Tag: COVID-19
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Preston Midgett
by Kerry Dougherty I didn’t learn about the death of Preston Midgett from the newspaper. The television. Or radio. I learned the way many around here did: by the messages that appeared suddenly on Virginia Beach oceanfront marquees Tuesday. The signs that for weeks had wished the Beach native and popular owner of the iconic…
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Misplaced Priorities at VDH
by Carol J. Bova The Virginia Department of Health (VDH) announced January 19 that it has launched a COVID-19 Outbreaks in Virginia Higher Education dashboard. The department included a disclaimer that the dashboard reports only “outbreak-associated cases and not the total number of cases at the college or university.” For more information on COVID-19 numbers,…
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Yes, COVID Is Spreading Faster, But Not As Fast As You Think
by James A. Bacon Once again Virginia is gripped by COVID-19 hysteria, this time whipped up by a surge in the number of confirmed cases. The situation needs to be taken seriously — people are getting sick, and people are dying — but the wide-eyed alarmism likely isn’t justified. Let’s start by looking at the…
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What Is a “Low Dead Space” Syringe and Why Is It So Important?
by Verhaal Kenner Governor Ralph Northam has shifted Virginia into phase “1B,” meaning that a “front line” worker, or anyone over 65 or with a chronic health condition, is eligible for COVID-19 vaccination. That’s clearly a population several times the estimated 440,500 that are in the state’s “1A” group – only about half of whom…
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Hark! A COVID Miracle!
by Kerry Dougherty I tend to be cynical, but still I dismissed the folks who predicted that once Joe Biden was elected, the lockdowns and shutdowns that had crushed the American economy would start to fall away. “Just wait till after the election,” they warned. You’re insane, I thought. I believed — still do —…
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Employer COVID Mandates Might Outlive Pandemic
by Steve Haner Virginia’s emergency temporary workplace standards on COVID-19 are one step closer to becoming permanent, over the continuing loud objections from employers that they are duplicative, expensive, and not making anybody any safer than existing health and safety protections already do. UPDATE: The text of the final permanent standard approved Wednesday was finally…
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COVID-19 Vaccinations in the United States
Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, COVID Data Tracker As of Jan. 13, 2021, Virginia ranked 46th among U.S. states and territories in the per capita administration of the COVID-19 vaccine. Compare Virginia with West Virginia. Maybe West Virginia knew what it was doing back in 1861. — JAB
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Shut Down All Public Schools Until Teachers Can Be Vaccinated, VEA Demands
by James A. Bacon Virginia Education Association President James J. Fedderman has called for all public schools in Virginia to shift to all-virtual instruction until teachers and staff have been vaccinated. “Learning losses can be made up,” he said in a video statement. “Loss of life cannot be.” “Governor Northam this week said that getting…
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Calling All Teachers
by Kerry Dougherty One of the first beats I ever covered for a newspaper was Fairfax County Public Schools for The Washington Post in the early 1980s. I learned something almost immediately: Despite enjoying enviable job security, teachers are notoriously reticent about speaking to the press. They worry that if they’re critical of what’s going…
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Educators Ponder Online Learning As Response to Lost Market Share
by James A. Bacon Virginia’s experiment with online learning in public schools during the COVID-19 epidemic has been widely panned as a poor substitute for in-person learning. But many school superintendents, spurred by the loss of thousands of students from public schools, are thinking that online learning may be here to stay, at least in a limited…
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Virginia’s COVID Federal Grants Now At $5.8 Billion
By Steve Haner Having received and mostly spent $3.1 billion in federal COVID-19 “relief” funding already, Virginia’s state and local governments now will have another $2.7 billion in the fourth and latest (but likely not last) federal spending bill tied to the ongoing pandemic and unemployment crisis. The word relief is in apostrophes because Virginia’s state budget,…
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COVID, Urban Flight, and Rural Revival
by James A. Bacon In announcing the creation of three new conservation easements in Henrico County, a recent press release from the Capital Region Land Conservancy made an eye-catching statement. The easements, said the Conservancy, act as a bulwark against rising pressure to develop agricultural land across Virginia “driven most recently by shifts in COVID-era…
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Northam’s Pretty Good Presser
by Kerry Dougherty Sitting down? Here’s the attaboy to Gov. Ralph Northam that I meant to write for Thursday, until anarchy broke out in the U.S. Capitol. Ever since they began in March, some of us have come to dread Northam’s COVID press conferences. The governor’s tone drips with condescension, he seems to blame people…
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Hurrah — Teachers Near the Top of the Vaccination List
by James A. Bacon The Virginia Department of Health has released its priorities for receiving the COVID-19 vaccine in the next phase of the vaccination rollout. The top priorities are exactly who you’d expect — front-line essential workers and people over 75. It is reassuring to see that child-care and K-12 teachers and staff are…
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About-Face by Virginia Beach School Chief
by Kerry Dougherty Aaron Spence, superintendent of Virginia Beach Public Schools, has seen the light. Finally. After months of kowtowing to the local teachers’ union — er education association — which is doing its best to keep classrooms closed, he belatedly joined the common sense get-the-kids-back-in-class crowd. Better late than never. Spence was persuaded, it…