Category: Public safety & health
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UVa, COVID, and Jim Ryan’s $200,000 Bonus
by James A. Bacon Like many other University of Virginia alumni, I was taken aback to hear that the Board of Visitors had granted President Jim Ryan a $200,000 bonus for the great job UVa had done in addressing the COVID-19 epidemic. Rector Whittington Clement put it this way: “When the situation this year became…
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COVID, Vaccinations and Risk
by James A. Bacon A new feature of the Virginia Department of Health’s COVID-19 dashboard compares the rate of infections, hospitalizations and deaths among vaccinated and unvaccinated people. We’ll get to that in just a moment. By way of preface, it’s worth noting that every Virginian who wants the vaccine has it. The graph above…
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Closing Schools Made Children Fatter, More Vulnerable to COVID
by Hans Bader Many kids became fatter when schools closed to in-person learning during the coronavirus pandemic. “Overweight or obesity increased among 5- through 11-year-olds from 36.2% to 45.7% during the pandemic, an absolute increase of 8.7% and relative increase of 23.8%,” noted the Journal of the American Medical Association. That’s making the effects of…
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UVa as Petri Dish for COVID-Fighting Policy
by James A. Bacon The University of Virginia is engaging in an interesting real-world experiment in the effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccine mandates. UVa’s must-vaccinate rule for students is similar to policies at almost every other university in Virginia and many employers as well. But UVa’s COVID tracker, which is updated daily, provides a finer-grained insight…
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Side Effects? What Side Effects?
by Walter Smith Have you noticed that pharmacy ads on TV close with a long list of side effects and warn you to ask your doctor if BigPharma XYZ is right for you? How come there is no similar warning for COVID shots? You must be an anti-vaxxer, I imagine you are thinking right now.…
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Let Me Get This Straight…
by Paula Harkins Let me get this straight. I’ve got to show a valid ID to dine out or take a spin class… but not to vote? A growing number of Virginia businesses, restaurants, and venues are requiring proof of COVID-19 vaccination and a photo ID to enter. Richmond was the first Virginia locality to…
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What’s the Best COVID Metric — Vaccinations or Antibodies?
by James A. Bacon The University of Virginia has “disenrolled” 49 students who had registered for fall classes but failed to comply with the school’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate. Another 184 temporary waivers were granted to students who have had trouble getting vaccinated, according to The Washington Post. University officials say that fewer than one percent…
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The New Normal: COVID Ain’t Going Away
by James A. Bacon The number of confirmed COVID-19 cases is surging in Virginia, driving continued controversy over mask and vaccination mandates. As has been the case throughout the 18 months of the epidemic here, the media is focusing on the number of cases, which undeniably has increased sharply. The seven-day moving average is up…
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Carilion’s Opportunity to Advance the Knowledge About COVID
by James A. Bacon Roanoke-based Carilion Clinic, the leading health care system in western Virginia, will try using the carrot and the stick in a campaign to elevate the percentage of employees who have been vaccinated for COVID-19, reports The Roanoke Times. Vaxxed employees will receive $150 in their Oct. 15 paycheck, while unvaxxed employees will be…
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Victory for Zywicki
by James A. Bacon George Mason University has granted Todd Zywicki a medical exemption from its mandatory COVID-19 vaccination policy. The law school professor had sued the university, which had denied him an exemption, on the grounds that, as a COVID survivor, he had acquired natural immunity to the virus and that a vaccination would…
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Supreme Court Refuses to Block Vaccination Mandate; Judicial Review Generally
by Dick Hall-Sizemore The U.S. Supreme Court has flatly turned down a request for an injunction against the enforcement by Indiana University that all students and staff be vaccinated against COVID-19. This request was an appeal of a unanimous decision of the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit denying the request. The order was…
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Not All COVID-Fighting Masks Are Created Equal
by James A. Bacon So, society is back to wearing masks. Governor Ralph Northam has mandated mask usage in public schools, while many universities and employers in Virginia are doing the same. The K-12 mandate does make accommodations for people who are eating, drinking, sleeping, exercising, playing a music instrument, and/or is in state of…
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Return to Autocracy in Virginia
by James C. Sherlock. Updated Aug 13, 12:15 PM It was so easy to predict that I can claim no special prescience. I wrote a week ago: “The Governor’s 15-month emergency powers expired June 30, and, God, does he miss them…. (H)ow long (will the) governor put up with the lack of emergency powers?” If…
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Northam Orders Masks on Faces of Virginia Students
by Kerry Dougherty They say an advertisement is successful if you can recall the name of the product long after you’ve seen the ad. If that’s true, the 2013 Staples Back-To-School spot has to be one of the greats. I thought it was hilarious when I saw it eight years ago and I think of…
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Herd Immunity from the Delta Variant – “Mythical”
To vax or not to vax? I’m vaccinated. I think everybody who is eligible to be vaccinated should get vaccinated. Jim Bacon makes the excellent point that people who are vaccinated may still get COVID but are far less likely to die from the virus. Others believe that vaccinations will confer herd immunity to the population…