Brenda Goodman

Ideally, anyone should be able to look at this map we created and learn what percentage of health care workers at their local hospitals have not yet been vaccinated against COVID-19. That may not be possible, however, because some hospitals say the data are incorrect.

Large multi-hospital systems in Georgia such as Piedmont Healthcare, HCA Healthcare, Wellstar Health System and Northside Hospital haven’t reported their rates of employee vaccination. The percentage of Georgia hospitals reporting their numbers, though, is higher than the national average of 52 percent.

Nationwide, 1 in 4 hospital workers who have direct contact with patients had not yet received a single dose of a COVID vaccine by the end of May, according to a WebMD and Medscape Medical News analysis of data collected by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) from 2,500 hospitals across the U.S.

Last week, a report by the EPA’s Office of the Inspector General, an independent watchdog that oversees the actions of the federal agency, said  “political appointees” hindered the efforts of agency staff to investigate the scope of ethylene oxide contamination.

Recent air testing in neighborhoods around a medical equipment sterilization facility in suburban Atlanta has detected significantly more cancer-causing ethylene oxide gas than when the plant was not operating last fall.