals, it becomes the socialist state of Georgia, where they want to control everything through the CON process.”
The process, he said, gave one entity “a regulated monopoly” in “one of the richest and fastest-growing counties in our market.”
“The right answer for Columbia County, in my mind, is anyone can build out there,” Davis said. Without the bureaucratic CON process, he added, “we would be cutting a ribbon today, probably, on a new facility out in Columbia County on our Evans campus.”
We do hope the legislature has the courage to rethink the process.
Columbia Countians - and market forces - might have chosen AU Medical Center anyway. But a free people should’ve had that prerogative.
Online:
https://chronicle.augusta.com
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Feb. 28
The Brunswick News on broadcasting state legislative committee meetings:
Anyone who pays even just a little bit of attention to the workings of Georgia’s General Assembly knows much of the work that goes into forming the final drafts of bills happens in committees.
It is in committees where much of the work of our legislature is done.
Being such an important part of the process, our state House of Representatives streams all of its committee meetings online for the public to watch. If you miss a meeting you wanted to watch, don’t worry, the video is still available in an archive online.
Yet for some reason, the state Senate does not live stream its committee meetings. This has caused a bit of a stir in some circles in Atlanta because some folks say the Senate needs to be more transparent in how it conducts its business.
Given how prevalent streaming technology is today and that the other chamber seems to have no issues with broadcasting its committee meetings, it seems more could be done to allow the public to view these important proceedings.
Some people in the audience at meetings recently have taken to live streaming the meetings through mobile apps like Periscope or Facebook Live. State Sen. Josh McKoon, R-Columbus, makes a point to broadcast some of the meetings of which he is a part using Periscope.
The responsibility to put video online of Senate committee meetings should not be on people in the audience or even a senator with a smartphone, however. Even local governments like the Glynn County Commission and the Glynn County Board of Education live stream their meetings locally.
Live streaming and archiving the committee meetings of the Senate has implications that reach far beyond Atlanta. As noted by The News on Sunday, it is at least a five-hour drive to the Gold Dome from the Golden Isles. If there is an important Senate committee meeting happening in Atlanta people in Coastal Georgia are interested in, we simply have to hope someone will be there with a smartphone and the proper app to broadcast it.
These are our representatives doing the business of our state with our tax money - we deserve to watch and listen to the discussion, whether or not we live in or around Atlanta.
If local municipalities and the House can get every committee meeting online and archived for viewing later, certainly the Senate can follow suit and ensure all of our state government is as transparent as it can be.
Online:
https://goldenisles.news
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