COVID-19 pandemic in Georgia (U.S. state)

[7] On March 23, Atlanta mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms signed a 14-day stay-at-home order to direct all city residents to stay at home except for performing essential tasks through April 7.

[11] The city of South Fulton instituted a curfew on March 17, requiring residents to stay at home from 6:00 PM to 7:00 AM (with work and medical exceptions) and barring gatherings of more than ten people.

[16][17][18] By April 8, there had been 973 confirmed cases and 56 deaths at Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital, with many others in quarantine awaiting test results.

[19][20] The hospital also received media attention after CEO Scott Steiner said they had exhausted their entire six-month stockpile of medical supplies intended for COVID-19 response in just six days due to the extent of the outbreak.

[21] As the hospital rushed to meet supply demands for PPE, they experienced price gouging and received defective equipment from black market medical suppliers in Mexico,[19][21] which resulted in a plan for staff workers to manually sew respiratory masks.

[24] On March 2, state officials announced the first two known cases in Georgia: a Fulton County man in his 50s and his teenage son who had returned on February 22 from a trip to Milan, Italy.

[25][26] On March 6, public health officials reported a presumptive positive case involving a 46-year-old woman in Floyd County that appeared unrelated to international travel.

[32] On March 12, the Governor's office reported the first death in the state of Georgia related to the pandemic — the 67-year-old man who had underlying health conditions.

[34] On March 15, Atlanta mayor, Keisha Lance Bottoms, declared a state of emergency in the city, and banned public gatherings of more than 250 people.

[38] On April 2, Kemp issued a statewide shelter in place order, saying he had just learned "within the last 24 hours" that asymptomatic carriers could transmit the disease even if they were not exhibiting symptoms.

[7] Governor Kemp issued an order effective April 3 suspending local shelter-in-place mandates, reopening beaches so long as people stay six feet apart.

[49] On September 11, 10% of on-campus students at Georgia College and State University had tested positive since the beginning of August, for a total of 645 cases.

Beach had displayed symptoms for nearly a week, and despite knowing his COVID-19 test was pending, he went to work at the state capitol on March 16 when emergency legislation was passed.

[58] In a primetime television "town hall" on March 26 simulcast on all of Atlanta's major network stations as well as by statewide PBS member Georgia Public Broadcasting and over 140 radio stations across the state — Kemp appeared with members of the state coronavirus task force, including Atlanta mayor Bottoms, DPH commissioner Kathleen Toomey, Georgia Emergency Management Agency director Homer Bryson, and Georgia Insurance and Safety Fire commissioner John King.

Around the same time, Atlanta mayor Bottoms warned that city hospitals were projected to be "filled beyond capacity" by May 3, and Toomey said the situation would "get much worse".

[66] On March 9, Governor Kemp announced the preparation of Hard Labor Creek State Park, located in Morgan County, as a quarantine destination for diagnosed individuals "without other options".

[74][75] As of April 21, the state had over 20,000 confirmed cases[76] and the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation predicted on that day that June 19 would be the earliest safe date for Georgia to relax its social distancing measures.

[83] The Georgia Department of Corrections (DOC) suspended visitations and announced additional sanitation measures, but The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that inmates had seen no extra soap.

[5] In addition to Atlanta, the cities of Brookhaven, Clarkston, Sandy Springs and Dunwoody approved plans to ban dine-in service at restaurants.

[citation needed] On March 20, Tybee Island closed its public beaches and banned the open consumption of alcohol.

[94] Amidst a rise in cases in July 2020, a number of areas enacted mandates requiring the wearing of face coverings in public spaces when social distancing was not possible, including Atlanta, whose mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms has been among Georgians who tested positive.

Bottoms criticized Kemp's action, saying that her order was enforceable and stands, and that "public health experts overwhelmingly agree that wearing a face covering helps slow the spread of this sometimes deadly virus".

[102] On August 13, Kemp abruptly dropped the suit, and announced the next day that localized mask mandates would be allowed if certain criteria are met.

[105] Emory University became the first college in the state on March 11 to announce it was closing its campus and moving classes online for the remainder of the semester.

[107] Three hours later the decision was reversed and the University System of Georgia has temporarily suspended instruction for two weeks starting on March 16.

[112] In Cobb County, CobbLinc blocked access to seats near the front of the bus to maintain distance between the drivers and passengers.

[115] Emory Healthcare announced the postponement of "all inpatient and outpatient elective surgical and procedural cases" starting on March 16.

[126] On March 24, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger announced that all registered voters would receive absentee ballot request forms in the mail.

Major League Baseball cancelled the remainder of spring training on that date, and on March 16, they announced that the season will be postponed indefinitely, after the recommendations from the CDC to restrict events of more than 50 people for the next eight weeks, affecting the Atlanta Braves.

[135][needs update] Grand juries were not allowed to convene through June 12, which consequently delayed a review over whether charges should be filed in the murder of Ahmaud Arbery in February.