In most Georgia counties, COVID-19 vaccination rates have stalled. And with infections from the so-called Delta variant rapidly rising across the United States, public health experts worry the state could again see surges in serious virus cases. What’s behind the low vaccination numbers? Host Steve Fennessy and GPB Macon Reporter and Editor Grant Blankenship try to answer that question on the latest episode of the
Georgia Today podcast.
TRANSCRIPT
Steve Fennessy: The Biden administration has set a target for vaccinating at least 70% of Americans at least once by July 4th. With just days to go before that deadline, Georgia s vaccination rollout has been sluggish. As of late June, barely one out of three Georgians had been vaccinated and rates are even lower for Georgians of color. Public health officials say that without urgent action the state is at increased risk for future surges of COVID-19, especially due to the highly contagious Delta variant. Vice President Kamala
Parts of rural Georgia are seeing low rates of vaccination against COVID-19. The Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director describes the risk that brings to the entire country.
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Primary Content
Caption Sen. Raphael Warnock, right, takes his seat next to USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack at an event held at Fort Valley State University to explain new USDA debt aid to Black farmers. Credit: Grant Blankenship
Next month, some Black farmers will be able to access part of $4 billion set aside for debt cancellation. It’s a historic amount of money, courtesy of the American Rescue Plan, aimed at redressing generations of inequity in farm lending by the federal government. But for some, this aid does not go far enough.
Details about the plan were shared with about 100 present and former farmers at a press event at Fort Valley State University last weekend. In short, up to 120% of debt held by the USDA will be canceled for “socially disadvantaged farmers.” Mainly this means Black farmers, but Hispanic and Native American farmers are included, too.
In the 1950s and 1960s, neighborhoods of color across the country were often destroyed to make way for new development in American cities. The practice had a name: urban renewal.
Typically people wouldn t be paid for the property they lost. But now in Athens, Georgia, former residents of a neighborhood erased by urban renewal have won reparations of a sort. Georgia Public Broadcasting s