Category: Public safety & health
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The Governor’s Surge
We’ll know soon if the rest of us get what the unvaxed voted for. by Joe Fitzgerald Virginia’s governor ran on a platform to protect children from critical race theory and expose them to COVID. The first goal was moot, since CRT wasn’t often mentioned in public schools to begin with. How well the second…
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Everybody Wins – Nurse Practitioners for Underserved Communities
by James C. Sherlock The University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing has instituted a terrific program thanks to a wealthy alum who gave $125 million to recruit and train nurse practitioners to practice in underserved communities. The Leonard A. Louder Community Care Nurse Practitioner Fellows program will be tuition-free and students who still need help…
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Next Up: Strike Down the Airline Mask Mandate
by Kerry Dougherty Hang in there’re kids. Just eight more school days until you can see the smiles of your classmates again and breathe freely. On Tuesday, the Virginia State Senate approved Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s emergency clause to the mask-optional bill that will make the law go live on March 1. Three Democrats joined the…
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Democratic Flip-Floppers Voted Yes Before They Voted No
by Kerry Dougherty Tired of masks? Me too. But this is important. Imagine how hard the teachers’ unions must have lobbied their indentured Democratic servants in the Virginia State Senate to get seven who voted to end forced masking of school children on Tuesday to vote against the same exact bill on Wednesday. It passed…
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Need an Organ Transplant? No Religious Exemptions from COVID Mandates
by James A. Bacon During an annual consultation with the University of Virginia organ transplant team in January, Shamgar Connors met with a social worker as part of a “psychosocial assessment.” The 42-year-old Stafford County resident, who was undergoing kidney dialysis 12 hours a day, was on the waiting list for a donor kidney. Hospital…
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COVID, Risk, and Organ Transplants
This is the second of three posts about COVID and kidney transplants. James A. Bacon In January Stafford County resident Shamgar Connors, who has undergone kidney dialysis for nearly three years, engaged in an annual consultation with the University of Virginia Health system’s organ transplant team. His conversation with Dr. Karen Warburton went like this:…
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Makary on Mandates
by James A. Bacon For insight into Governor Glenn Youngkin’s approach to managing the COVID-19 epidemic, read the latest column by Marty Makary, a research professor at the Johns Hopkins University, in The Wall Street Journal. He argues that society is paying a high cost for disparaging the immunological resistance that arises from exposure to…
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Belligerence as Leadership
by Joe Fitzgerald About one in 16 American adults suffer with chronic pulmonary disease. Serious health guidelines say they’re the primary ones who should not wear masks. Some of them still can, but a figure of 6% is about the maximum of adults who shouldn’t wear them. The governor of Virginia, elected to eradicate a…
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Mask Hysteria
by James A. Bacon People, get a grip! Emotions over this mask business are running out of control — on both sides of the debate. On the right: Amelia Ruffner King, a 42-year-old Luray mother, has been charged with a misdemeanor for issuing threats to the Page County School Board. “No mask mandates,” the Page Valley…
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COVID Vs. the Flu
by James A. Bacon I have seen considerable discussion on the internet recently about the relationship between COVID-19 and influenza. One thing that seems to be widely accepted is that influenza receded — indeed it practically disappeared — as COVID-19 surged. Where the disagreement occurs is over why influenza faded and now seems to be…
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Youngkin Unveils No-Mandates COVID Plan
by James A. Bacon So, what does a COVID-19 containment strategy look like without the activist governor’s usual go-to tools of mask and vaccination mandates? Governor Glenn Youngkin has provided the answer with the COVID Action Plan he unveiled this morning. The key elements are: (1) encourage (but don’t compel) people to get vaccinated, (2)…
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Has Omicron Peaked?
by James A. Bacon The news media today is chock full of stories about school boards in Northern Virginia and other blue localities defying Governor Glenn Youngkin’s executive order ending mask mandates. The confrontations won’t be settled until the courts rule definitively whether Virginia’s Governor or the school boards have the last word. By the…
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UVa on Third-Vaccination Mandate: Trust Us
by James A. Bacon So, the University of Virginia bumped up its deadline for students, faculty and staff to get a COVID-19 booster shot to today, one day before Glenn Youngkin, a foe of vaccination mandates, takes office. In an interview with CBS19 News, UVa spokesman Brian Coy says Youngkin’s ascension to office was not…
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No More “Medical Bandwagon Thinking” for Virginia
by Kerry Dougherty For the past several weeks, Glenn Youngkin has been busy appointing top members of his administration. One of the most exciting announcements came this week when we learned that Dr. Marty Makary, a surgeon and public policy researcher with a dazzling resume at Johns Hopkins University, agreed to chair Youngkin’s COVID advisory…
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Northam’s Legacy as COVID Fighter
by James A. Bacon As the hours tick down on his term in office, Governor Ralph Northam is inclined to reflect upon his performance. In the limited remarks he has made in public, he has expressed few regrets and admitted to few mistakes. As demonstrated by the thoroughly documented meltdown in Standards of Learning (SOL)…