Category: Public safety & health
-
Democracy Dies in Drabness
by Jock Yellott Charlottesville’s City Hall used to be open to its citizens. We could go talk to people. Ask questions. Learn. No longer. Front door locked. A guard in an air conditioned box. A citizen has to justify going inside. Where? Seeing whom? Why? The guard calls upstairs to where I’m supposed to go,…
-
The Variants Are Coming! The Variants Are Coming! The Worst One Yet!
by Kerry Dougherty Looks like it has arrived. I’m talking about the eagerly anticipated “Mid-Term Variant.” You know, the “worst one yet, the shape-shifting” variety. It’s the terrifying BA.5, which is spreading right now. And if that doesn’t have you trembling and reaching for an N95, the BA2.75 is on its way. From India! This…
-
New Fed Policy Would Hide CMS Data on Patient Safety Records of Hospitals
by James C. Sherlock One of the most disturbing commentaries I have read in a long time relating to federal efforts to improve hospital patient safety reports a major step backwards in that program. I have written here many times of the power of the hospitals over Virginia’s politics. A proposed new federal rule shows…
-
No Patient Should Ever Be Left Alone
by Kerry Dougherty Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis this week signed the Sunshine State’s “No Patient Left Alone Act,” guaranteeing that Floridians can have their loved ones with them when they are hospitalized, ill or in long-term care. What’s truly unbelievable is that this needed to be legislated. The importance of family visits was always considered…
-
Did Mandated Vaxes at UVa Reduce COVID Transmission?
by James A. Bacon Well, well, well. The indefatigable Walter Smith has obtained new data from the University of Virginia through the Freedom of Information Act that put the efficacy of the university’s mandated COVID vaccinations in a new light. Recall that the university “disenrolled” 238 students for declining to get double vaccinated or qualifying…
-
So, How Did UVa’s Vaccine Mandate Work Out?
by James A. Bacon Readers may recall that last August the University of Virginia “disenrolled” 238 students for not complying with the university’s COVID vaccination mandate. (Of those, 49 had enrolled at the time the decision was made. The intentions of the others were not known. Many likely had made other arrangements knowing that the…
-
What’s Causing Virginia’s Excess Deaths? Whatever It Is, It’s Not Just COVID
Virginia has high vaccination rates, and deaths from COVID-19 are a small fraction of what they were at the height of the pandemic. Yet “excess” deaths in Virginia — the number that would be predicted based upon projections from pre-COVID years — are running 13.4% higher than expected this year. According to Centers for Disease…
-
Medicaid, Public Health and Chronic Disease Management
by James C. Sherlock From the CDC: Chronic diseases have significant health and economic costs in the United States. Preventing chronic diseases, or managing symptoms when prevention is not possible, can reduce these costs. Virginia pays a great deal of money every year to contractors who manage the care of its Medicaid population. It is…
-
COVID: It’s Baaack! But Relatively Few Deaths So Far
by James A. Bacon Just a reminder, people: COVID-19 may have receded from the headlines, but it hasn’t gone away. After bottoming out in April at less than 1,000 daily confirmed cases, the seven-day moving average in Virginia has climbed back up to 3,200 or more. You can be double vaxxed — as much of…
-
One of the World’s Stupidest Inventions Now Illegal in Virginia
Who says Virginia’s polarized legislature can’t get anything done? Governor Glenn Youngkin has signed a bill banning the vehicle modification known as “Carolina Squat.” The law was inspired by the death of Virginian BJ Upton in a car accident involving such a vehicle. The modification raises the front of the vehicle significantly higher than the…
-
When COVID Hysteria Meets Safetyism
by James A. Bacon The percentage of Northern Virginia’s adult population grappling with anxiety and depression more than tripled during the COVID-19 epidemic — from 8% to 28% — according to data published by the Community Foundation for Northern Virginia. The percentage peaked at 39% in February 2020, affecting 755,000 individuals, but abated to 545,000…
-
Bad Memories: 15 Days to Slow the Spread
by Kerry Dougherty Happy anniversary, America. It was two years ago today that we surrendered our civil liberties due to hysteria over a virus. Yep, it was March 16, 2020 that we were told to stay home for 15 days to slow the spread of the new coronavirus. Health officials demonstrated how this would work…
-
When the Numbers Stopped
by Joe Fitzgerald The Virginia Department of Health began posting daily COVID numbers on March 17, 2020, and effectively quit Thursday. A press release on the VDH website explains the changes, but doesn’t include enough real information to make it worth the trouble of linking there. For two years, though, VDH produced daily information that…
-
Torturing Statistics Until They Confess: An RTD Primer
by James A. Bacon Sabrina Moreno with the Richmond Times-Dispatch has written a three-piece series arguing that disinvestment in the Virginia Department of Health led Latinos to being “the most likely to get infected, hospitalized and die” during the COVID-19 pandemic. The fourth paragraph of the story makes the following extraordinary assertion: Three months after…
-
The Incredible Shrinking Virus
It’s amazing how quickly COVID-19 has faded from the headlines. I guess good news is no news. A recent Centers for Disease Control study estimates, based on antibody testing, that 43% of all Americans have been infected by the virus. Naturally acquired resistance plus the high percentage of the population that has been vaccinated (76%…