Tag: COVID-19
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Conservatism’s Foundation Showing Some Cracks
By Dick Hall-Sizemore The pandemic has presented a challenge to at least a couple of the basic tenets of conservatism. The first of these challenges is to the basic negative attitude toward regulations. Conservatives abhor regulations. In anticipation of objections from Jim Bacon and Steve Haner, among others, that such a statement is too broad…
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Northam Backpedals on Nutty School Rules
by Kerry Dougherty I hate to say I told you so, but I did. In early June, Gov. Ralph Northam unveiled rigid guidelines for reopening public schools that guaranteed students would be spending most of their time at home this fall, mouth breathing while staring at their computer screens. None of Northam’s restrictions make sense,…
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Coping with COVID on Campus
by James A. Bacon In a growing movement, more than 900 college and university professors across Virginia have signed a petition demanding the right to decide whether to teach classes this fall in person or online. Faculty members also insisted they be allowed to improve all instructional plans for returning to campus, and that adequate…
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The COVID Surge — Virginia Hangs Tight
by Verhaal Kenner As of July 1st, Virginia is now in “Phase III” reopening as our state’s COVID cases seem to be almost holding mostly steady despite record daily infections in a few hot spots such as Hampton Roads. Phase III means the reopening of non-essential retail and restaurants (with six-foot table spacing). The complete …
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Why Is COVID-19 Trending Down in Virginia?
by James A. Bacon As the COVID-19 virus continues to recede in Virginia, I’ve abandoned my day-to-day coverage of the numbers, but I think it’s still worthwhile to post periodic updates. The good news for Virginia as seen in the chart above, taken from the Virginia Department of Health COVID-19 dashboard, is that the number…
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Catholic Schools: Boldly Putting Kids First
by Kerry Dougherty Any parent of a kid with disabilities will tell you, more than anything else in the world, their child just wants to fit in. Not easy when you’re a little different. My son doesn’t mind if I tell you he has severe learning disabilities. He’s worked hard his whole life to overcome…
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Housing Grants Just a COVID Relief Rounding Error
By Steve Haner Will $50 million be enough? Will that get all the Virginians who have fallen behind due to COVID-19 square on their rent or mortgage payments? Or is that amount, in a relief program now fleshed out by the Northam Administration, merely a start? There is a hint on the program’s web page,…
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Sweet Briar Thrives Amidst Coronavirus Epidemic
by James A. Bacon I’ve long admired Meredith Woo, president of Sweet Briar College, who salvaged the troubled liberal arts college three or four years back by radically restructuring its business model. Hacking out administrative costs, reorganizing the curriculum, and clarifying its mission, she slashed the cost of attendance by 32%. She then built on…
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K-12 Schools Need Legal Immunity for COVID-19
by James C. Sherlock In May we saw several states pass laws that gave businesses immunity from COVID-19 claims. We need similar but expanded protection for public and private schools, their school boards, superintendents and all of their employees. In North Carolina, for example, immunity protection granted businesses was sweeping. That immunity does not bar…
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COVID-19 Update: Mixed Signals on Viral Spread
Here are three COVID-19 trends in Virginia worth watching: The seven-day moving average of the test-positive rate ticked upwards yesterday for the first time in more than a month; Hospital utilization by COVID-19 patients dipped to the lowest point since the Virginia Hospital and Healthcare Association began tracking the data in early April; and It…
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Who Cares about the Kids? Not the Teachers’ Unions.
by Kerry Dougherty They hate it when we call them teachers’ unions. But when organizations act like trade unions, throw tantrums like unions, put their own needs before the people they serve, you’re looking at a union. Make that unions. Plural. In Fairfax County there are three: the Fairfax County Federation of Teachers, the Fairfax…
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Uh, Oh, COVID-19 Metrics No Longer Improving
The bad news from recent COVID-19 statistics is that the numbers aren’t getting better. Virginia has hit a plateau in the number of confirmed cases, as seen in the chart above, which shows the seven-day moving average in the number of confirmed cases. To some degree, the tick upwards in COVID-19 cases may reflect increased…
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Roanoke County and Education in the Age of COVID
by James C. Sherlock I subscribe to the Roanoke Times because I find it by far the best regional newspaper in Virginia. It produces local reporting that the rest of us can only envy. I was drawn to two stories in the past week. The first, on June 21 by Alison Graham, revealed only 2/3…
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School Shutdowns Will Aggravate Racial Disparities
A new report by the McKinsey & Company management-consulting firm contends that delaying in-class schooling to Jan. 2021 would result in a catastrophic loss of learning for students — a loss that would be even more pronounced among blacks and Hispanics than whites (and, presumably, Asians, who are not mentioned despite comprising 5.6% of the U.S.…
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COVID-19: Milder than We Thought
The latest numbers from the state and hospital-association COVID-19 dashboards suggest that the coronavirus in Virginia still is retreating. The seven-day moving average of test-positive cases for COVID-19 tests continues to fall, hitting a new low of 5.8%. Meanwhile, two measures of intensive hospital utilization have hit new lows. The number of COVID-19 patients in…