Category: Public safety & health
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The Franchise and the Rat in the Cream
This is the first essay in a four-part series about the COVID epidemic at James Madison University. by Joe Fitzgerald The franchise. When the next friendly history of JMU is written, the booster writing it may include a chapter about the two visits by ESPN’s “Game Day” and how they helped introduce to a new…
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Shhh! Don’t Ask! COVID-19 Equity Analysis Is for Governor’s Eyes Only
by Carol J. Bova The Virginia Department of Health (VDH) blog posted March 16 that the department and the Virginia Department of Emergency Management (VDEM) would open community vaccination centers in Danville, Portsmouth, Petersburg and Prince William. “The sites were selected after the Virginia Department of Emergency Management conducted an equity analysis to determine the…
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Why Haven’t More Asians Been Vaccinated?
by James A. Bacon Asians comprise 7% of Virginia’s population, but according to the latest Virginia Department of Health COVID-19 dashboard, they account for only 3.6% of confirmed COVID cases, 4.5% of hospitalizations, and 1.5% of deaths. That would seem to be good news for Asians and Asian-Americans. But never fear, the intrepid social-justice reporters…
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America Needs a Diet, Not Doughnuts
by Kerry Dougherty Everyone loves Krispy Kreme. But let’s be honest, doughnuts are the last thing America needs right now. We were fat before the pandemic. We’re fatter now. And being fat puts you at a much higher risk for becoming seriously ill from from COVID. At first I was skeptical about a report in The…
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More Unintended Consequences: Shutdowns, Alcohol, and Domestic Violence
by James A. Bacon As the number of COVID-19 vaccinations administered in Virginia passes the two million mark, new COVID-19 cases in Virginia are falling off rapidly. We can look forward to the day when fear of the virus will be a distant memory. But the damage wrought by the virus — or, to be…
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Medicaid and Medicaid Rate Increases Boost Virginia Hospital Profitability
by James C. Sherlock Virginia in 2018 both expanded Medicaid and increased Medicaid reimbursement rates. Those changes orchestrated by Virginia hospitals took effect in 2019 and resulted in a major financial windfall to those same hospitals. I have compared the 2018 and 2019 Hospitals Operating and Total Margins spreadsheets published by the state through…
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VDH Cleans Up COVID Deaths Stats
by Carol J. Bova Anecdotes and social media comments have insisted that the Virginia Department of Health (VDH) has counted deaths from suicide, gunshot or motor vehicle accidents as COVID-19 deaths. On March 19, VDH announced on its COVID-19 Dashboard that it had reviewed more than 10,000 reported COVID-19 deaths using the Virginia Case Definition…
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Troubled Governance at Sentara
by James C. Sherlock I have been studying and writing about Sentara Healthcare for 15 years. Sentara has during that time both expanded significantly and been mired in seemingly endless controversies regarding such widely reported issues as: its death grip on the COPN process and business practices, which together have strangled their much weaker competitors…
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Podcast: How the General Assembly Has Changed
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in Agriculture & forestry, Blogs and Blog Administration, Business and Economy, Civil Rights, Individual Liberties, Consumer Protection, Courts and law, Demographics, Economic development, Energy, Entrepreneurs and Innovation, Environment, General Assembly, Government Finance, Health Care, Housing, Immigration, Infrastructure, Labor and Workforce, Land use & Development, Politics, Poverty & income gap, Property rights, Public safety & health, Race and Race RelationsBy Peter Galuszka I haven’t contributed much to BR lately since I am slammed with non-Virginia work. I did manage to help out on a Podcast about how the General Assembly has changed the state over the last two years as Democrats have gained power. This Podcast is produced by WTJU, the University of Virginia…
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The Resistance Gathers: UVa Edition
This letter to University of Virginia alumni and parents appears in a change.org petition. As of 11:00 p.m., March 18, it had racked up 1,769 signatures. — JAB As students at the University of Virginia during a time of crisis, we are reaching out for alumni and parent support. Unfortunately, we are writing this letter…
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Experts Pulled Six-Foot Social Distance Rule Out Of “Thin Air”
by Kerry Dougherty Hmmm. Looks like the CDC — and the frequently wrong-but-never-in-doubt Dr. Fauci — have a problem. Even The New York Times now admits what those of us who have been paying attention for more than year already knew: That three feet of social distancing provides plenty of protection against Covid-19 and six…
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Lies, Damn Lies, and Race-Obsessed Statistics
by Carol J. Bova A March 3 Virginia Department of Health (VDH) blog post discusses racial/ethnic “health and disease” disparities in light of the COVID-19 epidemic. It states that COVID case rates and hospitalization rates for blacks and Hispanics in the United States and Virginia are substantially higher than for whites. “Social determinants of health are…
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Confessions of a Virginia Whistleblower
by James C. Sherlock I decided last week in a paroxysm of good citizenship to contact the Virginia Inspector General (IG) to report wrongdoing by state officials. I have a considerable list centered around the failure of many state officials to carry out their longstanding, formally-assigned duties pre-COVID to plan for a pandemic emergency and…
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COVID Vaccination Report
The vaccination pace is picking up. My wife and I had our first round of shots last Sunday at CVS. Ironically, my daughter in Northern Virginia scheduled them for us. She had been checking the CVS website and saw that they were scheduling for two days in Richmond. (I had checked the day before and…
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Enough
by Kerry Dougherty Oh look. We’re coming up on the one-year anniversary of 15 Days to Slow the Spread. Remember that? The big lie that if we simply shut down the country for just two weeks, it would stop the coronavirus from rampaging coast to coast and allow hospitals prepare for the onslaught. They warned…