Tag: COVID-19
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The Bear Truth About That Massachusetts Outbreak
by Kerry Dougherty I have a little assignment for you before you read the rest of today’s post. Google “Provincetown Bear Week.” I’ll wait. Back? Yep, it’s a gathering of burly gay men who descend each summer on this Cape Cod enclave which is renowned for its eclectic shops and studios as well as its…
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COVID: Is It Time to Start Panicking Again?
by James A. Bacon COVID-19 is moving faster than we can keep up with. The headline news from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, based on a study of an outbreak in Massachusetts, is that vaccinated people are just as likely to spread the highly contagious Delta variant of virus as unvaccinated people. The…
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Delta Dawn at JMU?
by Joe Fitzgerald More than 1 in 9 James Madison University students was infected with Covid-19 during the school year that ended in May. To date, the university has accepted little responsibility for those illnesses or for any associated spread in Harrisonburg and Rockingham County. President Alger and members of the Senior Leadership Team have…
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Vaccine Shaming Will Backfire
by Kerry Dougherty Lemme get the straight. The president wants everyone in the country to get vaccinated against Covid-19 — an admirable goal that would likely reduce the virus to a national head cold. So how is he persuading those who are reluctant to take the vaccine to get a shot? By insulting them. Just…
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Nuking the Schools
by James A. Bacon The COVID-19-related shutdowns of K-12 schools across the country have been educational disaster of historic proportions, according to data published in a new McKinsey & Company report. McKinsey doesn’t use the phrase “disaster of historic proportions,” but how else can one describe a response to the pandemic that left students on…
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Why So Much Vaccine Hesitancy?
by James A. Bacon Only a month ago, it seemed as if we were putting COVID-19 behind us. With the emergence of the super-virulent Delta strain, all bets are off. Even vaccinated people and virus-resistant school children are being called upon to start wearing masks. I have no set opinions on the proper course of…
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Dazed and Confused: The CDC
by Kerry Dougherty Confused? Of course you are. Anyone watching the hair-on-fire ninnies at the CDC is dizzy by now. They lack common sense, their pronouncements are irrational, their messaging is bizarre. Oh, and they clearly have no idea what they’re doing. One day these “experts” are experiencing scary “feelings of impending doom.” Next they…
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Slow Service: The New Normal
by Kerry Dougherty We waited at least 20 minutes after we were seated to place our drink orders. Another 15 to get our cocktails. Another 30 for appetizers (cups of soup) and another 30 for our entrees. It was so late when we finished, we skipped dessert. Welcome to the “new normal” in dining out:…
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Media in COVID Feeding Frenzy
by Kerry Dougherty Many years ago, Virginia’s most prominent political scientist, Larry Sabato, wrote a book called “Feeding Frenzy.” If memory serves — and it’s been years since I read it — the University of Virginia professor analyzed how the media mob swam from scandal to scandal, feeding on wounded politicians like a school of…
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The Missing Data in the School-Mask Mandate Controversy
by James A. Bacon The Northam administration has issued new guidelines urging unvaccinated students and staff to keep wearing masks in K-12 schools this fall — but won’t require them to do so. Some school districts, like Chesapeake, have voted to nix the masks, while others, like Virginia Beach (see Kerry Dougherty’s column below), will…
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Far-Left Beach School Board Ignores Cries to Remove Masks
by Kerry Dougherty I’ve seen this movie before, I thought, as I watched Tuesday night’s Virginia Beach School Board meeting on my computer. And I know how it ends. To the parents lined up to speak in favor of a motion to make masks optional for students this fall I wanted to shout, Save your…
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Constitutionality of Vaccination Mandate
by Dick Hall-Sizemore There has been much opposition expressed on this blog regarding UVa, and, by extension, other higher education institutions, requiring students and staff to be vaccinated against COVID as a requirement for attending class in the fall. The policy has been said to be, among other things, unconstitutional. Not surprisingly, a judge has…
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More Clarity, Please, About Vaccinations for COVID Survivors
by James A. Bacon Since late January, when COVID-19 vaccines became available to the general public in Virginia, 99.4% of the cases, 99% of hospitalizations, and 99.3% of deaths have occurred in people who have not been vaccinated, according to the Virginia Hospital & Healthcare Association (VHHA). “The scientific evidence clearly demonstrates that the COVID-19…
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Northam Administration Neglects Virginia’s Mentally Ill
by Kerry Dougherty You would think that with a medical doctor occupying Virginia’s Governor’s Mansion, Virginia would have topped the nation in COVID testing and COVID-19 vaccine rollouts and would be setting the standard for care for the mentally ill. You would be wrong on all counts. At the risk of plowing old fields, Virginia…
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Vaccinations: Parents Matter
by Kerry Dougherty Does the left want to replace parents with the state? Increasingly, the answer seems to be a hard YES. Here’s one example of government officials actively driving a wedge between parents and children: Last November, the far-left District of Columbia City Council passed the “Minor Consent For Vaccinations Amendment Act of 2020.…