Author: James A. Bacon
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A Brief Respite from Reality
In a break from our regularly scheduled programming about COVID-19, racism and riots, here’s a plug for Virginia’s state parks. My wife and I enjoyed a getaway today at Powhatan State Park. The park has loads of well-maintained trails, suitable for walking, hiking, biking and horseback riding, that take you through meadows and forest and…
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How Mark Herring Fuels Racial Discord
Wow, a lot of rage has been unleashed in the United States. Remember when “angry white men” was used as a put-down of the Tea Party movement? The implication was that anger clouded the reason and judgment of conservative voters, and their concerns thereby safely discredited and dismissed. Well, in the minds of many folks,…
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Dissecting the COVID-19 Death Statistics
by Carol J. Bova If you compare the COVID-19 hospitalization statistics published by the Virginia Department of Health (VDH) and the Virginia Hospital and Healthcare Association (VHHA), you’ll quickly see they don’t add up. On May 30, the VDH COVID-19 dashboard showed a total of 4,601 hospitalizations. The same day, the VHHA showed that 5,745…
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COVID-19 Update: Knowns and Unknowns
Highlights from today’s data dump of Virginia COVID-19 data: Total number of tests: 303,430 Total number of confirmed COVID-19 cases: 43,611 Percentage of tests that turned out positive: 14.3% Total hospitalizations: 4,601 Percentage of confirmed cases that require hospitalization: 10.5% Percentage of COVID-19 cases, known and unknown, requiring hospitalization: no one knows — but smaller…
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The Brewing Revolution in College Admissions
by James A. Bacon The traditional criteria for admitting applicants into colleges and universities is under assault. Critics from the left side of the political spectrum have been attacking SAT and ACT scores, originally devised as yardsticks to measure intellectual aptitude, as biased in favor of applicants from upper socio-economic groups. The University of California…
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Snowflakes, Meet COVID-19
by James A. Bacon Nearly three in four Virginia college students are combating anxiety, worry or other mental health challenges, according to a survey of more than 1,000 college students by the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia (SCHEV). It’s hard to know what to make of this funding. Cynics might respond, “What else…
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Uh, Oh, COVID Hospitalization Numbers Creeping Back Up
Here’s the latest from the Excel spreadsheet of John Butcher, publisher of Cranky’s blog: Daily COVID-19 hospitalizations are creeping back up, as can be seen in the graph above. And the total number of COVID-19 patients is rebounding as well as shown in the graph below:
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One More Time: The COVID Crisis Is Largely a Nursing Home Crisis
by James A. Bacon The daily numbers reported about COVID-19 in Virginia are volatile, and it would be imprudent to read too much into a single day’s statistics. But two numbers published on public dashboards this morning are symbolic of the true nature of the epidemic. The first data point is the number of new…
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Virginia’s COVID Death Rate Is Remarkably Low
by Kerry Dougherty Beware of former English majors wielding calculators. Nevertheless, here goes. Every single day it seems we see newspapers publishing hysterical headlines about “sharp increases” in the number of Covid-19 cases in Virginia. Why is anyone surprised? After all, the governor wasted weeks wringing his hands and whining about how he couldn’t get any…
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Remember Petersburg!
by James A. Bacon Two weeks ago, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a $3 trillion coronavirus-relief bill that would direct nearly $1 trillion to state, local and tribal governments. This massive bail-out would come on top of massive assistance to states and localities in previous legislation: $150 for a Coronavirus Relief Fund, $30 billion…
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No Expiration Date on the State of Emergency
Back on June 12, Governor Ralph Northam declared a state of emergency to combat the COVID-19 virus. The declaration had an expiration date. Executive order 51 stated that the state of emergency “shall remain in full force and in effect until June 10,” unless “amended or rescinded by further executive order.” Two days ago, the…
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About that Mask Mandate
by Kerry Dougherty Like everything else he’s done during the coronavirus crisis, Gov. Ralph Northam’s announcement that he was ordering masks for all Virginians over the age of 10 when they’re in brick and mortar establishments was onerous to businesses and fraught with contradictions. For instance, he warned about the mask mandate on Friday, May…
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You Don’t Have to Like the Decree, But Wear Face Masks Anyway
by James A. Bacon I’m still digesting Governor Ralph Northam’s face-mask mandate, but my initial reaction is that it could be worse. I dislike the coercive aspect of his executive order. But requiring Virginians to wear face masks in public buildings and places of commerce is less intrusive than compelling businesses and workplaces to shut…
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Hypothesis: Improving Treatments Are Making COVID-19 Less Deadly
by James A. Bacon The Wall Street Journal cited a revealing statistical measure of the COVID-19 virus that reflects upon the ability of different health systems to cope with the epidemic: the percentage of confirmed cases that result in fatalities. That number varies widely across countries and states. The focus of the article was Singapore…
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Parole Board Continues Freeing Frenzy
by Kerry Dougherty I watched most of Gov. Ralph Northam’s press conference yesterday, hoping that some bold member of the press would ask just one question: “If masks work why don’t you slap them on the face of every inmate in Virginia and keep them in their cells?” Alas, no one wants to remind the…