Below is the OCR text representation for this newspapers page.

Page 2 - Wednesday, January 5, 2022 The Millen News themillennews .com Last Minute Planting New Year’s is here and the planting begins. There is still time to plant fall bulbs to bloom in the spring, the selections might not be great, but the prices are. Also if you used a potted tree for Christmas, now is the time to plant it and for you bar gain hunters, the garden centers normally have the remaining ones on sale. Now is also the time to plant Camilla’s in the yard and replace any azaleas that need to be. With the cool weather, the plants are dor mant and now is the best time to transplant them. The biggest chore right now is to prepare the soil and the planting hole for the new plants. Always make sure the hole is large enough for the root ball and the plant sits upright before covering the hole. You can place fertilizer in the hole with the root ball, just be careful not to over fertilize the new plant. If you received a poinset- tia during the Christmas holidays, place it in a room near a window and remove the pot wrappings and place the pot in a sau cer, the soil and pot need to breathe. Remember to keep the soil moist, not wet. The poinsettia likes light and will continue to grow. If you received a Christ mas cactus, be prepared for the blooms to fall off. Remember you will have to wait a year for new blooms. In the meantime, place it near a window, where it can receive partial or filtered sunlight, water when needed, do not over water, just remember moist is best and remove any pot coverings. As always join a local garden club for a wealth of knowledge and fellow ship, and have a safe and Happy New Year! Recreation Dept, hosts dance classes The Jenkins County Recreation Department is offering for the eighth year in a row; dancing classes by the Spotlight Dance Academy. Registration has begun and new dancers are welcome for the new dance class that started this week. The class features lessons in tap, ballet, hip hop, jazz, and solo dancing. The class is for boys and girls ages 3 and up. To register please contact the recreatioin department at 478-982-2943. (photo contributed) FDA authorizes booster for children ages 12-15 The Food and Drug Administration has authorized the use of a Pfizer- BioNTech booster in adolescents 12 to 15 years old. The agency on Monday also shortened the time between the completion of primary vaccination of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine and a booster dose to five months from six. Finally, the FDA allowed for a third dose of vaccine in immunocompro mised children 5 to 11 years of age. The director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Rochelle Walensky, must still weigh in with a recommendation on the FDA's an nouncement before the changes can take effect. "Throughout the pandemic, as the virus that causes COVID-19 has con tinuously evolved, the need for the FDA to quickly adapt has meant using the best available science to make informed decisions with the health and safety of the American public in mind," acting FDA Commissioner Janet Woodcock, M.D., said in a statement. Woodcock said it is critical for the public to take "effective, life-saving preventative measures," including booster shots, during the current surge of infections driven by the omicron variant. The authorization comes in the midst of an explosion of COVID-19 cases nationwide driven by the omicron variant. Though the new strain appears milder in vaccinated people, there has been a spike in pediatric hospitaliza tions. Many schools have delayed the resumption of in-person classes in the new year due to the rapid rise in cases as well as faculty and staff home sick with the virus. "Now, in the next few weeks, it will be challenging for some schools given the rise in cases. We know some schools made temporary emergency decisions based on their staffing in particular," Dr. Vivek Murthy, the U.S. surgeon general, said Monday. "But our goal should be to make sure that these dismptions are short-lived and we can get our kids back to school safely. Our best chance of doing that is to implement the mitigation measures that we know have worked to get our kids vaccinated," he added. The FDA said it reached its decision after reviewing data from Israel, which included information on 6,300 people ages 12-15 who received a booster shot at least five months after their initial two-dose vaccination. The data showed no new cases of two possible side effects that had been observed in some young people who received the vaccine — myocarditis, an inflammation of the heart, and peri carditis, an inflammation of the saclike tissue surrounding the heart. The CDC recommended the Pfizer vaccine for children 12-15 in May and for kids 5-11 in November. There is still no vaccine autho rized in the U.S. for children under age 5. m JCMC benefits from rural hospital grant -Joe Brady themillennews@gmail.com With two more rural hospitals in Georgia closing in 2021, a push is on to raise the annual cap on the state’s rural hospital tax credit from $60 million to $100 million. Jenkins County Medical Center received $600k of the grant that “allowed us to purchase 8 telemetry units as well as new ultrasound equip ment, a portable x-ray machine and even renovate our radiology room,” Antoine Poythress, CEO of JCMC explains. In 2021, the program reached that cap by August, giving rural lawmakers and advocates for mral hospitals reason to believe more money will be needed in the coming year. That’s espe cially true given the pressure the omicron variant of CO- VID-19 is putting on hospitals as the new year begins. Georgia’s rural hospital tax credit was launched in 2016 and hit the $60 million cap for the first time in 2018 after the General Assembly increased the value of the credit to 100%, giving donors a dollar-for-dollar state income tax benefit. But contributions fell off in 2019 and again last year after the Internal Revenue Service declared that individual taxpay ers could no longer receive an income tax deduction for chari table donations if they received a state tax credit for the same contribution. At the same time, a state audit found that donations to the rural hospital tax credit program weren’t necessarily going to the neediest hospitals. The report called for greater accountability and transparency. Rural hospital administrators have come to grips with the IRS changes by learning to market the program’s value beyond the tax benefit to contributors. It helps that donors can designate their contributions to benefit a specific rural hospital in their communities. “This is a 1-for-l donation to the hospital,” Poythress said. “It doesn’t change the amount of taxes you pay but who benefits.” The Georgia House Rural Development Council endorsed raising the cap on the tax credit in its list of recommendations for 2022 released early in De cember. “Since its inception, the mral hospital tax credit has infused millions of dollars into the health-care systems in mral Georgia and prevented the closure of essential hospitals in mral communities,” the council’s report stated. “Taxpay ers consistently donate funding that helps stabilize these critical health facilities.” Rural hospitals also have been able to draw down federal COVID-19 relief funds since the coronavims pandemic stmck Georgia nearly two years ago. That money has been used to offset the impact the additional burden COVID-19 has put on mral hospitals. Despite the influx of federal dollars, hospitals in Cuthbert and Commerce shut their doors in 2021, bringing to eight the number of mral hospitals in Georgia that have closed during “We are excited about our new x-ray room,” explains Cara Oglesby, Radiology Supervisor at JCMC. The new room will al low for more options for views. Xrays are all about angles after all,” states Cara Oglesby. Pictured with the new machines are Jennifer Gay, Cara Oglesby, Alexis McClain, and Heather Hodges, (photo by D. Hearn) the last decade. Only Texas and Tennessee have suffered more hospital closures during that period. Rural hospitals are optimistic the General Assembly will see fit to increase the cap on Geor gia’s mral hospital tax credit during the legislative session that starts Jan. 10. Georgians have come to realize the fact that this is the cleanest way to get money into hospitals,” he said. “The grant has helped our hospital meet the demands of increased patient care. Treating and stabilizing a patient before transfer is of the greatest impor tance,” says Poythress. Follow us on INSTAGRAM @ themillennews Every Friday & Saturday - 6:00 pm "The Auction House Of The South" 425 Highway 25 South Millen, Georgiu 30442 (470)401 -5007 New Year! New Deals! Joe says. We are loaded with Brand Name cleaning supplies for the New Year! Open Monday - Saturday 10>6 Closed Sunday (478)401-5026 Joe Owner