Tag: COVID-19
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COVID Restrictions Slam Black Businesses the Hardest
by James A. Bacon If Governor Ralph Northam needs further justification for reversing his emergency shutdown measures, perhaps he should consider this recently published paper by Robert Fairlie with the University of California-Santa Cruz. Analyzing the impact of COVID-19 social distancing restrictions on small business, Fairlie found that they disproportionately hit minority enterprises. The number…
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Virginia Department of Education’s Manifesto on School Reopenings
By James C. Sherlock I have only a brief experience as a middle school teacher in Fairfax County back in 1966/67 and several years as a volunteer remedial math instructor in middle school in Virginia Beach in this decade. I am not a graduate of a school of education. So I have just read with…
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Northam Back-to-School Plan Unconstitutional, DeSteph Says
by James A. Bacon Wise King Ralph may have a problem with his back-to-school plan for this fall: Some of his subjects think it may be unconstitutional. Under the Governor’s directive, schools will return to something resembling normal in three phases. The most controversial part of the plan requires staggering classes so students attend in-person…
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Virginia Sets up a Snitch Line
by Kerry Dougherty Here’s something that will warm the hearts of every Karen in the commonwealth: Virginia’s Department of Health has opened an anonymous snitch line. That’s right, no longer will these suburban tattletales have to give the side-eye to the unmasked or publicly berate people who disobey the governor’s arbitrary executive orders. They can…
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COVID Deaths Are Way Down. Wear Masks to Keep Them Down.
by James A. Bacon The number of new deaths in Virginia attributed to the COVID-19 virus fell to three yesterday, according to data published this morning on the Virginia Department of Health COVID-19 dashboard. That’s the lowest number since April 6. Meanwhile, the number of COVID-19 patients being treated in hospitals fell to 857, the…
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Who Pays The Unpaid Bills? Watch Out.
By Steve Haner This was published this morning in The Roanoke Times and then distributed by the Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy. There may be a second wave of COVID-19 disease coming, but the secondary effects of various pandemic economic decisions may hit us sooner. Rent and utility bills customers can delay paying because…
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It’s Good to Be King
by James A. Bacon Wise King Ralph, in his wisdom, announced yesterday that he would delay implementation of the Phase 3 rollback of emergency economic-lockdown measures. He reached that decision even though Virginia’s COVID-19 metrics show that the epidemic is receding rapidly. Unfortunately, despite declaring previously that he would be guided by those very same…
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From Moon Walking to Slow Walking
by Kerry Dougherty I’m tired of writing about Gov. Ralph Northam. I wish he’d stop doing dumb things so we could all go back to ignoring him. But here we go again. This time it’s another Northam bait-and-switch. What is it with this governor? He claims to worship at the altar of science and numbers…
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An Enormous Bill is Coming Due in Virginia
by James C. Sherlock We had a long discussion in this space earlier about whether the Virginia Supreme Court Order of March 16, 2020, that suspended writs of eviction and residential unlawful detainers was constitutional. The June 8 extension of the original order was especially troubling because by that order the courts were open for…
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VDH Playing Catch Up
by Carol J. Bova The Virginia Department of Health (VDH) has made two major recent changes on the COVID-19 dashboard. On June 15, under Race and Ethnicity in the demographics tab, VDH moved about 20,000 cases between categories and added 380 total new cases. Category Cases reduced by… …
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Ralph Northam’s Unworkable Rules for Schools
by Kerry Dougherty Last week I predicted that Gov. Ralph Northam would extend the present misery into the fall with unworkable, cockamamie restrictions on Virginia’s schools. Sadly, I was right. You might think that last year’s disastrous experiment in virtual learning would have convinced the governor that students needed to be back at their desks…
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Virginia’s Department of Health and Misinformation
by Kerry Dougherty With each passing day the Virginia Department of Health looks more like a purveyor of panic than an agency protecting the health of Virginians with factual, up-to-date information. As the governor stubbornly clings to his overly-restrictive lockdowns and mask mandate, the department has proven useful to him as it supplies the public…
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COVID Update: Masks, Libertarians and Bureaucrats
by James A. Bacon More good news from the latest COVID-19 data dump: The number of new hospitalizations reported by the Virginia Department of Health fell to 25 yesterday, and the number of deaths reported declined to five. We’re back to the levels of early April — more evidence that Governor Ralph Northam can relax…
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Learning to Live with the Virus
by James A. Bacon There’s been a lot of recent discussion in the media about a “second wave” of the COVID-19 virus this fall when days grow shorter and temperatures drop. Maybe it will happen, but I doubt it will be as virulent or as deadly as the first wave. I’m optimistic we’re making significant…
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The Revenue Picture is Bad, But Not as Bad as Expected
By Dick Hall-Sizemore The state’s May revenue report has been released today. As one would have expected, the May 2020 general fund (GF) revenues were down significantly from May 2019 and the year-to-date GF revenues are running behind the annual forecast. However, on the somewhat bright side, the administration is now saying that it expects…