GA Legislators Urged To Quarantine After Contact With Giuliani

ATLANTA, GA — On the same day Georgia surpassed 9,000 deaths from the coronavirus, some Georgia lawmakers are being advised to quarantine after attending a hearing with Rudy Giuliani, who has since been hospitalized with COVID-19.

“We’re clearly disappointed that Mayor Giuliani disregarded the health and well-being of others by not wearing a mask when it clearly would have been appropriate,” state Senate President Pro Tem Butch Miller, a Republican from Gainesville, said Monday.

Giuliani, President Donald Trump's personal lawyer, was admitted Sunday to Georgetown University Hospital after testing positive for the COVID-19 virus.

An unspecified number of lawmakers attended the Senate Judiciary subcommittee hearing Thursday to hear Giuliani make his case for overturning the results of Georgia’s presidential election. Giuliani was maskless and in “close proximity to senators, Senate staff, members of the media and the general public,” according to Sen. William Ligon, a Republican from Brunswick and chairman of the subcommittee.

On Monday, Miller encouraged — but did not mandate — those who had not previously contracted COVID-19 to quarantine for two weeks. After a similar encounter with Giuliani in Arizona, legislative officials there announced they would close down for a week “out of an abundance of caution,” according to The Arizona Republic.

While some Georgia lawmakers did choose to quarantine, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that several who contracted COVID-19 earlier in the year chose to visit a Monday legislative event hosted by the University of Georgia in Athens.

The call for quarantine came Monday, the same day that Georgia posted more than 9,000 deaths so far from COVID-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus.

Georgia also reported 4,875 newly confirmed cases of the COVID-19 virus, its second highest one-day total since the pandemic began. The number is exceptional for a Monday, when numbers usually lag because of weekend backlogs.

GEORGIA CORONAVIRUS NUMBERS FOR DEC. 7, 2020

The Georgia Department of Public Health in Atlanta reported a total of 448,683 confirmed cases of the COVID-19 virus at 2:50 p.m. Monday. According to the health department’s website, that includes 4,875 newly confirmed cases of COVID-19 over the last 24 hours. In addition, Georgia reported 625 new antigen-positive cases over the last 24 hours, which are considered to be probable cases of COVID-19.

Georgia has reported 9,007 deaths so far from COVID-19, with 37 more confirmed deaths recorded in the last 24 hours. Georgia also reported 844 probable deaths from COVID-19 since the pandemic began. These probable deaths include fatalities with indirect evidence of COVID-19.

Georgia reported 36,270 hospitalizations — 231 more than the day before — and 6,691 admissions so far to intensive-care units.

No information is available from Georgia about how many patients have recovered.

Counties in or near metro Atlanta and other metropolitan areas continue to have the highest number of COVID-19 positives, with Fulton County still in the lead. Seven of the top 10 counties — six in metro Atlanta and one in Augusta — posted triple-digit increases. These statistics do not include antigen-positive cases.

1. Fulton County: 39,958 cases — 392 new
2. Gwinnett County: 39,375 cases — 397 new
3. Cobb County: 28,263 cases — 314 new
4. DeKalb County: 27,841 cases — 221 new
5. Hall County: 13,329 cases — 160 new
6. Chatham County: 11,038 — 98 new
7. Clayton County: 10,436 — 71 new
8. Richmond County: 10,272 — 249 new
9. Cherokee County: 9,849 — 110 new
10. Whitfield County: 8,331 — 88 new

Counties in or near metro Atlanta also continue to have the most deaths from COVID-19.

1. Fulton County: 684 deaths — 1 new
2. Gwinnett County: 513 deaths
3. Cobb County: 504 deaths — 2 new
4. DeKalb County: 451 deaths — 2 new
5. Bibb County: 224 deaths — 1 new
6. Chatham County: 204 deaths
7. Richmond County: 200 deaths
8. Dougherty County: 200 deaths — 1 new
9. Hall County: 199 deaths
10. Clayton County: 198 deaths

All Georgia statistics are available on the state's COVID-19 website.

Globally, more than 67.4 million people have tested positive for COVID-19, and more than 1.54 million people have died from it, Johns Hopkins University reported Monday.

In the United States, more than 14.9 million people have been infected and more than 283,000 people have died from COVID-19 as of Monday. The U.S. has only about 4 percent of the world's population but more confirmed cases and deaths than any other country.

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