Dougherty County to offer $300 payments to employees who get COVID vaccinations

ALBANY — Faced with health care costs of more than $1 million for treating workers with COVID-19, Dougherty County is looking to motivate employees to get vaccinated by offering cash.

“To date, we have spent over $1.1 million in COVID cases alone in our health (plan),” County Administrator Michael McCoy told Dougherty County Commissioners during a Monday meeting. The last report came in early August, so “this doesn’t cover the recent hospitalizations we have had, so we know our (costs) are continuing to climb.”

McCoy recommended, and commissioners approved, the $300 incentive payments for employees who get vaccinated. The county will use funds it received through the American Rescue Plan Act to fund the program.

The most recent report showed that the rate of vaccinations for employees, at about 10 percent, lags that of the county, where 33.89 percent are fully vaccinated.

As of the last count, 68 of the roughly 650 county employees had been vaccinated, McCoy said. Recently, a county employee in his 40s died of the disease, leaving behind five children.

“We’re self-insured; we have to manage our costs,” McCoy said.

Later in the meeting Commission Chairman Chris Cohilas expressed frustration at the low rate of vaccinations in the county, which lags the state’s numbers. About 33 percent of county residents have been fully vaccinated.

Since the pandemic began in spring 2020, 316 Dougherty County residents have died from the disease.

“I can’t wrap my head around that,” Cohilas said of the poor vaccination rate. “At one time, we literally had to order an emergency morgue to stack the bodies because we did not have enough space to store our community members.”

Some 90 percent of the county’s elderly have been vaccinated, and in the latest surge that saw 142 patients hospitalized in the Phoebe Putney Health System on Monday, the patients are younger, with the average age in the 40s and 50s during some weeks.

“Talk to the people at Phoebe Putney,” Cohilas said. “They are tired, they are exhausted. Our hospital is overrun.”

There is a lot of misinformation online, but “not one person has fallen out from getting a vaccine at Phoebe or any of those other places,” Cohilas said. “The reality is the risks associated with the vaccine are infinitesimal compared to not getting the vaccine.”

Staff Photo: Alan MauldinAlanMauldin[email protected]