Georgia’s insurance commissioner deployed to the front lines for coronavirus battle

ATLANTA — Georgia’s insurance commissioner has been deployed to the front lines of the coronavirus battle, working with his National Guard unit as they help cities across the country turn convention centers into hospitals.

John King told Channel 2’s Richard Elliot that he’s relaying everything that he’s learning back to Georgia.

King is a major general in the guard. When he served as Doraville’s police chief, King was deployed to Iraq.

Now, he has been deployed in his own country to fight COVID-19.

“It’s something unlike we’ve seen since World War II,” King told Elliot.

King said he got called up a few weeks ago to help organize the U.S. Army’s efforts to transform huge convention centers in New Orleans, and then in New Jersey, into minimum care hospitals.

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“The whole purpose is to take folks that don’t require that level of care and bring them into those centers to increase the capacity in our hospitals to perform intensive care capabilities,” King said.

King’s been in the National Guard for 34 years.

As Georgia’s insurance commissioner, King is in charge of logistics and supply chain issues for the governor’s coronavirus task force.

King told Elliot that he’s still doing both jobs remotely.

“I talk to my staff four, five times a day. I participate in many of the meetings that Gov. Kemp still has, and we’re still an integral part of that,” King said.

He told Elliot that he’s learned a lot about how different states are handling the coronavirus fight differently, and believes locals know what’s best for their own states.

King said he’s bringing what he’s learned back to Georgia.

“I’d like to think of myself as Georgia’s deep scout. I’m looking at what’s working well. What’s not working well, and I’m picking up all these lessons learned, and I’m sending all those data points back to our team in Georgia,” King said.

Georgia is looking at the possibility of converting the Georgia World Congress Center along with conventions centers in Savannah and Macon into temporary hospitals.

King said that’s a much more complicated task that most people know.

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