Tag: COVID-19
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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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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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Figure It Out!
In a column posted earlier today Kerry Dougherty wondered if the GOP can successfully channel COVID frustration into electoral victory later this year. I proffer no predictions on election outcomes, but there are abundant signs that people are fed up. Nationally, that frustration helped boot Donald Trump from the White House. But Democrats are…
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Will Northam’s Bungled Vaccine Rollout Help Virginia’s GOP?
by Kerry Dougherty Political scientists are fond of pointing out how Mother Nature can, at times, intrude into politics in the most unexpected ways. For example, the list of big-city mayors who lost their jobs due to slow snow removal is long. There’s a name for this phenomenon: Plow or perish. According to Bloomberg News, it…
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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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Biden Ups Vax Plan. Will Northam Be Ready?
by DJ Rippert Joltin’ Joe. President Joe Biden increased his planned administration of the Coronavirus vaccine from 100 million doses in his first 100 days in office to 150 million doses. Given that the United States is already distributing around one million doses per day Biden almost had to increase his plan if he wanted…
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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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Vaccine Switcheroo Leaves Virginians Dazed and Confused
by James A. Bacon It’s been 19 days since Governor Ralph Northam appointed Danny Avula, health department director for Richmond City and Henrico County, as Virginia’s vaccine “field general.” Given what appears to have been a total lack of planning for the vaccine rollout before his accession to the hot seat, it’s hardly reasonable to…
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It Shouldn’t Take Suicides to Reopen Schools
by Kerry Dougherty Amazing! Five days into Joe Biden’s presidency crack New York Times reporters finally discovered what the rest of us with common sense knew almost a year ago: That closing public schools would lead to a mental health crisis among kids that would far outweigh the dangers posed by COVID-19. Of course The Times…
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Why Is No One Hyperventilating about Systemic Sexism in Healthcare?
by James A. Bacon A Virginia male who contracts the COVID-19 virus is 11% more likely to die from it than a Virginia female, demonstrating the pervasive sexism embedded Virginia’s healthcare system. Despite the fact that the life expectancy at birth of a male in the commonwealth is only 74.7 years compared to 80.0 years…
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Northam Owes Virginians Answers on COVID-19
by Shaun Kenney Former Speaker Kirk Cox, R-Colonial Heights, has been assiduous in his criticism of Governor Ralph Northam’s handling of the COVID pandemic — and for good reason. Consider the successes enjoyed by West Virginia. Rather than plugging in to the federal system that mandated distribution centers, West Virginia instead activated its National Guard…
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The Deadliest Nursing Homes in Virginia
by James C. Sherlock (updated Jan. 20 at 2 PM) Today I have assessed the Centers for Medicare/Medicaid Services COVID-19 Nursing Home Dataset to determine the deadliest nursing homes in Virginia measured by COVID death rate of residents from Jan 1, 2020, through Jan. 3, 2021. The results are profoundly disturbing at several levels. There…