Even with COVID numbers on the rise again, Governor Brian Kemp says he will not close businesses as he did during the height of the pandemic last year.

“Today I want to reiterate Georgia will remain open for business, we will not shut down, we will not stop families from earning a paycheck,” Gov. Kemp announced during a news conference on Monday, alongside the state’s top public health official.

Instead, Kemp and Georgia’s Public Health Commissioner Dr. Kathleen Toomey are urging residents to follow the guidance of medical professionals: “Georgians know the risk of this virus, and they know we have the tools at our disposal to prevent serious illness, hospitalization and death.”

95.5 WSB Reporter Sandra Parrish covered the governor’s news conference live on Monday. Listen to her full on-air report below.

Over the weekend, Georgia reported over 14,000 new cases of the virus.

In an effort to encourage state employees to get vaccinated, Kemp also announced he is offering them a day off on Sept. 3rd to either get the shot or as a reward for those who already have.

“I think giving our employees the opportunity to have a day off will get them thinking about that,” the governor said, adding, “Perhaps there are some out there that haven’t gotten the vaccination yet and they’ll take the time [to] either use that Friday to schedule their appointment.

“Perhaps, it will encourage them to do it before that Friday, so they can have a long weekend.”

And when it comes to the high number of cases among school children, he will continue to leave it up to local school districts to decide what is best for their students.

“I’m very confident that they know how to deal with any issues,” Kemp affirmed. “If they need to go virtual for a week -- or two weeks -- or delay, as some systems are doing, I’m certainly supportive of that.”

He added, “We also have systems [in which] this is going to be their third full week of instruction, and they’re doing just fine -- very few issues.”

Going forward, Kemp emphasized that the state would also be working to add staff and boost funding to hospitals. Nationwide, hospital systems are dealing with severe staff shortages.

The governor said the state will spend another $125 million to finance 1,500 additional staffers and readying 450 new beds in nine hospitals for COVID-19 patients.

Dr. Kathleen Toomey said the state will also be making it easier to get a COVID-19 test. Testing sites in metro Atlanta have seen increasingly long lines in the past few weeks.

Doctors say the increase that Georgia is seeing in cases is happening faster than previous spikes during the pandemic due to the highly contagious nature of the delta variant.

Across Georgia, many intensive care units and emergency departments say they are overwhelmed by the COVID-19 surge driven by the delta variant.

The Georgia Coordinating Center tracks how busy hospitals across the state are.

Many ICUs are out of room for more patients, which is creating backups in emergency rooms. The GCC website listed some of metro Atlanta’s biggest hospitals on total diversion.

Georgia health officials predict we could see the peak of this latest surge in early September, around Labor Day weekend.

>>Read more here.

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