In a strongly worded letter on Friday, Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens called for “immediate answers” from Wellstar Health System officials to address the “crisis” caused by the planned shutdown of a Level 1 trauma center in the city — Wellstar’s second such closure this year. Dickens said city leaders are scrambling to gather resources for […]
Kenya Hunter
Kenya Hunter is Capital B Atlanta's health reporter. Twitter @KenyaTheHunter
Posted inHealth
Monkeypox Worries Loom as Atlanta Black Pride Starts
Quinten Fleming just moved to Atlanta from Raleigh, North Carolina, two weeks ago. Fleming, a business analyst for a pharmaceutical company, is looking forward to going to his first Atlanta Black Pride Weekend as a resident. He also has some concerns. With the looming threat of monkeypox, he’s getting flashbacks to the coronavirus pandemic. He […]
Posted inHealth
What Black Pride Organizers Are Doing to Address Monkeypox
Before the pandemic, Amber Moore remembers over 40,000 people coming to town every Labor Day weekend for Atlanta Black Pride. Moore, the chief operating officer of Atlanta Black Pride Inc., and other event organizers are now facing a new challenge: the state’s monkeypox outbreak. Nearly 80% of cases in the state are Black men who […]
Posted inHealth
Monkeypox Vaccine Distribution Is Inequitable, but Experts See Efforts Working
For health advocates in Georgia, the monkeypox outbreak has reignited discussion on racial inequity. Whereas Black people make up nearly 80% of cases in the state, they represent less than half of the vaccine doses. The state has distributed more than 17,000 vaccine doses, which have gone to people who are sexually active and have […]
Posted inHealth
How Stigma Affects Public Health Response to Monkeypox
Rig Rush is frustrated. The global marketing director with Impulse Group — an organization providing HIV/AIDS education for gay men — says it has been hard to watch state and federal health departments respond to the worldwide monkeypox outbreak. Like COVID-19, the vaccine and testing rollout in Georgia has been slow. And there’s concern that […]
Posted inHealth
Where to Get Tested and Vaccinated for Monkeypox in Metro Atlanta
The worldwide monkeypox outbreak continues to spread across the country, and Georgia ranks fifth in total cases. The latest tally from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was just over 1,000 cases in the state. In metro Atlanta — which represents a majority of the state’s cases — testing and vaccines for monkeypox […]
Posted inHealth
Monkeypox and Its Effects: One Man’s Journey
Angelo Perry says he wants to get back to his regular life. He misses his friends, family and having time to build roller skates speckled with glitter. Perry’s world changed on July 22 when he was diagnosed with monkeypox. More than 80% of cases in Georgia where racial data is available have affected Black men […]
Posted inHealth, Reproductive Health
City of Atlanta Giving $300,000 to Abortion Fund
In further defiance of the state’s decision to ban abortion after six weeks, the Atlanta City Council approved funding to support a reproductive rights organization. In mid-May, in the wake of the leaked U.S. Supreme Court opinion to overturn Roe v. Wade, the Amplify Georgia Collaborative — which includes SisterSong, the Feminist Women’s Health Center, […]
Posted inHealth
Black Men Make Up Over 80% of Monkeypox Cases in Georgia
The overwhelming majority of monkeypox cases in Georgia have been made up of Black men, according to the state’s public health department. Nancy Nydam, spokesperson for the Georgia Department of Public Health, confirmed to Capital B Atlanta that 82% of the more than 500 monkeypox cases are Black men. “The percentage speaks for itself,” Nydam […]
Posted inCOVID-19, Health
What We Know About the Latest COVID-19 Spike in Georgia
Nearly three years into the pandemic, we’re still seeing new variants emerge. Recently, a new subvariant of Omicron, BA.5, has led to a spike in COVID-19 cases in metro Atlanta. The Omicron subvariant is even more transmissible than its predecessors. “It is a nightmare in its transmissibility, but it doesn’t seem to be more deadly […]
