Tag: COVID-19
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School Board Bullies
by Kerry Dougherty You’re guilty. I’m guilty. We’re all guilty. Admit it. At election time most of us know exactly who’s running for president, congress, governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general, commonwealth’s attorney, treasurer, sheriff and city council. We study bond issues and constitutional amendments. We know how we’re going to cast our votes before we…
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UVa on Third-Vaccination Mandate: Trust Us
by James A. Bacon So, the University of Virginia bumped up its deadline for students, faculty and staff to get a COVID-19 booster shot to today, one day before Glenn Youngkin, a foe of vaccination mandates, takes office. In an interview with CBS19 News, UVa spokesman Brian Coy says Youngkin’s ascension to office was not…
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Unvaccinated Being Slammed by Omicron
by Steve Haner In just four weeks ending January 8, more than 12% of unvaccinated Virginians have been diagnosed with COVID-19. In the most recent week reported, the unvaccinated were almost 60 times more likely to come down with the disease than those current on their shots. This is new. This Omicron version is clearly…
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No More “Medical Bandwagon Thinking” for Virginia
by Kerry Dougherty For the past several weeks, Glenn Youngkin has been busy appointing top members of his administration. One of the most exciting announcements came this week when we learned that Dr. Marty Makary, a surgeon and public policy researcher with a dazzling resume at Johns Hopkins University, agreed to chair Youngkin’s COVID advisory…
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Northam’s Legacy as COVID Fighter
by James A. Bacon As the hours tick down on his term in office, Governor Ralph Northam is inclined to reflect upon his performance. In the limited remarks he has made in public, he has expressed few regrets and admitted to few mistakes. As demonstrated by the thoroughly documented meltdown in Standards of Learning (SOL)…
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Northam’s Final Presser: No Remorse
by Kerry Dougherty For the first time since the pandemic began, a news bulletin that Gov. Ralph Northam was holding a press conference yesterday didn’t fill me with dread. Four days left in his term. How much damage could he do? In the past we never knew which civil liberties would be thrown into the…
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Cloth Masks Reduce Omicron Risk by 50%
by James A. Bacon More evidence is coming in that the Omicron variant of COVID-19 has very different properties than Delta and other variants, and that polices and practices deemed appropriate for earlier versions might not be so for Omicron. The latest revelation comes from Dr. Linsey Marr, a Virginia Tech engineering professor, who works…
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Don’t Know, or Won’t Say, How Many Omicron Hospitalizations?
by Carol J. Bova The most recent Virginia Department of Health (VDH) information on the number of COVID-19 infections in vaccinated people dates from December 25, 2021. Statewide weekly total case numbers go through January 1, 2022. The Virginia Hospital and Healthcare Association (VHHA) gives total hospitalizations and ICU numbers for confirmed and pending tests…
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Youngkin, UVa COVID Policy on a Collision Course
by James A. Bacon The debate over COVID-19 policy rages unabated. Governor-elect Glenn Youngkin and Attorney General-elect Jason Miyares announced today their intention to challenge Biden-administration vaccine mandates through the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, OSHA, and Head Start. “While we believe that the vaccine is a critical tool in the fight against COVID-19,…
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Red Alert! Omicron Now Everywhere
by James A. Bacon It’s crazy out there, folks. The Omicron variant is running rampant, racking up record numbers of cases across the Commonwealth and filling up hospitals. We have seen nothing like this spike in cases and hospitalizations during the pandemic, not even in last year’s winter surge. The main consolation is that deaths…
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Arlington Union: Test Everyone or Close the Schools
by James A. Bacon I can’t decide which is scarier: a letter from the Arlington Education Association (AEA) urging school superintendent Francisco Duran not to resume full-time instruction tomorrow in the absence of sufficient COVID-19 testing, or the insouciant attitude toward punctuation and grammar by the signatory, AEA president Ingrid Gant. Take your pick: no…
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This Didn’t Have to Happen
by Joe Fitzgerald A year ago, the post-Thanksgiving surge was still raging, but there was hope in the imminent availability of vaccines. But 2021 would be the year of criminals who stormed the Capitol because they didn’t understand democracy and of their intellectual brethren who didn’t understand science or medicine. Virginia set a record today…
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How’d Virginia Do in “The Great Pandemic Migration?”
Glenn Youngkin was right. Yes, Virginia, we have a problem. by Chris Saxman Most mornings start with brewing a large pot of coffee, letting the dogs out into the fenced in backyard, and waiting for the papers to be delivered. Usually I can skim through the local old soldier, the Richmond Times Dispatch, before the…
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Virginia Omicron Update: December 29
by James A. Bacon Omicron is upon us, cases are surging and local media are sounding the alarm. Nationally, hospitalizations are setting “grim records,” according to the Washington Post. Closer to home, Loudoun County’s government-run drive-through testing center reached capacity within an hour of opening. Mary Washington Healthcare providers are closing a COVID clinic after…
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Mask Mandates Causing Air Warfare
by Kerry Dougherty Almost two weeks ago the CEO of Southwest Airlines, Gary Kelly, told a congressional committee that face masks were essentially useless as protection for airline passengers. He supported a repeal of the executive order that made face coverings mandatory on flights until March 2022. “The statistics, I recall, is that 99.97 %…