Category: Disasters and Disaster Preparedness
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Thank God for Medicaid Expansion
By Peter Galuszka For years after the Affordable Care Act, “Obamacare,” made millions of federal dollars available for states to expand Medicaid health coverage, Virginia Republicans steadfastly blocked Virginia from using the money. Led by former House Speaker Bill Howell and Sen. Tommy Norment, the GOP claimed that expanding Medicaid to nearly 400,000 people would…
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Is Aubrey Layne Serious about a $2B “Hit” to Virginia’s Biennial General Fund from COVID-19?
By DJ Rippert Penny Layne. Aubrey Layne is Virginia’s Secretary of Finance under the Northam Administration. Previously, Layne served as Secretary of Transportation under the McAuliffe regime. Prior to his time in government Layne held a number of executive positions in private enterprise including the presidency of Great Atlantic Properties. Layne is listed by Wikipedia…
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Help Is Available, Governor
by James C. Sherlock The issues I spotlighted yesterday in Governor Northam’s news conference are not a Democrat or a Republican thing. They just need to be fixed. If you or I were elected Governor, we would consider our new responsibilities. We would find that we have basically four: Appoint competent and hard-working cabinet and sub-cabinet…
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“We Are All Keynesians Now”
By Peter Galuszka John Maynard Keynes, the British economist, advocated government spending and monetary intervention as suitable for modern economies. When I was a student at a liberal college in New England in the early 1970s, we were taught that Keynes very much had the right idea. As evidence, we had the Great Society programs…
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Federal and State Responses to COVID-19
by James C. Sherlock The federal government’s relationships with state and local governments is defined by the U.S. Constitution. Presidential management of internal national crises is constrained by lack of command authority over the states. No governor works for the President. He cannot order them to do anything, even in wartime. He can take control…
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Backgrounder: Virginia’s Healthcare Emergency Management Program
by James C. Sherlock State emergency operations are personally meaningful to me. Preparation is key. Decisions have consequences. I want this one to go as well as possible. I spent about a year while under contract to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) as director of operations for a program that offered advanced Department…
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Yes, Virginia Does Have a Plan to Fight the Pandemic
by James C. Sherlock I have reviewed the Commonwealth of Virginia Emergency Operations Plan, HAZARD-SPECIFIC ANNEX #4 PANDEMIC INFLUENZA RESPONSE[1], August 2012. Such plans are required by FEMA as a predicate for federal funding, so every state and territory has one. Virginia’s operations plan, which follows the FEMA template, is excellent. The lead agency for…
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Photo Project Spotlights Pipeline Impact
By Peter Galuszka Veteran photographer Karen Kasmauski, who grew up in Norfolk, has a brilliant online project that shows the human and environmental impacts of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline. She is a senior fellow with the International League of Conservation Photographers, a non-profit group that funded her project that centers mostly in rural Nelson and Buckingham…
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A Look at Richmond and COVID-19
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in Agriculture & forestry, Business and Economy, Children and Families, Civil Rights, Individual Liberties, Consumer Protection, Culture wars, Demographics, Disasters and Disaster Preparedness, Economic development, Education (higher ed), Education (K-12), Efficiency in Government, Entrepreneurs and Innovation, Environment, Federal issues, Government Finance, Government workers and pensions, Housing, Infrastructure, Insurance, Labor and Workforce, Money in politics, Planning, Public safety & health, Regulations, Gov’t Oversight, Resilience, Science & Technology, Social Services and Entitlements, Telecommunications, UncategorizedBy Peter Galuszka Here is a roundup story I wrote for Style Weekly that was published today that explains the effects of COVID-19 on the Richmond area. Hopefully, BR readers will find it of interest. It was a tough piece to report. The impacts of the deadly virus are very complicated and multi-faceted. An especially…
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COVID-19 Update: Exponential Rate of Increase Getting More Exponential
Forgive me for the mathematically nonsensical headline, but it drives home the point: Not only is COVID-19 spreading more rapidly, the rate of increase in infected patients is increasing. The Virginia Department of Health dashboard shows that 67 new cases were confirmed, and seven more coronavirus patients were admitted to hospitals. The number of fatalities…
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Dare County, N.C., closes its borders
By DJ Rippert From Outer Banks to Outer Mongolia. Dare County, N.C. issued orders last week closing its borders to non-residents. Dare is a coastal county just south of Currituck County, N.C., which borders Virginia. Many Virginians know Dare County from Outer Banks vacations in towns such as Duck or fishing trips launched from Manteo.…
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Virginians, Look to State/Local Government for COVID-19 Response
by James C. Sherlock Our schools generally don’t do as good a job teaching civics education as they used to — that’s an old man talking! — which leaves a lot of people confused as to where to look in a crisis. The conversations we see on Bacon’s Rebellion reflect that confusion even among the…
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COVID-19 Update: March 17
The number of confirmed COVID-19 cases jumped sharply, according to statistics updated today by the Virginia Department of Health. But don’t panic! While the number of cases increased 31%, the number of people tests leaped 110% as testing kits became increasingly available. The leap is a function of the testing, not the spread of the…
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Damn the Coronavirus! Full Speed Ahead!
The budget forecasts underpinning Virginia’s General Fund budgets for FY 2021 and 2022 suggests that revenues will increase 4.5% next year and 3.7% the year after that. Secretary of Finance Aubrey Layne released those numbers back in December, when COVID-19 was still an obscure disease incubating in a Wuhan wet market. But it’s a very…
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Blame COPN for Looming Bed Shortages
by James Sherlock The hospital bed shortages cited by Jim Bacon in his post, “Not Nearly Enough Hospital Beds,“ is a direct outcome of how the Virginia Department of Health (VDH) has administered Virginia’s Certificate of Public Need law. Virginia’s scarcity of physicians and nurses also can be traceable in part to COPN’s denial of…