Bacon's Rebellion

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VHHA to Sunset COVID-19 Hospitalization Data Dashboard

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by

Bob Rayner
in

by Shaun Kenney

The Virginia Hospital and Healthcare Association (VHHA) is getting ready to turn the lights off on its COVID-19 Dashboard this week, as the federal emergency for the pandemic officially ends in May 2023.

VHHA noted the unprecedented scale of co-operation between Virginia’s hospitals and health care apparatus in creating the dashboard, one which millions of Virginians relied upon for accurate information in the very early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic:

Overall, the dashboard has been viewed more than 7.7 million times and has been an invaluable resource to help health care providers, state and federal government partners, the public, and the news media gain a clearer picture of the impact of the pandemic on hospitals and the health care delivery system. Now, with the federal COVID-19 public health emergency slated to end May 11 and statewide coronavirus hospitalizations at relatively low levels, VHHA will discontinue publication of the data dashboard as of Thursday, April 27, 2023.

As of Wednesday, April 26th there are 147 patients in Virginia hospitals who currently are being treated for COVID-19, with 16 of those in intensive care and zero receiving ventilator support. Nearly 140,000 Virginians were hospitalized and discharged due to COVID-19.

One of the early concerns during the pandemic was the possibility of Virginia’s hospitals being overwhelmed with COVID patients, resulting in a lack of ICU beds and forcing the health care system to move towards triage.

Given the combination of a speedy vaccine due to Operation Warp Speed, common sense practices by Virginians themselves, and several mitigation techniques, Virginia’s health care system never had to realize many of the fears which became real in places such as New York.

VHHA was formed in 1926 to represent the concerns of the health care community in Virginia, and continues to be a non-partisan resource for Virginia policy makers in Richmond and beyond.

Republished with permission from The Republican Standard.

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10 responses to “VHHA to Sunset COVID-19 Hospitalization Data Dashboard”

  1. James C. Sherlock Avatar
    James C. Sherlock

    The author wrote: “VHHA was formed in 1926 to represent the concerns of the health care community in Virginia, and continues to be a non-partisan resource for Virginia policy makers in Richmond and beyond.”

    That is not correct.

    Partisan, when used as an adjective, means: “prejudiced in favor of a particular cause”.

    VHHA represents the interests of its members before state agencies and the General Assembly. https://www.vhha.com/advocacy/

    VHHA is partisan by its own definition. There is not a thing wrong with that, but it rather loudly is partisan. And presenting VHHA as a public interest advocate is not correct.

    The Republican Standard made a mistake in publishing an article that contends otherwise.

    Shaun Kenney, as its editor, should know better.

  2. James C. Sherlock Avatar
    James C. Sherlock

    The author wrote: “VHHA was formed in 1926 to represent the concerns of the health care community in Virginia, and continues to be a non-partisan resource for Virginia policy makers in Richmond and beyond.”

    That is not correct.

    Partisan, when used as an adjective, means: “prejudiced in favor of a particular cause”.

    VHHA represents the interests of its members before state agencies and the General Assembly. https://www.vhha.com/advocacy/

    VHHA is partisan by its own definition. There is not a thing wrong with that, but it rather loudly is partisan.

    And presenting VHHA as a public interest advocate is not correct.

    The Republican Standard made a mistake in publishing an article that contends otherwise.

    Shaun Kenney, as its editor, should know better.

    1. Carter Melton Avatar
      Carter Melton

      Are you implying that the VHHA s not an honest broker of information on behalf of its membership to all political parties ?

      1. James C. Sherlock Avatar
        James C. Sherlock

        VHHA in its lobbying presents information shaped to make the case it wishes to make. Like every other lobbyist who ever lived. It is a matter of the degree of the shaping that sets some of them apart.

        The hospital lobbyists play a brand of hardball that I have never found appropriate or helpful to legislative decisions. They rival Dominion Power and its opponents.

        The health insurance lobbyists, on the other hand, I have always found to provide much more balanced information.

        I think lobbyists are essential, especially to our part time, understaffed General Assembly.

        The fact that our campaign finance free for all makes the whole scene a corrupt bidding war is not the fault of the lobbyists, but rather the Members. All of them.

    2. Stephen Haner Avatar
      Stephen Haner

      Reads like a paragraph right out of a news release. Which I bet it was. VHHA is an industry association, and like all of them with issues before state government is scrupulously non-partisan with regard to party politics. I think it fair to grant them that point.

      With the daily hospital count going away, can the weekly compilations on cases and deaths, carefully parsed by race, continue for long? This has lost its political usefulness as a means of influencing a panicked population.

      1. Matt Adams Avatar
        Matt Adams

        It certainly was politically expedient until the required change was made.

        Similar to GWOT deaths scrolling until a new admin was elected.

      2. James C. Sherlock Avatar
        James C. Sherlock

        You conflate “partisan” with our two-party system, Steve. I do not.

  3. Thomas Dixon Avatar
    Thomas Dixon

    They are going to turn the lights out off the Covid dashboard like so many hospitals turned the lights off patient’s lives by withholding treatments that worked and introducing drugs that harmed, like Remdesivir. May they all go the way of those at Neuremburg.

  4. Jonathan DeWilicker Avatar
    Jonathan DeWilicker

    I’m surprised they allowed the raw data sets. A few times during 2021 I pulled the entire state’s raw data and did an analysis in Excel. I found that over 70% of the deaths had been in long term care facilities, and that didn’t even factor in the >20 percent of deaths that did not attribute a location or age group. I took things seriously the first month or so, until the blm riots started and every level of government and media absolved them of any guilt because it was “justified”. I lived my life normally ever since, was never vaccinated and feel pity for those who still live in fear. I will never forget or forgive the government’s attempts to get me fired, turn my friends and family against me and kill countless people with these death shots. I can’t count how many healthy, middle aged people I know who have “died suddenly” with no explanation. I caught Covid while recovering from surgery in the winter of 2022. I took HCQ, Ivermectin, Vitamin D and C and was done within a few days. Every one I know who has been vaccinated and caught it has been absolutely destroyed. Never forget or forgive what your government, including the 4th branch, did to you.

  5. WayneS Avatar
    WayneS

    Bye, now!

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