Category: Public safety & health
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Northam’s Vaccination Comeback
by James A. Bacon After an abysmal start in vaccinating its population, Virginia has risen to 10th best in the nation ranked by the percentage of COVID-19 vaccines that have been administered. According to the Beckers Hospital Review database, Virginia has given 68.7% of the vaccine doses supplied by the federal government. I don’t know…
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Send Kids Back to School, Northam Urges
by James A. Bacon Better late than never. Citing the increased risk of depression and “irreparable learning loss” from current policies, Governor Ralph Northam said in his Friday press conference that every public school in Virginia should make in-person instruction available as an option by next month. He also urged school districts to offer summer…
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Blacks, Republicans Most Distrustful of Vaccine
by James A. Bacon One out of five Virginians (19%) say they will never get vaccinated against COVID-19, according to a poll of 1,039 people conducted by the Wason Center at Christopher Newport University. The demographic groups most resistant to the vaccine are Republicans, 24% of whom responded that they would “never” get the vaccine,…
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State Senate Votes to Reopen Schools
by Kerry Dougherty Ready for some good news out of Richmond? Thought so. On Tuesday, SB 1303, which will require all Virginia public schools to open for in-person as well as virtual classes, passed the Democrat-controlled Senate overwhelmingly on a BI-PARTISAN VOTE of 26-13. Let’s hear it for politicians putting kids ahead of party! The bill was…
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Dysfunction Exposed in COVID Demands Overhaul of Virginia’s Government
by James C. Sherlock We all like to discuss the politics of things. That in many instances is appropriate. But political leadership is neither the problem nor the solution I will discuss here today. We will spend every day between now and November’s election debating how the politicians responded to COVID. And we should. But…
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Lockdown Lobby Crushed the Poorest Children
by Kerry Dougherty The Federalist, one of my daily must-read news sources, had a great piece yesterday. It supported my point of view, naturally. And it’s timely as Michael Osterholm, one of Biden’s advisors, predicted Sunday that lockdowns will return with a vengeance once the U.K. variant of Covid-19 becomes dominant in the United States.…
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A Horse Built by a Committee
by James C. Sherlock Updated Jan 31 at 8:46 AM Virginia’s Attorney General has offered a bill to create a new state bureaucracy to handle the opioid settlement money about to flow into the Commonwealth to support prevention, treatment, and recovery. It is going to be a lot of money. The state opioid settlements will…
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Virginia Vaxx Program Gaining Momentum
The Northam administration appears to have made a solid recovery from its disappointing performance in giving Virginians the COVID-19 vaccination. After falling to dead last a week ago among the 50 states in the Becker’s Hospital Review ranking of percentage of COVID-19 vaccines administered, the Old Dominion stands today at 21st. Some of this whipsaw…
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Vaxx Stats Update
Regional disparities. The Virginia Department of Health COVID-19 portal has added a statewide map showing where the most vaccine doses per capita have been administered. What stands out is that a significantly higher percentage of the population of western Virginia localities have received the vaccine. Click here to view the numbers for individual jurisdictions. Washington…
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Never Fear, the State Will Step In to Fix Chaotic Vaccination Registrations
by James A. Bacon Governor Ralph Northam feels your pain — and your exasperation — about the slow progress of the COVID-19 vaccination rollout. “I feel the frustration out there,” he said at a press conference yesterday. “I also, as a medical provider, feel the urgency. We are doing everything that we can to save…
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Why Are Nursing Home Workers Refusing to Get Vaccinated?
by James A. Bacon A large percentage of nursing home workers in Northern Virginia and the Washington metropolitan area have declined to take the COVID-19 vaccine. Their wariness, reports The Washington Post, arises from “online misinformation about the vaccine” and “historical mistrust of the medical system of which they are a part.” Forty-eight percent of…
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Vaccinating Virginia’s Largest City
by Kerry Dougherty The bad news? At that rate it will take about two years to inoculate every adult in the city against Covid-19. If you read this space daily you know that hundreds of those folks waited outside the Convention Center in the raw drizzle Monday. Few of them were older than 65, the…
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Cats Win Round One Over Birds At Assembly
by Steve Haner Organized efforts to trap and sterilize feral cats, and then return them to roaming free, operate in legal limbo in Virginia. It is against the law to abandon a companion animal that you have taken into care. The latest attempt to change that has divided animal advocates into snarling camps. Senate Bill…
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Virginia: We’re Dead Last!
by Kerry Dougherty How do you know your state’s vaccine rollout is a complete clusterfart? When Catholic priests are Tweeting about it. https://twitter.com/inthelineofmel/status/1353827875888226304?s=20
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Criminal Law and Public Safety Bills of Interest
By Dick Hall-Sizemore Despite recently having a special session to devote to criminal justice reform, the General Assembly has a healthy docket of criminal law and public safety reform bills to consider this session. I have selected a few to highlight below. Unless otherwise noted, the bills are still in their original committees. Democratic Priorities…