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When a retired janitor suddenly died in southern Georgia, crowds of relatives and friends flocked to a local funeral home and mourned together. Within weeks, their city was overrun by coronavirus cases.

That cluster of coronavirus cases was linked to the funerals of 64-year-old Andrew J. Mitchell and another man, held in late February and early March, Dougherty County Council Chairman Chris Cohilas said. Albany, a city of roughly 75,000 people -- as well as Cohilas' county, where Albany is based -- is the latest example of how the virus has started disrupting smaller, more rural areas as much as the country's larger, urban cities.
As of Wednesday afternoon, there were at least 490 confirmed coronavirus cases reported in Dougherty County and at least 29 coronavirus-related deaths, the Georgia Department of Public Health said.

About 20 people who attended at least one of the funerals contracted the virus, said Scott Steiner, the chief executive officer of Phoebe Putney Health System, which has its biggest hospital in Albany.
"It took one person, whoever that was, and there was no intent," Steiner told CNN. "It shows this virus can quickly spread."

A spokesperson for the Georgia Department of Health acknowledged the virus spread among "individuals who attended a number of events in Albany" but said it's unclear "where or with whom it all started."

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Gov. Brian Kemp on Wednesday said he is preparing a statewide shelter-in-place order across Georgia to try to curb the spread of the coronavirus, a turnabout after weeks of balking at taking more drastic steps to combat the pandemic.

The new rules, which he will issue Thursday, are set to run from Friday through April 13. He also said he would immediately sign an order that would close k-12 schools through the rest of the academic year. The Republican faced mounting pressure from public health officials, local leaders and prominent politicians who warned that a failure to take more sweeping action would further strain Georgia’s health care system and lead to more deaths. “I want to encourage my fellow Georgians to hang in there. I know you’re tired of this,” he said at a windy press conference outside the state Capitol. “But we must first overcome the obstacles in our path.”

Kemp had balked at more stringent restrictions to combat COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus, in part because he was worried more severe bans would cripple the economy in parts of the state where there are few known cases of the illness.But he reversed course Wednesday as a growing number of other Republican governors, including the leaders of Florida, South Carolina and Texas, instituted broader limits on mobility and shuttered more businesses to try to counter the disease.

He said his decision was triggered by "game-changing” new projections on the disease’s spread in Georgia. He also said he was informed of new data that this virus “is now transmitting before people see signs.” “Those individuals could have been infecting people before they ever felt” symptoms, he said. “We didn’t know that until the last 24 hours.”
That contributed to significant changes in state projections on testing, hospital capacity and virus transmission rates that led Dr. Kathleen Toomey, the head of Georgia’s Department of Public Health, to endorse more severe restrictions. “It’s a combination of recognizing there’s a large number of people out there who are infected and who are infected, who are asymptomatic, who never would have been recognized under our old models,” she said, “but also seeing the community transmission that we’re seeing.”

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"Finding out that this virus is now transmitting before people see signs, so what we've been telling people from directives from the CDC [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] for weeks now that if you start feeling bad, stay home ... those individuals could've been infecting people before they ever felt bad,” he added. “But we didn't know that until the last 24 hours. And as Dr. Toomey told me, this is a game changer for us."

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Not everyone is as eager to bring tourists back out to Georgia’s beaches as Gov. Brian Kemp.

Tybee Beach Mayor Shirley Sessions issued a scathing response to Kemp Saturday, days after the governor announced that the state’s stay-at-home order included re-opening the beaches.

“Tybee City Council and I are devastated by the sudden directives and do not support his decisions,” Sessions wrote. “The health of our residents, staff and visitors are being put at risk and we will pursue legal avenues to overturn his reckless mandate.”

Tybee Beach voted on March 19 to close the beaches, according to the Savannah Morning News, but Kemp’s ruling Thursday overruled the city council.

“As the Pentagon ordered 100,000 body bags to store the corpses of Americans killed by the Coronavirus, Governor Brian Kemp dictated that Georgia beaches must reopen, and declared any decision makers who refused to follow these orders would face prison and/or fines," Sessions wrote.

In a Facebook video, the mayor implored people to stay away from the beach, no matter how inviting the sun and sand seems. She also asked people to take photos and videos of anyone not abiding to social distancing guidelines, as Tybee Beach does not have the personnel to enforce the CDC’s rules.